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- "The mayor eats the food with…
"The mayor eats the food with her hands."
Translation:Borgmästaren äter maten med händerna.
12 Comments
So the Swedish sentence here is ambiguous as to whether the mayor is a he or a she right?
Sin/sitt/sina is used to refer back to the subject, while hans/hennes/dess is used to refer to yet another person. In the sentence above, you could use sina händer since it will then refer back to the mayor. But you can't say hennes händer, because that would mean she eats with somebody elses hands.
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The sentence "Borgmästaren äter maten med händerna" would seem to be The mayor eats the food with the hands. Why is there no "sina"?
The notes for the "Medical" skill says: "Speaking about body parts, this is a good place to point out that in English, you always refer to your body parts with possessive pronouns. In Swedish however, we usually think that it is enough to use the determinate form of the noun. [...]"
Link: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/sv/medical/tips-and-notes
You can't say "hennes händer", since that would here mean someone else's hands. You have to use sina to refer back to the mayor here.
