48 Comments
Just so it helps :) There are two groups of nouns : which go with EN ( general gender. Yeah, boy and girl is general gender) and with ETT (neutral gender. "A child" for example). 3/4 of words are mosty En words. But you better learn articles, but it can also help: 1. Most of nouns meaning humans and animals have EN article. (Flicka, Man, Hund, Katt) EXCEPT Ett barn (child) , Ett lejon (lion) 2. Most of nouns meaning days of the week, months, seasons and celebrations go with EN article. (Måndag -Monday, jul - Christmas, höst - autumn) 3. most of nouns ending with -ad, -are, -dom, -else, -het, -ing, -ion, -ism, -lek go with EN (En lärARE - teacher, en statION - station. etc.) 4. Most of nouns ending with -ek, -em, -iv, -um belongs to ETT article (Ett museUM, ett systEM) 5. Names of cities, towns, counties, continents go with ETT (Ett Stockholm, ett Europa - Europe)
Do I understand correctly that in Swedish the undefined articles (a, an) do also express gender, not only defined ones?
Why is there 'Ett'. is that because of sound (like 'an' in English) or because feminine/masculine/neutral or other reason? Thanks
I read on Wikipedia Swedish grammar that The indefinite article, which is only used in the singular, is "en" for common nouns, and "ett" for neuter nouns, e.g. en flaska (a bottle), ett brev (a letter). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_grammar#Articles_and_definite_forms
Ett I'm pretty sure is like the English "an", where as En is like the English "a". So en kvinna = a woman, ett äpple = an apple
The problem is that these explanations are not available in android app (afaik) and duolingo website is really really poorly navigable from mobile browser... thanks everybody for explaining all the stuff again and again!
Then how can one determine the gender of a word? And I find it strange "pojke" and "flicka" both comes after "en"
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No, SelpunRose:s comment is totally mistaken. I should probably remove it so as not to cause confusion for other learners (I'm a native speaker of Swedish and a moderator for this course).
Pretty much. I think there are (for Danish, at least) certain rules of thumb (like e.g. in French words that end in 'e' are mostly feminine) but they're long, and I'm pretty sure not all words follow them, so you'd just be better off remembering the article along with the word itself while learning it.
Because nouns have one of two different genders, and they must agree with the indefinite article. Äpple is a neuter noun, so it has to use "ett", while common nouns take "en". There isn't really a way to know which gender a noun has, you just have to remember them! :-)
What if I use the wrong article for a noun when speaking to someone? Will they understand me or not?
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It just sounds broken, but it rarely leads to serious misunderstandings.
I keep hearing people say "tack så mycket"... What does it means exactly? Is it "Thank you" in Swedish??
So I checked out your link and one version emphasizes the a while the other the e. Which one is right?
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The stress is on ä in äpple. That's how I hear it in both versions on Forvo too btw. They do have different ä sounds, this sound varies a bit in different dialects.
So I'm doing this on my phone (an android) and I can't do accents any one got any ideas?
is there's any difference between the single dotted "a" letter and the double dotted one ?
You mean å and ä? It's like asking a question is there sny difference between y snd x... it's a completely different letter.
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There are some tendencies, but they aren't all that helpful. Read about them here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/6329293
Most helpful is probably the fact that 75-80% are en gender words.
No the first and last vowel sounds are pretty much the same even though they're from different letters. Like "eppleh"
