"Boken är mannens."
Translation:The book is the man's.
35 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Really?
'Her book' V 'the book is hers'
'Your book' V 'the book is yours'
I find 'Boken är mannens' quite intuitive.
in English you would say, "it's the man's book" I've never heard anyone say "the book is his one's" it's weird
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Yes, exactly. In modern English, "the book is the man's" is highly marked and awkward, while "it's the man's book" is the usual, idiomatic way of saying it. I wonder when the correct idiomatic English expression will not be marked as wrong any longer while the non-idiomatic expression "the book is the man's" will be marked either as wrong or as antiquated. Antonio_Sou's examples like "the book is hers" do not provide any argument in favour of saying that "the book is the man's" is modern idiomatic English. "The book is hers" is, "the book is the man's" is not.
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Yes, really. "The book is hers" is modern idiomatic English, "the book is the man's" is not.
When I listen, I can't tell whether the speaker is saying "boken" or bocken (sorry, I can't type the umlaut). How can one tell? Context?
(I am not a native, so anyone please do correct me if I am wrong.) first of all, 'böcken' is not a swedish word as far as I know. singular it is 'en bok/boken' and 'böcker' is the plural form. so that should take away any confusion, however there is also certainly a big difference in pronouciation of the 'o' and 'ö', type it in google translate and let pronounce it, or refer to this video or some other one for the pronouciation of the alphabet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHe7f_L7S2Q
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The book is the man's? It doesn't sound familiar for me. Just asking: "The book of the man" is not a proper translation?
No, your sentence would be just mannens bok. In this sentence there is a verb är and bok is the subject. It sounds a bit awkward in English but it answers to the question vems är boken? (lit. whose is the book; to whom does the book belong) and the answer is boken är mannens (the book is the man’s; the book belongs to the man).
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Then in that case the correct English answer should be "The book belongs to the man." It doesn't need to be translated literally.
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I see! Thank you for the clarification. I have to say, as a Hungarian it is really hard to think like a Swedish but I really love the language!
en bok = a book and boken = the book
Same with 'man':
en man = a man and mannen = the man
Is there any particular reason why in one context, book is bok but in plural, it's böcker?
If I recall correctly, some words change their vowels when pluralized. So the 'o' here became 'ö'.
It's totally right. Show him this context: There's a book in the room. There's also a man and a boy there. The book belongs to one of them. Now whose is the book?
So far it's all going well from me. But everytime I have to pronounce the är it doesn't pick it up as correct and I don't understand what I am doing wrong. Because I have tried multiple pronunciations for example like 'are' in English and that will be a mistake, or I will be pronouncing it more as 'air' in English and again it gives me a mistake. So I was wondering if any of you have any tips.
I heard Volkans, the voice sounded too weird I had no clue what she was saying
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Dear duolingo, I get we gotta battle unemployment but hiring someone from the 1600s is not the solution for people that are trying to learn modern day languages
We do belong "the book belongs to the man" as well. But if we have to use non-standard English to teach the Swedish phrase, we will.
The ' represents "of the" your sentence "The book is of the man" would be unlikely.