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- "De här böckerna är mina."
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You are correct, but it can also be translated as "These books are mine." Sorry, just a person wanting to wreak havoc upon the world. :)
2031
Is my understanding correct please:
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De har böckerna - They have the books
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De här böckerna - These books
Thanks
Yes that's right. There is also a pronounciation difference but it may be hard to catch.
Is "de" meant to be pronounced like "dom," or is that only when trying to say "they/them?"
Is there a reason "de" came to be pronounced as "dom"? Was it always like that?
It's kind of the scenario that goes with pronouncing words like knight, and knife. :)
I'm new to swedish but I always thought this was to avoid confusion with "det" which is actually pronounced like one would say "de".
- 1488
That could be a reading pronunciation, sometimes people say it that way when they want to speak extra clearly. In some dialects it's said like di.
Ok thanks. I personally would always say "dom" but it was a little befuddling when I heard that.
- 1488
What I meant about it not being colloquial is that it is used even in very formal circumstances, like by the Academy. Some people erroneously think that de is a more formal way of pronouncing the word.
- 1488
Yes, it's best to stick to dom at all times. I listened to members of the Swedish Academy reading formal speeches, and even they said dom, so it isn't even very colloquial.
Här is pronounced like the English "hair" almost. Har, is like the a in English "far".
Something like: har - hahr and här - haar. It may be difficult to hear but you should be able to tell from context.
- 1488
None in meaning, but den här needs to be followed by a noun in the determinate form, and denna by an indeterminate.
den här boken = denna bok = this book
- 1488
No, I'd say it's just a matter of taste. It may be a bit regional too, but as long as you stick to those two versions, you are in the clear, they're both Standard Swedish.
dessa böcker är mina de här böckerna är mina Can someone please explain.....they both mean "These books are mine", so when would each be appropriate?
- 1488
dessa and de här mean exactly the same thing, it's just that they're constructed differently: dessa böcker but de här böckerna, as you correctly wrote. The choice between the two is mainly a matter of taste.
it seems then more practical to use denna, detta, dessa all the time, since they are one-word and need a simpler indeterminate noun form...
- 1488
I'd probably do that if I were taking this course, but in reality I don't use denna/detta/dessa that much because I feel they're slightly more formal. This varies a bit regionally however, so they're more natural to some speakers than they'd be to me.
Dessa böcker = de här böckerna .. Arnauti has a good explanation if you scroll up to his response to Gwynneth. Denna /detta / dessa are more formal, so he uses those less.
They prefer that you keep the word order if possible. Thatt would be De här är mina böcker. I believe.
Personally I would say "Det här är mina böcker" sounds slightly more natural. I couldn't tell you if there's a grammatical reason for it, it might just be a quirk of the language.
Yes, very Southern U.S. sounding. The here is redundant though. Using these instead of those or the already tells you the books are "here". That redundance perhaps emphasizes what is already apparent. The same applies to " These books here are mine"; the sentence works fine without here and correctly translates the Swedish, which isn't placing special emphasis on the here-ness.
- 1126
I wrote, "Those books are mine," which is apparently wrong. How would I say "those books?"
Because böckerna is definite. It can be done two ways:
de här + determinate plural
dessa + indeterminate plural
So english is not my first language so can you get me an example when you do use dessa? Because i dont know what an ondeterminate plural is.
From what I understand, "de" really only means "they/them." It seems that the construction "de här" makes it "these" (de här = them here), so there's no room for "here" in that sentence. I'm sure that if you scour Google long enough, you can find a better explanation than this.
- 1488
That is not quite correct. de does mean they, but it is also the plural form of the article den/det.
However, you're on the right track about de här, de här means these on its own, so if you add 'here' in the translation, you've added something that wasn't present in the original sentence.
- 1488
Put an asterisk before and after the word. Two gives bold and three gives bold italics :)
That sounds fine to my ear (native English). Maybe if I'm holding some books I'd say "These books are mine", but if there were several piles of books, I could gesture toward one of the piles and say "These books here are mine"
I agree that it sounds okay in that context, but as Arnauti said higher up in this discussion thread, it's not a direct translation because you're adding the word "here," which has no corresponding word in the Swedish translation of the sentence.
No, both mean these books but have to be: dessa böcker (indefinite) or de här böckerna (definite).
You're right, but it's just the Swedish rule when saying 'this object' / 'that object'. You have to use the definite form.. (seems redundant but that's just the grammar). this book = "this (the book)" = den har boken
Scroll to the bottom of: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/sv/Determiners to view a concise explanation and some tables.
So would "den dar boken" be correct? Also if "den/det har" are this and "den dar" is that, then what would be these or those?
- Den (där) boken: That book
- Den här boken: This book
- De (där) böckerna: Those books
- De här böckerna: These books
The "där" is optional in the "den/det/de där" construction, but the "här" is not optional in the "den/det/de här" construction. Pronunciation-wise, if you omit "där", you put the emphasis on "det"; if you don't, you emphasise "där".
Maybe just think of "de här" as a single word.
In English, to change "They are on the shelf" to "These here are on the shelf" we usually shorten it to "These are on the shelf" but Swedish keeps it like "They here are on the shelf". In that sense, the de keeps the meaning you were expecting.
