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- "Pojken har ett gult äpple."
54 Comments
Do you answer a question with "-t" also? Like if somone asked "what color is your apple?" Do you answer "gul" or "gult"?
Yes, then you say "gult" if you're referring to an ett-word such as "äpple".
so if gult is yellow, what is gold? (I mean it does make it easier to remember!)
Gold as a colour of an object is gyllene, which is a special adjective that never changes. Gold as the metal is guld.
Then the song "guld och gröna skogar" does not make sense, cause guld refers to the metal and not the colour (?)
It does make sense, because it is referring to gold as a symbol of wealth. Furthermore, "guld och gröna skogar" is an idiom meaning "a lot of what you could ever wish for".
The forests are green in Sweden. In deciduous woods the leaves can change to gold in the fall, which is why we did not realize that the metal was meant.
There are evergreen forests in Sweden, but also deciduous and mixed forests as well. So we do know what beautiful, fiery colours an autumn forrest can shrowd itself in; we have some aspen and pine colour effects going on in our woods at this very moment. :)
You could say that the leaves turn"gyllene" in Swedish, everyone would understand you. However, at least nowadays, I perceive "gyllene" as a quite poetic word, maybe even a bit stilted. At least when used litteraly, not necessarily in sayings.
If you were to shop for trinkets at H&M's webshop, the option for the gould coloured knickknacks would not be "gyllene", but "guld" or maybe "guldfärgad" (they wouldn't try to actually fool you, but they probably wouldn't want to rub the customer's face in the fact that it is only a colour that will wear off sooner, rather than later, either). Also, if I was choosing between the same model of shoes, a bag or garment that were available in several colours, and got the question which one I want, I would say "the on in gold" = "den i guld", or "the gold coloured one" = "den guldfärgade".
I would use "gyllene" for: gyllene snittet, Gyllene salen, gyllene regeln, den gyllene medelvägen, and of course one of Swedens biggest pop groups in the last fifty years: Gyllene Tider! :D
Anyway, returning to the warm colours of autumn forrests, I think most Swedes would call the leaves yellow, orange, and red, maybe also brown; i.e. "gula", 'orange(a)"*, and "röda", maybe also "bruna".
- "Orange" is a tricky loan word. It is correct to say "orange" in the plural and definite form as well, but it is also OK to add an 'a', as you actually don't pronounce the "e" at the end of "orange". But I think it's considered a as an awkward solution, it doesn't really conform to how the Swedesh language ordinarily works. There is also a suggestion that you may solv the problem with the awkward "orangea" with synonyms as "rödgula" and "apelsinfärgade", but i don't perceive this as common; maybe it's even a bit oldtimey.
Oh yes, you could actually also use the adjective "guldig" for the colour of gold. To my surprise, it actually entered the 2015 edition of SAOL, the glossary of the Swedish Academy. I percieve it as very colloquial, and almost kind of uneducated/childish. However, as I suspect "gyllene" will increasingly be seen as too grandiose for everyday use, it wouldn't surprise me if "guldig" just might be getting some traction down the line.
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'guld' is not an adjective here. It is a noun referring to the metal (as a symbol of wealth). So the forests here are not 'gold and green'; they are just green. It is gold (on the one hand) and 'green forests' on the other.
I assume 'GUL' becomes 'GULT' because of 'ETT äpple'....what would it be if it was a red apple for example?
- 1495
Röd is a bit special.
ett rött äpple, det röda äpplet, röda äpplen, de röda äpplena
(a red apple, the red apple, red apples, the red apples)
en röd frukt, den röda frukten, röda frukter, de röda frukterna
(a red fruit, the red fruit, red fruits, the red fruits)
- 1495
Yes, I mean it's special because it ends in -d, so it becomes rött instead of rödt (actually it has been spelled like that historically). Blå and grå also get two t:s, and they have alternative forms:
ett grått hus, det grå/gråa huset, grå/gråa hus, de grå/gråa husen
same with blå:
ett blått hus, det blå/blåa huset, blå/blåa hus, de blå/blåa husen
and
en blå bil, den blå/blåa bilen, blå/blåa bilar, de blå/blåa bilarna
same with grå
en grå bil, den grå/gråa bilen, grå/gråa bilar, de grå/gråa bilarna
Whether you pick blå or blåa is purely a matter of taste as far as I can tell. Could be something regional, but both are fine.
The reason for this is that blå used to be pronounced as a long a. The circle on top of å is actually historically another small a, so in Old Swedish the word blå was pronounced blaa.
Then when you added the -a you got an -a following an already long a, so they blended together. And that’s why you can say blå/grå bilar today. Then the -a has been added again later and blåa/gråa is just as fine as Arnauti said.
I have been looking for this page. Could you provide a link to it in your overview: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/5892805
Or you could make a page explaining all the colors and add it there, but meanwhile this page would do.
- 1495
I think someone else is writing an explanation about colors, but I can add a link here as a placeholder. Thanks for the suggestion!
Thanks so much for explaining this. I watched the show "Blå Ögon", on MHz, and I always wondered why it wasn't called "Blåa Ögon" because "blåa was the only form I knew,
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I enjoyed watching "Blå Ögon". I like the title because, not only are "blue eyes" supposedly typical of the Aryan master race, but also, in Swedish, both words have irregular declinations!
I am not a native English speaker, however, why in translation "an" is replaced by "a", when the object we are referring to is "apple"? I translated sentence as "The boy has an yellow apple", but it is incorrect because of assumed wrong articulation.
- 1495
It's a before a consonant sound, and an before a vowel sound. apple starts with a vowel sound of course, so it's an apple, but since yellow has the sound we'd describe as j in Swedish at the beginning (й in Russian for instance) which is a consonant, it changes into a there.
In german we also have an old word "gülden" which means "golden". It is only used in poetry, these days. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/g%C3%BClden
I'd like to give you the benefit of a doubt, but I honestly don't really see how that is ambiguous. :)
Adjectives change endings 't' is added for "ett" words when indefinite and "a" ending is used for plurals and with definite adjective form, which you should scroll up to see explained.
Thanks. I was thinking, for some reason, that the noun's definitive form was used and so an adjective before the noun might have had to be in plural form.
I'm having a lot of trouble understanding when a word is an -ett word or -en word (when it's not already in the sentence), does anyone have an easy way to figure this out?
There is no way of figuring this out just like that because there are no solid rules, it's like irregular verbs in english, you have to hear them multiple times before you can tell what sounds wrong.
Darn it! My incorrect answer was accepted, again! :-( I don't think it's helpful. I wrote guld instead of gult. I reported it. But I wonder how many other answers I submitted were actually incorrect.
No, it's very annoying. Unfortunately, we can't do anything as course contributors. It's been reported multiple times and we can only hope they get around to fixing it soon.
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How do you spell Gul or Gult if you are referring to an "ett" word and an "en" word?
Like " The apple an the car are both yellow "
i think that would be: "äpplet och bilen är gula". gula ist the plural form of gul / gult:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gul#Declension
in the plural, it doesn't matter whether you are talking about ett words or en words.
but as i am only a swedish learner like you, i might be wrong. :-)
so the singular is yellow, but in the plural it becomes golden?
That's what it seems like - "ett gult äpple" is translated above as "yellow apple" but when I wrote "golden apple" it wasn't accepted.
The very next translation was "write in Swedish 'golden apples' - and the choice was "gyllene äpplen"
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AndrewsSuzy, we have two separate words here. It has nothing to do with singular vs. plural.
gul = yellow
gyllene = golden
What gave you the idea that "gyllene" is the plural of "gul"?
Whats the difference between "gul", "gult" and "gula" aren't they all just yellow? I really can't see the logic in when to use them. Thx in advance
- 41
Blub, almost all Swedish adjectives (not just "gul" or the other color words) must "agree" with the nouns that they modify as to gender and number. This is a fundamental point of Swedish grammar, so you may want to read up on it as you continue your study of Swedish.
There are some adjectives that are "indeclinable", but they are the exception rather than the rule (e.g., bra, gyllene ).
