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- "De gamla leksakerna är vackr…
20 Comments
1458
We normally need an article when it's adjective + determinate noun, and the plural article is de.
- 1458
The determinate article is den or det in the singular, so here it would be den gamla leksaken 'the old toy'.
- 2363
What's the difference between vackra and snygga? When do you use one vs. the other?
- 1458
Snygg is more colloquial and more like good-looking, vacker is the word for classical beauty.
- 1458
No, it works for many other things, like clothes or furniture. But not really for the beauties of nature like in "a beautiful landscape" for instance.
Since en leksak literally means 'a plaything', I was wondering how one would translate 'a plaything' into Swedish.
just what i thought i understood the v2 rule...so does this mean the first 3 words are counted as one and how do we decide what can come before the verb?
- 2363
As a general rule, if it's a statement, any adjectives and articles that apply to the subject can come before the verb:
«The big enormous furry smelly red dog ate his lunch.»
In this sentence the emphasized piece is the subject, and therefore comes first, no matter how many adjectives we stack on the dog because it's still the subject.
Does that make sense?
Yes. I think I was thinking of the v2 rule in terms of words. I need to just remember it is not the second word but the second constituent. tack
- 660
I don't understand why "de" is pronounced "dom". I thought "de" when pronounced "dom" meant "they"...
- 1458
Both de and dem are pronounced as dom in Standard Swedish, and it happens both when it's a pronoun and when it's an article.
Swedish is like German, leksak:
lek = play
Sak = thing
German:
Spiel = Play
Zeug = thing
Even in dutch it might be the same word structure, i Imagine.
Its a thing to play with. Thats why we call it this way.
