"He has several suits."
Translation:Han har flera kostymer.
12 Comments
You could say "Han har många kostymer" which I would translate as "He has many suits". There is a slight difference in the meaning, (many is more than several) however both sentences would work out well to describe someone who wears a different suit most times you meet him.
Thanks guys! However, I recall in the "A wedding, many weddings" ("ett bröllop, flera bröllop"), "många" being accepted as well.
Is this the case, then, that 'many' can be translated both as "flera" and "många", whereas "several" can only be rendered as "flera"?
Thanks
The construct "en/ett ..., flera ..." is common for showing the forms of a noun in Swedish since it will actually give you all the information you need on the noun and its different forms. As far as I recall from school at least our English books used similar constructs with "a ..., many ..." when introducing new words that didn't have the standard form of just adding an -s. Maybe that is why the other translation is like that.
Also as with everything there may be slight context variation.
I another possible (and more precise) translation for several would be "åtskilliga" but that has a lot more formal tone in it than flera.
Go here:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kostym
Click on the button that says "Declension of kostym" to find out.
You'll find it a lot more convenient and effective to use a site like wiktionary than asking the question here when you're unsure of word variants.
What is the rule in plurals about -ar vs -er? It doesn't seem to follow the "en"/"ett" rule and I'm just guessing most of the time...is it just something you need to learn? Thanks!
Declension, usually. You can find some great info e.g. here: https://www.thelocal.se/blogs/theswedishteacher/2010/07/28/plural-endings/
