"It is not the same color."
Translation:Det är inte samma färg.
19 Comments
Generally, yes, BUT samma is an exception. When samma is describing something, it has to be indefinite.
Except for the optional samme in the masculine. (Han är samme man som förut.)
Yes, I thought I'd leave that out for the occasion to explain just samma. :)
The English translation was "It is not THE same word". Could someone please explain to me why "samma färgen" is wrong? Tack! :)
English wants the "the" with the adjective "same", while Swedish is the other way around and cannot use definite nouns and the adjective "samma" together.
In this course I cannot hear the sound of the letter G in words like färg or älg . For example, in Forvo the word älg sounds to me like ɛlːʒ while in duolingo I listen something like ɛlɪ. Is this a thing of my bad ear or can it be pronounced in both ways?
"It is not the same color" can be interpreted as "It is not OF the same color". Ambiguous.
191
Not sure what your second sentence would even be used for. How is the one presented ambiguous?
"Is cyan the same as aquamarine?"
"No, it's not the same color" ["it" refers to the color itself]
vs.
"Is your new car red, like your old one?"
"No, it's not the same color" ["it" refers to the car]
Do you see the difference?
- 191
I see a technical difference but I see zero ambiguity in either case by "is [it] - whatever 'it' is - the same color?" I just don't see the answer as being misinterpretable.
- 833
a) färg is an 'en' word so 'färget' is not a word, the definite form is färgen
b) samma is a special adjective. It's always used like this: no front article, and the noun is indefinite.
Compare:
A normal adjective works like this: you can say en röd bok or den röda boken 'a red book' or 'the red book'
With samma, you only have one option: samma bok 'the same book'. In English, 'same' is also an exception in that you don't really say 'a same book', only 'the same book'.
This is because samma has a meaning that makes the expression definite in itself.
