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- Topic: Swedish >
- "Är amerikanska bilar bra?"
42 Comments
Nej! De är jätte dåliga. Brands owned: Ford, Lincoln, Chevy quality is not good.
Basically yes!
It is quite casual though, so I wouldn't suggest writing jätte- in a formal letter or something like that.
*Jag skulle hellre vilja ha svenska bilar; hela mitt liv skulle jag bara köra SAAB
I'm a little confused. Why not "amerikansk"? I remember seeing somewhere that -ska often pertained to a language (i.e. svenska) whereas -sk was for other things related to a country (i.e. svensk). Is it different here because the question contains a plural?
Yep, -a for plural: en amerikansk bil, två amerikanska bilar, same -a rule for agreement with most regular adjectives (as in the Latin languages)
amerikanska bilar är jättebra och jag önskar för mig en dodge bil <3 hoppas jag få det snart, sa jag det rätt eller?
Alla bilar är dåliga, eftersom vilken som helst bil du har, någon alltid klagar.
So how did I do? :)
Good, but not perfect. ;) There are a handful of ways to phrase it thus:
Alla bilar är dåliga, eftersom vilken bil du än har är det alltid någon som klagar.
Thank you :) Would you explain why you changed the sentence like this? Is "vilken som helst" wrong? If not, then why is "vilken än" better in this sentence?
I still have to practice the conjuctions to make my clauses more coherent, but I'll get there :)
Yes, the "...som helst" construction works better for standalone things, like "vilken bil som helst" for "any car". For expressing the "ever" in uses like "whatever you do", "whichever car you choose" etc, "vilken ... än" is used.
Tack Zmrzlina - would "finns det" be the same (or clearer) for the ending? : [är det] alltid någon som klagar. Is there any use for the passive tense here, klagas?
Very personally, I think "är" sounds better than "finns" here, but to be honest both work I suppose.
Using passive here looks a bit unnecessary.
708
Does "amerikanska" apply to the continent? Or only the United States of America?
For example, does the sentence have the same meaning as "Are US cars good?"
I don't really get the difference between anerikansk and amerikanska. Can someone please shed some light on when to use which?
- amerikansk is for singular indefinite en-words
- amerikanskt is for singular indefinite ett-words
- amerikanska is for plurals and definites
Why is „Are US-American cars good?” not accepted? Are American cars meant or only US-American cars? (so cars from all of America or just the USA).
It only says amerikanska, so it makes sense to translate into only "American". The implication is that they're from the USA, of course, but it's not made explicit in the sentence.
- 708
You say "implication"; does that mean it could cover cars from South America or does modern Swedish use a different adjective for America-the-continent?
No, I mean that it works kind of like in English - if you just say "America", people will assume that you're talking about the USA, but it's not a definite requirement.
Assuming there is a coffee called "Brasilien", yes - Brasilien is the Swedish name for the country of Brazil.
In that case, no - just like you can't say "Brazilian is an American coffee" (but rather "Brazilian coffee is American").
I'd go for sydamerikanskt, though.
Maybe it is a correct phrase in Swedish, but in English one should always define the subject. One is talking here of specific cars, 'the' American cars. Who/which/what - the car. The car is good. Is the car good? The American car is good. American is an adjective and car/s is a countable noun. 'American car is good' is an incomplete phrase.
- 1456
The reason the subject is indefinite here in both languages is that it's a general statement. We're talking about American cars as a category, not about some specific American cars (for that, we would have used the definite form). There are some differences in how definiteness works in Swedish vs English, but in this case it works the same.
I agree with the other replies to this.. I'll add some more explanation: The plural is being used here to form a general statement (as Arnauti noted). The generalizations "Most American cars are bad" or "All American cars are bad" --> "American cars are bad". We'd understand the question "Are American cars bad?" as equal to: "Are almost all American cars bad"
Nonetheless, I greatly respect that you are being careful about this. Many Slavic language speakers I've met often miss articles when needed. (just guessing from your username)
Thanks for the comment. Yes, my native language is part of the Slavonic group. Sometimes the use of the articles and especially the way they are attached to words (via suffices) is very similar to the Swedish, but there are differences too. Like the rule that the nouns have either to be defined or undefined with no exception of missing the articulation and another rule requiring all the objects to be in their definite form. So this regulation obviously makes me confused at times with other languages. :)
Thanks to all for their comments. I have to agree and update my knowledge of the EL too. :)
