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- "A cook speaks Swedish."
"A cook speaks Swedish."
Translation:En kock talar svenska.
30 Comments
can somebody explain me when i use en and when ett. I am confused. why is en kock (a cook) is this related with masculinum? thanks
Which words come with "en" and which with "ett" is one of those things you just have to memorize. En-words are more frequent, and as far as I can tell most words that refer to humans are en-words. But ultimately, it's best to just memorize each new noun with its appropriate article - for example "en bok/boken", "en kock/kocken", "ett glas/glaset" "ett äpple/äpplet", etc.
One thing that might help a bit is that all job titles are "en" kock, en flygvärdinna, en bagare. Etc. Other than that, you'll have to learn by heart.
Yea, it comes from masculinity and femininity stuff similar to romance languages. There used to be 3 categories: masculine, feminine and neutral but they combined the first two to make the langasge easier, which is why most words are en and the rest, gender neutrals are ett. There is no clear telling so you need to learn nouns with their type but most of the time assuming en is helpful
1487
They're usually interchangeable. talar is used more often with languages, but pratar is OK too. pratar is a tad more colloquial.
When it showed the correction, "Svenska" wasn't capitalized. Does this mean that in sentences Svenska isn't capitalized unless it's the beginning of a sentence?
- 1487
Yes, the words for nationalities, languages, days of the week, months are not capitalized in Swedish, except at the beginning of sentences of course.
That'd rather translate to "A cook knows Swedish" or "A cook can speak Swedish".
But it's a perfectly valid sentence and it sounds natural to say. (Albeit not the correct translation here.)
Is there a word similar to "speak/sprechen" in Swedish in addition to talar?
I think "talar" is the conjugated present-tense form (I speak, he speaks, etc.), and "tala" is the infinitive form (to speak).
Oh, I meant a word that's from the same root - something like "spraka"
There is the verb språka, but språk/språka is a German loanword (Sprache).
How much is it used? And is there a difference in meaning? (Have a lingot btw :))
It's not much used. It doesn't mean speak, but rather "talk". When used, most often it's a deponent verb, like det var trevligt att språkas ("it was nice talking [to you]").
Svenske is masculine singular. Den svenske mannen (masculine) Den svenska Kvinnan (feminine) Det svenska barnet (neutral) De svenska männen. (plural) Now if use neutral instead of masculine, or masculine instead of feminine, most people won't care, and the ones who do will simply think it sounds a bit strange, so there's no need to worry about it.
Why is there the "en"? Before "a cook" was translated to "kock" without the article (someone said it was because it was a profession). What is the difference here?
