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- Topic: Swedish >
- "He has a very big dog."
"He has a very big dog."
Translation:Han har en jättestor hund.
26 Comments
Hi, I used väldig stor hund... but it told me it should be väldigt. I left of the t because it was an en word. Can you tell me why it is wrong?
In this sentence, "väldigt" (very) is an adverb that describes "stor" (big). In Swedish, adverbs don't change forms for different genders. This is because they describe adjectives or other adverbs, not the noun. You would never take off the t if it was being used as an adverb meaning very. "Väldig" without the t is an adjective that means enormous.
How does jätte- work exactly? Can I use it as a suffix with any adjective to mean 'very + adj' or is it only used with specific adj?
2402
Yes, you can, in speech. It is very common, and I can't think of any example (right now) where it does not work. (But it's a 'prefix', since it begins the compoundword, not a suffix that ends it). But in written language we would probably find it a bit too colloquial ....
Sorry, I obviously meant a prefix there :) Now that I think of it, it sounds like the Italian prefix 'stra-' which means almost the same thing and you would never find it in written language. Thank you for clearing this up!:)
- 1400
I assume you got this as a multiple choice question and the correct answer you saw was not Han har en jättestor hund. That's because the options with mycket stor or väldigt stor are just as good translations of very big, so either one of them, two of them or even all three could be shown in a multiple choice question.
- 1400
In English, you tend to use really big and very big to mean the same thing. But we don't really use verkligen that way in Swedish. We use verkligen the other kind of 'really', like in 'He really has a big dog'.
In Scotland they use "stor" in their names for mountains. And in Scottish lallans muckle means much or very. Makes me think the Scots have a whole lot more in common rootwise with the Scandinavians than with the English.
My secondary school taught a couple of weeks of Scots, I remember the teacher saying that there are strong Germanic roots to a lot of the language, as well as some Gaelic. Thank you for reminding me of that - I've been trying to pin some Swedish words to similar ones in English to help me learn them, I forgot that I could do the same with Scots :)
- 1400
en jättehund is 'a giant dog' so you can definitely say it, but it isn't an accepted answer.
- 1400
Absolutely. All of Han har en mycket stor hund, Han har en väldigt stor hund, and Han har en jättestor hund are accepted answers and if you get them in a multiple choice here, you may even have to choose all three of them.
mycket stor is the most formal of the three versions, jättestor is the most colloquial, and väldigt stor is the most neutral way of putting it.
Why is it not " Han har en jättestora hund"? I read this as a possessive statement and needing the -a suffix. Would it only apply if the statement was "He has THE very big dog"?
Doesn't jättestor really mean 'huge' rather than 'very big'? similar, but not the same in English.
- 2402
Yes, big as a giant = huge. But since it is used to frequently, the feeling of the word has 'shrunk'.
