"I am writing the book of the century."
Translation:Jag skriver århundradets bok.
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It's the same in English as well, I suppose. It's fairly nonsensical to say, for instance, something like "I found her the doll." or "The dog's the toy is missing."
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I don't think your examples in English encompass my original question well.
For example: 1)I am writing the book --> 1a)Jag skriver boken (easy)
2)I'm writing THE book of THE century
Is equivalent to
3)I'm writing THE century's book So we could have in Swedish:
2a)Jag skriver boken av århundradet ( if I was translating the first example literally)
Or
3a)Jag skriver århundradets bok ( for the second example in English)
Now, is the translation 2a) valid and palatable in Swedish?
You're replying to a comment that is over four years old... :)
But as for 2a, no, that's not grammatical. Swedish doesn't have the "of" construction for possessives. Hence, århundradets bok corresponds equally well to "the century's book" and "the book of the century", and idiomatics will dictate which one is the better translation into English.
So in this sentence "the book" is clearly definite, the only reason why we don't translate as "boken" is because its after a possessor.
The alternative "Jag skriver boken av århundradet" doesn't work because the preposition "av" should not be used in such a context (as explained by Arnauti a couple of comments below).
Could someone tell if i got this right?
You just can't say that. We don't use av nearly as much as you use of in English. Just like you say a cup of coffee and we say en kopp kaffe.
As a native English speaker learning his second language, that just feels so wrong. The way I have been parsing through the language structure so far, is thinking of it as Olde English (pre-chausser), that tends to help a lot.
One of these things that would make learning Swedish from German so much easier than from English! Eine Tasse Kaffee - en kopp kaffe
I remember one a while back that said "en kopp av te". What separates that from "en kopp kaffe"
It's en kopp te. If you say "en kopp av te", you'd be speaking about a cup made out of tea :)
Would a literal translation back to English be "I write the century's book"?
Tack! The first time I encountered this phrase was in a challenge to type the Swedish, so it threw me for a loop.
If you mean årtiondets bok, that would be the book of the decade. I agree that would be enough of an achievement to be proud of :)
If you mean genitive + noun in the definitive form, we don't do that. When something is 'owned' by another noun in the genitive, it cannot be definite. It's the same in English really, you don't say the woman's the house or even my the house.
Oh, oh, "bok", of course. The deal was, it showed both "årtiondets" and "århundradets" as possible translations for "of the century". Got me confused there.
Isn't "the book" the definitive singular? So "boken" and not just "bok" amirite?
It comes after a possessive (of the century) so you don't have to write the definitive form. If Im not wrong the same applies, for instance, when you say the green book (Grön bok, if Im not wrong) :)
This is a general feature of how Duo works and not specific to the Swedish course.
"jag skiver bocken om århundradet" was marked wrong. what would be the translation of my answer in english? thanks!
I think that would be 'I am writing the book about the century'. Except that you mis-spelled 'boken' :)
Why it isn't boken here? The hardest thing for me in any language are articles. Pls help.
Hi, it's because when you write the possessor (in this case "of the century", in other may be my (min) or your (din) or our (vår)) you don't have to write the definitive article of the word :)
The common expression in English would be "the book of the century" but the equivalent in Swedish translates literally as: "THE century's book" so book (bok) does not take the definite article. It"s just like the words "Doras bok" - the word book would not take the definite article because that would read "Doras the book". Hope you get what I mean.
How should I divide this? århundradets=of the century år (year) hundradet (century) s (of). Is it correct and it makes sense to understand such a long word?
- år = year
- hundra = a hundred
- -de = suffix to create a noun
- -t = definite suffix
I feel I am way behind in this but can someone help, why is it that the century is placed before the book, "I am writing the century book".
It's possessive -- the book "belongs" to the century. So "the book of the century" becomes "the century's book" which is why there's an "s": arhundradets bok.
It works just as if you use the same construction in English:
- the century's book <- correct
- the century's the book <- incorrect
So you never put a definite after a possessive.