- Forum >
- Topic: Swedish >
- "She does not read letters."
"She does not read letters."
Translation:Hon läser inte brev.
25 Comments
1369
breven would be the letters; and that is not what the English sentence says.
It is ett brev, brevet in the singular, and brev, breven in the plural.
With most ett [word] combinations - is the plural usually made with the 'en' at the end (Brevet vs Breven in this example)? I feel like I've now seen this pattern a few times. It confused me for awhile since 'en' [words] seem to be pluralized with 'ar', 'er', or 'or'.
shouldn't it be breven as ( plural), you said brev is singular so letters must be breven! I don't get it!
- 1407
Breven is the letters. While brev is same for letters and letter. So ett brev/flera brev
So why exactly does inte come after läser? And why in "He doesn't like apples" or something, it'd come in between "tycker" and "om"? (Han tycker inte om äpplen)
- 1369
The verb always needs to go in the second place, but inte comes between the verb and objects, and even between the verb and the particle as in tycker om or any prepositions. Other adverbs may come between the verb and inte if they modify the whole sentence, like Han läser faktiskt inte brev, 'He is actually not reading letters'.
The word order is different for main clauses and dependent clauses. In a main clause it is as Arnauti describes but in a dependet clause the "inte" and other adverbs are put between the subject and the verb.
For example: "I know that she doesn't read letters" "Jag vet att hon inte läser brev".
"I am sad because he doesn't like apples" "Jag är ledsen eftersom han inte tycker om äpplen"
- 1369
Very true! Also, questions put the verb before the subject, so the V2 rule does not apply there either. I was just giving the basic version.
So we have "Subject - Verb - Adverb - Object" in normal main clauses, "Subject - Adverb - Verb - Object" in dependent clauses and "Verb - Subject - Adverb - Object" in questions
Hon läser inte böcker.
Jag vet att hon inte läser böcker
Läser hon inte böcker?
- 1369
Subject - Verb - Adverb - Object" is the most frequent word order in main clauses, but there's no rule saying that you need to structure them that way – the rule only says you must have the verb second. So you can just as well have Adverb-Verb-Subject-Object or even Object-Verb-Subject-Adverb.
I am a bit confused with ett words, correct me if i am wrong but in swedish you say:
ett äpple (an apple) => flera äpplen (several apples) And Ett brev (a letter) => flera brev (several letters) ? Why not "breven" då? Tack! :-)
- 1369
breven is the determinate plural.
Regular ett words get different plurals depending on whether they end in a vowel or consonant, see here: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/sv/Plurals
