"The king and the queen live in the castle."

Translation: Kungen och drottningen bor på slottet.

[GeorgeFerguson93]

These are so difficult....in,on,at etc.....I don't understand why it is 'on' the castle :S

[MarkBorkBorkBork]

English also has funny prepositions like "on the airplane" when we really mean "in". :)

[ThomFeeney]

In English the rule for transport is whether you are 'on' a surface ie stood up when when entering. On a bus, in a car; on a ferry, in a canoe; in a helicopter, on a plane.

I would love a simple rule like this for the Swedish though!

[MarkBorkBorkBork]

I never realized the actual rule before. Though there are times I've gotten on a helicopter (Sikorsky S-61) and in a plane (Cessna Skyhawk).

[ThomFeeney]

You're right, I'd definitely get in a Cessna, I think I'd probably still say I got in Sikorsky or a Chinook though. Hmm. Maybe it's the exception to prove the rule, or maybe just the visualisation brought to mind of sitting atop some helicopter blades! ;)

[JordanLee965570]

You go on a bicycle and on a horse also. Prepositions don't really follow any rules. English doesn't either.

[JohanCookie]

Thank you for this perspective haha I never thought about it that way

[Lundgren8]

We also say på bussen, på kaféet etc. Swedish uses på with many locations, but not all. You are usually i skolan.

[Esilenc]

So both på and i can be used here ?

[WildSage]

It marked me wrong for i

[Arnauti]

Kungen och drottningen bor i slottet. is an accepted answer, what did you put?

[WildSage]

that's what I choose from the multiple choice selections and it was marked as incorrect

[Arnauti]

The way this sentence is coded, the only correct sentence that should be shown in the multiple choice question is the version with på. Those questions tend to be very tricky sometimes (the wrong answers are automatically generated) so most likely there was some other subtle error in the sentence with i. Though there could also have been some kind of glitch of course.

[MarkBorkBorkBork]

That's because English can refer to couples or groupings with a single definitive article.

It hadn't occurred to me it's not possible to do so in Swedish. Interesting. :)

[Arnauti]

That explains it! Yes, kungen och drottning sounds all wrong in Swedish, we just don't say that.

[NathanHill16]

I had the same experience, and had to look twice- turns out, an automatically generated wrong answer is Kungen och drottning bor i slottet, which I assume is wrong because it's drottning, not drottningen. In English, "The king and the queen" and "The king and queen" are almost entirely interchangeable.- does "Kungen och dottning" sound wrong?

[Tia-Lin]

"The king" is translated "konungen"; "kungen" means "king". Is someone really looking these discussions?

[Anrui]

The king is either kungen or konungen but the latter is really archaic and almost never used.

King is kung or konung

[Tia-Lin]

Hi :) I was just "officially" confirmed that "konungen" will in the future be acceptied as a correct answer. So they really read your comments of which I am very happy.

[Tia-Lin]

Thank you. I am an ancient remain: I learned "kungen och konungen" at school. And when The King of Sweden is interwied e.q. in TV, the journalist asks quite politely : " Var tycker konungen om ..."

[AdriaGarri]

Kann man sager "borget" här?
(What I tried to say: can one say "the castle(?)" here)

[Anrui]

No, but "borgen" is an accepted solution.

[Tia-Lin]

Hi: I would not advise to use "borg" here as it is not used in Sweden in that meaning. You can say "Borgbacken" (so there you use the word "Borg") which means "The hill of the castle". Google will accept borg=castle, but actually borg = might be more like a military "castle" :) :)

[JurgisVaii]

Military castle? Fortress?

[poppo17]

'I slottet, på slottet'... what is the difference? Is it like saying 'in the castle, at the castle', or there is more?

[LauraNauckhoff]

I'm from Sweden and I wrote: kungen och drottingen bor i slottet?
You don't live on the castle in my opinion.

[Arnauti]

Both i and på work. i is more like you live 'inside' it and with på you're thinking of the castle more as an institution. It's very common to use på with slottet in this sense. One example from the Royal Family's own web page (the Easy Swedish version) says this about the castle where the King and Queen live:

Drottningholms slott byggdes för 400 år sedan och är det slott i Sverige som har mest kvar från den tiden. Slottet har en stor slottspark med lustslottet Kina slott och slottsteatern. Arkitekt Nicodemus Tessin bestämde hur slottet skulle se ut och drottning Hedvig Eleonora lät bygga det. Kungafamiljen bor på slottet sedan 1981. Deras rum finns i slottets södra del.

http://www.kungahuset.se/ovrigt/lattlast/besokdekungligaslotten/drottningholmsslott.4.1a2467a10ad032dc26800015367.html

[kss8]

What please is the problem with these fill in words? I type Kungen or kungen and not accepted.