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- "Brukar du skriva brev?"
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Could someone explain the structure of this sentence, and why it wouldn't be something like, "Skriver bruker du brev?"?
"Brukar" is a modal verb, so it comes before the main verb (skriva), even though it is a question. The main verb and subject are flipped in a question, not the modal verb and main verb.
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And it is only the modal verb that is conjugated (brukar), the main verb has to be an infinitive (skriva). "Brukar du skriva?"
Interesting. Quite different from how it's constructed in English. Is there a Swedish adverb that corresponds to "usually"?
Not so different, actually. Think of brukade (past tense) as "used".
jag brukade skriva brev. = I used to write letters.
Edited.
Yes. Vanligtvis/vanligen. But you should learn to use "brukar" nonetheless. It's a common verb.
If I understand well, you don't use "att" when there's a modal verb?
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Unlike English, in Spanish we have a perfect equivalent for "bruka", in case there's any Spanish-speaking person out there, I just realized "soler" means exactly the same as "bruka". ¡¡¡Vamos Argentina!!!! :)
Same for Portuguese. The corresponding verb is "Costumar". e.g. "Você costuma escrever cartas?"
Is there really no word for "brukar" in English? In German I would say: "Pflegst du Briefe zu schreiben?" Maybe a little bit old-fashioned, but appropriate.
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We do have a verb for this, and it's pretty common: tend. I don't know why Duo doesn't accept it! I tend to write letters is a perfectly good and ordinary English sentence, and as far as I can make out it has the same meaning as jag brukar skriva brev - unless there's some subtlety to brukar that I'm missing.
Are "tend to" and "usually" equal for you? Cause for me, usually is stronger than "tend to". and "Brukar" is closer to "usually".
I've been trying to argue the difference between tend to - tendera, and usually do - bruka, but native English speakers tend to / usually have none of it. :)
I think also "to be wont/used to" translates "bruka", but they don't seem to agree with me.
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They have one, it's just that they don't use it in the present tense. But used to means brukade in past tense.
Thank you! Long ago a teacher told me, that English is the language with the most words. But Swedish seem to bee the language with the most verbs. Fascinating.
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I know what they mean when they say English has a lot of words, but it depends on how you count. If you start counting all our compound nouns, Swedish could have a lot more words than English. :P
Yes we have...If you translate....Brukar...to a two word verb (usually do) it goes right
I'm not sure where exactly we learned what a model verb is. It is hard when they don't even teach us sentence building in English class to grasp the terms here! I know my French sentence building, however. I don't get it. Brukar is this modal verb, but it is skriva you are changing, so does the list of "does not need att" mean that the verb itself (on the list) requires no att, or that words use with the words on the list require no att? I'm not sure I explained my question right. I'm having trouble asking it.
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We usually send people off to this topic, did you read it? https://www.duolingo.com/comment/7075383
This is Infinitive 1 and the modal verbs aren't taught until a little later, which isn't optimal of course. So unless you're backtracking, you won't be able to access this yet: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/sv/Verbs:-Modal
There it says that
Modality is what allows us to attach things such as belief, attitude, and obligation to statements. This means that words such as must, may, want, are all modal verbs.
Then it goes on to compare things like I eat and I want to eat. If you're saying I eat, that's just a fact, but I want to eat is an attitude already, so that's what modal verbs are. – After verbs like this, you can't have att before another verb in the infinitive. So we say Jag måste läsa, but if you add att in between there, it'll just be wrong.
But then there are many cases where both ways are possible. In point 3 in the post by Zzzzz... , you can add att if you want to.
The post you linked didn't help clear up what I was wondering about: is the list of no-att words the words which when in use with another word then that other word doesn't need an att?
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Another way of putting it: An infinitive usually go together with 'att' (att gå, att åka, att äta). But if the infinitive is preceeded by a modal verb the 'att' is dropped: Jag måste gå, Jag ska åka, Jag vill äta (no 'att' is dividing the two verbs). Hope this helped you?!
The comments below suggest that "Brukar du + infinitive?" should not be rendered as "Are you used to + infinitive?" So how about: "Is it usual for you to write letters?" Could this be an acceptable translation? I know my sentence starts looking passive, but I do like the idea that "brukar" could be translated as a verb phrase rather than as an adverb...
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Use tend! Do you tend to write letters? Duo doesn't seem to know this English verb, for some reason.
I'm afraid working around the translation to make "brukar" a verb in English too will not work, as it will most likely yield a sentence that is a little too bulky.
"tend to" is tendera in Swedish, and they differ enough that they cannot be considered synonymous.
In Spanish, this is the same as "soler" quite difficult to explain as brukar
For those who also happen to speak Spanish, think of the verb "brukar" as similar to the verb "soler". For instance, "Yo suelo comer zanahorias" is pretty close to "Jag brukar äta moroter". Also: "Brukar du skriva brev?" is also quite similar to "¿Sueles escribir cartas?"
