14 Comments
Can somebody explain the difference between;
"is not..." "does not..." "did not..."
As far as I can tell, "is not..." and "does not..." are interchangeable in Swedish. Maybe I will come across a section regarding past tense and just haven't unlocked it yet, but I am still struggling with "Hunden äter inte osten" meaning "The dog did not eat the cheese."
In Swedish, there is no verb conjugation within the same tense for different subjects. "Am not," "is not," and "are not" are all the same -- "är inte." Hunden äter inte osten should be in the present tense (The dog does not eat the cheese). If you wanted to say "The dog ate the cheese," you would say Hunden åt inte osten. Are you sure that "The dog did not eat the cheese" was accepted? If it was, I think I'm not reading your question right or I just don't understand :) Please correct me if I am wrong!
Hi Super-Svensk. Thank you for replying.
At this point I have figured out that "am not", "is not" and "are not" are all the same. However, for some reason when I read "Hunden äter inte osten", I read it as "The dog did not eat the cheese." This was not accepted as a correct answer.
What would the correct translation to "The dog did not eat the cheese."?
Thanks for your help!
Ohhhhhhhh. I thought that your answer of "The dog did not eat the cheese" WAS accepted! Sorry about that... The correct translation would be "Hunden åt inte osten." In Swedish, the "does/did" part is not needed. You just have to add "inte" after the verb. So, you basically are saying "The dog eats not cheese." Hope that made sense!
"Is not" is "är inte" "does not" does not require a swedish word for "does" eg: He is not home = Han är inte hemma. He does not have a home = han har inte en hem.
Han är inte hemma: He is not home. Han har inte en hem: He does not have a home.
Of course not … the dog chases the cat, the cat catches the mouse, and the mouse eats the cheese (which stands alone).
hej what is the difference, when I say 'the dog do not eat cheese' or ' the dog eats no cheese'. I feel a slight difference, but I'm not sure. And what would be the translation in Swedish? the second on was NOT correct.
839
- The dog do not eat cheese is not a correct English sentence. The dog is the third person so you must say The dog does not eat cheese.
- 'The dog does not eat (or is not eating) cheese' is Hunden äter inte ost in Swedish and 'The dog eats no cheese' means Hunden äter ingen ost in Swedish.
- The difference between Hunden äter inte ost and Hunden äter ingen ost lies in what is negated in the sentence, the eating or the cheese. I'd interpret the second one as 'there is no kind of cheese that this dog will eat' or something like that. Generally these constructions work much the same in both languages.
Poor little doggy, I've hurt it grammatically. Sure I meant 'does not', my fault. Thanks for the answer. I also interpreted that sentence something like you. So the first one means 'the dog due to some reason does not used to eat chceese', right?
- 839
I know a lot of people use this course to improve their English while learning Swedish at the same time, so I try to explain both whenever I can, I'm sure it can be helpful to someone. I've learned a lot myself from reading the sentence discussions in other languages, even long after they were written.
The one with The dog does not eat cheese just means that the dog generally does not eat cheese, but in English you've got the option to say The dog is not eating cheese to say that it doesn't eat cheese right now. The Swedish Hunden äter inte ost covers both of these.
