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Now I'm just very confused. I read through the comments, and I'm still not understanding the difference between all of these different "your" terms...
Like most languages but unlike English, Swedish differs between singular you and plural you. These two have the forms din/ditt/dina and er/ert/era respectively in the possessive. For singular words, the grammatical gender determines the use: din and er with en-words, but ditt and ert with ett-words. For all plural nouns, dina or era is used.
Ok, yes I think I got it. Just one more question: din/ditt/dina is for "singular you" and er/ert/era is for "plural you", yes?
Okay... I think I get it... IDK, I'll just remember and apply what you've said and I'll probably get the hang of it- Thank you~!
Look i'll put it simpler for your understanding. You see what I used your in my previous sentence for? To adress you, as one person. That's din/ditt/dina. However, in English the word you/your can also be used to adress more than one person, like two or more. For instance: "Children, go clean your room!" Now it's no longer one person to adress, but multiple. That would be 'er'. In many European languages, "you" to adress one person (just you as a person, for instance) differs from "you" to adress more people.
I'm dutch myself and you have to use "jij" (you) to adress one person and 'jullie' (also you for english speakers) to adress multiple people. It's a difference non-existent in English, so it feels unnatural but it is present in swedish and lots of other languages. I hope this clarified it for you;) If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
You helped my Swedish and also my Dutch Duo which was also confusing me. I was looking for all kinds of hints in the words before and after but didnt occur to me that it might be plurals.
im sorry, but what do you say about this... "ditt apple och din apelsin" each word is ett-word... can you clarify my doubt?
Apelsin is one of very few words that can be either en or ett, although en is far much more common.
Why in the world is apple an "ett" word and orange is "en" ??? This is so confusing :(
It's just the way things are, I'm afraid. Every word is either ett or en and it has to be learnt by heart. Keep practicing and it will stick soon enough!
I guess so... Every language has its tricks, right?! I'm brazilian and I am loving to learn swedish!!
Thats the spirit! Brit here and I'm loving how swedish reads like old english.
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If you are brazilian, so why in the world is maçã a "a" word and limão an "o" word ??? That is so confusing!
Definitely. It'll sound a little off, but any native will know what you meant, and probably appreciate your effort to learn Swedish. :)
I think so in most cases, though you'll sound foreign and "off" to them (I know we don't have gendered nouns, but imagine someone didn't bother with the a/an rule and said "That was an good meal").
There may be some words that change their meaning if you swap grammatical genders, though I don't know any off-hand.
Im pretty sure glas and glass are pronounced a little differently. Glass sounds like english 'glass' and glas sounds like the 'aw' in 'awesome'
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glas and glass sound very different to native speakers. The vowel sound is long in the first and short in the second, and the vowel sound isn't even the same. Also, the consonant sound is shorter in glas and longer in glass.
Confused as to why it is not Ert apple as it was in previous sentence? Im sure will become clear in the near future!
- ”Ungar, var har ni lagt era böcker? (Kids, where have you all put your books?)
- ”Det är ditt problem, Peter, inte mitt.” (It is your problem, Peter, not mine.)
When you’re talking to one person, you use du (you, thou) and din (your, thy). When talking to many people you use ni (you, y’all) and er (your, y’all’s). Then these words change into ditt when used with an ett-word and dina when used with a plural word, and same with ert and era, respectively.
Ert äpple if you’re talking about one apple and you’re talking to many people, or era äpplen if you’re talking about many apples to many people.
One quesrion... "din", "ditt" and "dina" can be used for the singular "you" ????
In English, you can say "Your apple and orange" while meaning the same thing. Could this also work in Swedish?
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Not really, maybe there are some special cases where two nouns could be seen as a unit, but it certainly doesn't work here.
I understand about how to use din, ditt, ert, or er... but i don't quite understand what he mean by 'for all plural nouns, use era or dina instead'... Didn't he say that din, ditt, and dina is used for singular nouns and ert, er, era is used for plural noun??
Din, ditt, dina means your for a singular you and er, ert, era means your for plural you (y'all).
Din hund - your dog (where a single person owns the dog)
Er hund - your dog (where several persons own the dog)
etc.
I still can't understand what is the difference between dina and era from the rest of the article... din is for singular en noun and ditt is for singular ett noun, whereas er is for plural en noun and ert is for plural ett noun. Dina is for definite singular noun and era is for definite plural noun.. Is what I am thinking correct?
No, you're mixing up singular/plural noun with singular/plural you. In English, you can be either one person or several persons (you all). In Swedish, we distinguish between the two.
din hund - your dog (one person owns the dog)
ditt hus - your house (one person owns the house)
dina hundar - your dogs (one person owns several dogs)
er hund - your dog (several persons own the dog)
ert hus - your house (several persons own the house)
era hundar - your dogs (several persons own several dogs)
Now, I understand them.. Thanks :D.. Are you a contributor for this course too by any chance?
Could you confirm that there is not any kind of difference between a male noun and a female noun? (For example in italy "my" is "mia" if you talk about "casa" (female) and "mio" if you talk about your dog (male)) Sorry if it was already answered :)
Nope, Swedish grammatical genders have nothing to do with male and female.
[dɪtː] Pretty much as you'd expect from the spelling. Can't you hear the audio? There's also a recording here. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ditt#Swedish
"Ditt" is for ett-words and "din" is for en-words. As for which is which, you'll just have to learn as you go along (though en-words are more common).
This is a great question and really helped me identify the differences between the words and possessive. Could be worth putting a question like this in an earlier lesson.
Do you have to seperate the äpple and the äpelsin by an och to have the correct possesive forms or would it be okay to have it as Ditt äpple och äpelsin?
You do require it - especially here since the words have different genders.
