"Ditt äpple och din apelsin"
Translation:Your apple and your orange
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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.
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.
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.
- ”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.
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)
[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