"Flickan sjunger för sin katt."
Translation:The girl is singing for her cat.
40 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
What is the difference between 'till' and 'för'? Could 'till' be used here?
It's very hard to generalise about the meaning of prepositions between languages. They are highly irregular in their use. In Swedish, you sing för someone, not till.
one sentence i had to translate was "the man buys clothes for the child" and the word 'till' was used for 'for'. how does the 'till' differ from 'för'?
It's just the preferred preposition. Why English wants "for" is an equally valid question. Just the way things are.
...not in all dialects... can you be more specific on this? Which dialects follow this rule?
1873
Middle and North of Sweden. The South uses another type of ”r” (more like the French) and does not have this rule.
is the Swedish SJ-unger pronunciation as for Ph-one in English?, Phiunger.. it sounds like that
No, it is not an F. It's a sj-sound. If phonology isn't your thing and the sound example in the link doesn't do it for you, think of it as something like the German and Scottish ch-sound (in "ach" and "loch"), but lighter.
More like hunger (soft g like in singer) mixed with the (ch) sound in the name (Achmed), the "flem" sound, but very suttle. Hchunger.
Why not "The girl sings for HIS cat"? Is this because "sin" can be referred only to the subject?
Exactly, sin always refers back to a subject in the same sentence. So pojken sjunger för sin katt means that 'the boy sings to his cat'. But if she sings to his cat, we'd say hon sjunger för hans katt.
I just figured out that sin refers to the subject and hennen would refer to someone else that is not the subject.
- 445
Sin means the cat belongs to her, henne would mean she is singing to another woman/girl's cat
Also, that would be "hennes katt". "Henne" without the -s is the object form for "hon"/"she".
Is it wrong to prounounce sin like it's spelled or does it need to be pronounced like 'shin' because of the letter r?
- 1873
Yes, in some dialects it is pronounced ‘shin’ because of the letter ‘r’ at the end of the preceding word.
I wrote "The girl sings to their cat" and it wasn't accepted. I understand that Sin refers to a mentioned subject but is their an acceptable way to think of it?
- 1342
Is singing for the cat the idiomatic way one would call for the cat in the US? Like call in from the back yard? Or is our girl just a whimsical soul who sings for her cat which then purrs and cuddles up in her lap in delight?
Remember dogs have owners, while cats have servants. So, this is completely logical. :-)