33 Comments
Is it close enough to accept as a translation? There is also "That there...", similar to "Det där..." and so on. I wonder if these are actually the result of Scandinavian immigrants to the early US. It's said that they contributed a little to the American accent.
BTW I really want to make my appreciation known for you and the other Swedish course mods/creators. I speak Spanish fluently so I can confidently say that aspects of the Spanish course are atrocious, and they make me doubt whether I can trust the German course that I am learning from scratch... What's worse, they don't seem to answer any doubts or accept corrections.
It is great having people like you who are actually interested in language and provide feedback so quickly, and even more so in comparison to the other courses I take.
I really feel I can count on you guys, keep it up!
Too dialectal to be included as translation in my opinion, we'll try to stick to a more standard US English. Regarding the origins of it I really have no idea, but I find it doubtful that it has to do with Scandinavian immigrants. The people who migrated from Scandinavia to America mostly settled in the US Midwest.
As for your appreciation, thank you very much! It makes us glad to hear our active help is so well appreciated among you learners. The way I see it, the possibility to ask a few questions and have a native answer is really important for avoiding making beginner mistakes and instead getting on the right track. :)
I don't believe it's too dialectical to be included. It's not considered educated English, but "this here" and "that there" are part of the language, and have been for centuries. This here article discusses it.
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It's not an accepted answer in e.g. the German course, I didn't check all courses but I don't think it is in other courses either, and they don't seem to get reports asking to add it either. I think the reason people want to add it when translating from Swedish into English is the mistaken feeling that det här somehow does not really mean this. So I think it would on the contrary be slightly misleading to accept this answer.
I would agree. It is dialectical, but it's also both widely used and is the literal translation. So not including it just seems like an Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence for English speakers who do use it and can see that that is what the words mean on the "other side". By the way, I second what OP said, the Swedish admins here are great!
I'm a southerner and that is exactly what I put, alas it was wrong. It is dialectal, but it is also grammatically correct. And there have been several times when Duo accepts un-idiosymatic answers simply because they are still grammtically correct. I think it should count, bit I also say y'all.
I also think it translates well literally in Yorkshire (Northern England) dialect as This here book is mine. Which I guess makes sense given the connections between the two places - York was the Viking capital in England.
i`m from the u s midwest. my grandma was Swedish. this here is common usage especially with the eastern mountain folk.
Since the southerners often had nannies that weren't native English speakers and the children were under their care more often than their parents, their language was more influenced by their nannies than parents. (this I learned in my linguistics classes in college) Also since they were often educated at home rather than in a school where they would hear others speaking, proper English was not learned early. The pronunciation and grammar is definitely idiomatic and still in the south(I taught in Georgia and had to have "translators" in the classes who could explain what the students were saying. i.e. "pin " could mean various types of pins, but meant pen, and "earl" was not a person, but oil, for example; and these were high school students.
So the idiomatic that there and this here is understandably not standard English, but definitely common, and excepted.
Hi airelibre, I am using this access to comment on a statement you make above. I quite agree with your praise for the Swedish moderators, but am surprised at your caning of the Spanish ones. In one year DL has taught me enough Spanish to read newspapers and scientific articles with ease and occasional use of dictionaries. And DL has accepted quite a few of my (at times ignorant) suggestions. Ignorance can be bliss.
Ignorance is bliss, you're right. I wouldn't complain if I hadn't seen how fantastic the Swedish and Turkish courses are. They sort out error reports very quickly (not after months of waiting) and they answer grammatical questions quickly and very well. The Spanish and German moderators seem non-existent.
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It's used in the northern counties of the UK too. Particularly Yorkshire, where I grew up.
"This book is mine" = "Den här boken är min."
But if I want to say: "This is my book." I would have to say: "Det här är min bok."
Did I got it right?
"this the book is mine" ?Why is the "en" added to bok in this case? Is it "This, the book, is mine?"
Because it is a definite noun.
boken - the book en bok - a book
Den här boken är min - This book is mine but Jag har en book - I have a book
More explanations: http://www2.hhs.se/isa/swedish/chap3.htm http://blogs.transparent.com/swedish/the-swedish-definite-vs-indefinite/
aah thank you... because its this particular book, not just any book. i see. I have some trouble with explainations still on here, since they always assume i can remember all the things i was taught in school. The words "indefinate noun" (for example) havent crossed my mind for 25 years. i kinda feel like i need to study english again before i can understand the explainations on here sometimes. but yours was simplified enough even for me. tack!
One of the wonders of learning another language is that you start to see the patterns that languages follow. Swedish is very similar to English, and much of what is different is actually from the influence French had on the development of modern English. When it comes to understanding a language term, such as "indefinite noun", I highly recommend checking Wikipedia, as the explanations there are excellent.
And there is a lot of words that are similar to the Dutch :D Good thing that I know French, English and a little bit of Dutch haha
''Denna boken är min'' or ''den här boken är min'' is the same? There are both definite forms? No? Or ''denna boken är min'' is an incorrect answer?
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Both are acceptable, and there's one more form which also means the same thing: denna bok. They are all demonstrative forms.
denna boken is a colloquial form mostly used in the Southern and Western parts of Sweden, but it's very common. It isn't really correct in formal writing, but it's used a lot in informal contexts so we accept it anyway.
denna bok is the correct written form, but it sounds extremely old-fashioned or formal in speech.
So in speech, you'll normally hear either den här boken or denna boken
and in writing, it should be either den här boken or denna bok
I wanna ask question Is (den här/det här/de här) to indicate close things like (this/these) in English, and (denna/ detta/dessa) to indicate far things like (that/those) in English? And as I noticed that (den här/det här/de här) are followed by definit form or possessive form, and (denna/ detta/dessa) are followed by indefinite form. Is that correct?
den här, det här, de här, denne (old masculine form of denna), denna, detta, and dessa are all for this/these in English. den där, det där, and de där are for that/those.
What's the difference between "denna bok" and "den här boken" ? Jag förstår inte när jag behover en eller autren.
It says in the grammatical case before the exercises, these are the same, but "denna bok" is more formal ._.
When do I use For example äpplett
Or den svenska
When do I ise en,ett Or den,det?
I'm not 100% sure if I'm understanding your question, so I will just pack a bunch of information into my answer and you can use whatever is helpful to you. En and ett are indefinite articles and mean "a/an" in English. En is used for en-gender nouns, and ett is used for ett-gender nouns. The definite articles, meaning "the," are suffixes in Swedish: -en and -et. You add these endings onto the ends of the words in order to make them carry the meaning of "the." Den and det are called "front definite articles" and go before nouns (along with the suffixes) when there are adjectives (for example: "the brown dog" = den bruna hunden). Den här and det här mean "this".
