"You are drinking."
Translation:Du dricker.
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Guys a help please..Du = you Ni = you also ?Where you put the correct one ..Ty vm..
To answer my own question I found out that Ni = you to plural..I hope i am right
You're right, that's the difference. Strangely, English doesn't make that distinction.
Actually, the English word "thou" used to be the equivalent to the Swedish word "Du", but it has dropped out of use and "you" has taken on both meanings.
Fun fact: when we created this course, we had 'thou' as a hint in order to try to help learners understand what du means. But we had to remove it since there were too many English native speakers who had no idea what 'thou' was.
Wow that's a surprising revelation! It's so interesting how languages evolve over time and words completely drop out of usage, and new ones are formed or even borrowed from other languages. Thanks for sharing!
The native English speakers ought to read more Eddings... "Why weepest thou, boy?" :-)
That's too bad, I literally use thou semi-regularly in my casual speech. Thee and thou have never been out of my vocabulary!
Except in many southern US states where "you all", or more commonly, "y'all" is the vernacular plural you. Some people in certain cities use variations on "yous guys" as well. Far from standard English, but useful.
Can this be used to mean you are drinking as in you are drinking alcohol? Or does Swedish not use dricker that way?
There is no Swedish counterpart to the English "am/is/are -ing" i.e. the present continuous.
Therefore both "You are drinking" and "You drink" would be translated as "Du/Ni dricker".
So if you see this construction you can be sure that you shouldn't translate "are" with "är".
Could someone explain how Du and Ni are used differently in Swedish? I'm having trouble making a distinction between the two.
I am struggling a bit to remember when to use Ni and Du as I thought Du was singular and the other was plural as you say Ni är pojkar (?) And Du läser (?)
Is "Du" incorrect because "You are drinking" could be singular and plural; thus, making it "Ni"? If that's the case, then "Du" is strictly singular, and you use "Ni" when "You" is possibly plural or is plural in a sentence, right? I'm asking this because I got it wrong for whatever reason when using "Du" when it seemed perfectly applicable since I have no way of telling if it's plural or not without more context for "You are drinking.".
Both are correct since the English “you” doesn’t clarify if it’s plural or singular. “Du” is singular and “Ni” is plural. In rare cases “ni” is used for one singular but that could sound derogatory and impolite since it was once a way to show that there is distance between you.
Also one more thing ..The AR i heard it on youtube as AR but here i hear it as I E..
That depends on the dialect, You can find more info about that in the welcome post.
I disagree Arnauti "håller på och" is slang and you could possibly say it, but never write it. "håller på att" is the correct frase.
How to know the difference between "is drinking" and "drinks"? Its always dricker.
No, the word "Du" should be pronounced Du.
However, "De" (they) should be pronounced Dom
"De" can be pronounce as "dom" - but it can just as well be pronounce "de" (like 'deh', but with a long e).
Don't ever try using "är" when translating English -ing sentences. That concept doesn't exsist in Swedish.
so du singular, focusing on someone, where as ni is plural and used when addresing a crowd ect
I don't understand :( When do we use är ? Because Du and Ni don't use it and sometimes it does .PLEASE HELP ME
Use "är" when translating the English words is and are - but ONLY in sentences without -ing. The person is irrelevant.
Both options are counting it as incorrect, is anyone else having this issue?
If you get this as a multiple choice question, you have to check all correct answers, so you may have to check more than one.
It wasn't multiple choice when I had it, and I was on mobile. It's probably patched by now.
This is seriously confusing me. There's no English distinction being made between the 'you's so I'm stuck guessing which you guys mean. Can you please use y'all? Or (pl)?
Swedish doesn't have the continuous, so "you drink" and "you are drinking" both translate to du dricker.
Um-Im really confuse right now, in the other question i answered it as Du dricker and when i was gonna do again it was not correct and it says that it should be Ni dricker...
Both ways are fine. We use du when talking to one person, and ni when talking to more than one person.
how do i know that this is supposed to be You plural? isn't it talking about one person? "You are drinking" I thought it would be "Du är dricker"
Well - since 2nd person singular and 2nd person plural are the same in English (you) there's absolutely no way of knowing if it should be "du" or "ni" in Swedish. I'm pretty sure both "du dricker" and "ni dricker" are valid translations in this case.
As for your second thought - the "Du är dricker" is an impossible construction in Swedish. Both "You drink" and "You're drinking" translates to "Du dricker" (or, in the case of plural you in English, "Ni dricker"). Swedish doesn't differentiate between progressive and non-progressive forms - "du dricker" is both progressive and non-progressive at the same time. Makes sense? :-)
How do I know if they mean plural or not just with you? In that situation it could also be "you are drinking" (alone/, ao it would be du?
Well - since 2nd person singular and 2nd person plural are the same in English (you) there's absolutely no way of knowing if it should be "du" or "ni" in Swedish. I'm pretty sure both "du dricker" and "ni dricker" are valid translations in this case.
I have a question, please. When do you use "är"? The sample "You are drinking" has a Swedish translation "Ni dricker". Shouldn't the verb "are" be translated to "är"? Thank you!
Isnt it a little unfair that I literally cannot see whether this is meant in plural or singular
As far as I know DuoLingo accepts both "du" and "ni" as Swedish translations whenever "you" is used in English, unless the context makes it clear that it must refer to a group of people (thus making it "ni" by default).
I know the mods will be upset when I write this, but this is the way those two words are used in the southwest (both in the town were I grew up and in the village where I currently live).
du: "you" when used with a singular person, whom you're conversing with.
ni: "you" when used with a group of people, whom you're conversing with.
man: "you" when used in an impersonal way (when "you" would imply "everyone" in general), e.g. "You shouldn't swim there" (Man bör inte simma där).
Ni: not used in this region, and some people here get upset when they receive letters from sellers trying to use "Ni" as a polite way of saying "du". In this region "du" is the polite way of addressing someone, and by using "Ni" people show that they're "better" and that they're trying to show off by using "fancy language".
So - my advise is to keep it simple. Use "du" unless the context makes it obvious that you're referring to a group. That way you won't ever be far off from the way "you" would be translated in the southwest.
I see your point, but as a Swede I'd say that it's even harder for me to see whether "You're drinking" in English is singular or plural... I never know if you're (jupe, that pronoun again, again impossible to say whether it's singular or plural) refering to one person or a group.
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Not fair to get it wrong when english doesn't have the plural distinction... you've ruined my perfect score