"I have no computer."
Translation:Jag har ingen dator.
15 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Can anyone explain when to use 'inte' or 'ingen' ect.? Is there a hard and fast rule to it?
42
I'm no native speaker, so this is only my observations: Inte translates best to not. I do not like = Jag tycker inte om. Ingen, inget, inga translates to no, followed by an object. I have no car = Jag har ingen bil.
That makes more sense, cheers mate, I'll look into it more and see what I can find :)
ingen - inte någon: Jag har ingen hund (sing. en-word)
inget - inte något: Jag har inget hus (sing. ett-word)
inga - inte några: Jag har inga barn (plural)
This question was really well explained on another thread (I don't remember which one, or I'd point you to it). But what what they said was that "ingen" and "inget" were contractions, "inte en" and "inte ett" respectively. "Inga" just developed as the plural for it, I think (that last is speculation, though!)
Is this "dator", as the plural form of the english (and maybe swedish as well) "data"?
No, it's data plus the ending -or which is a form of the same ending as you have in computer in English. (In English you sometimes have the ending -er, like in 'computer', and sometimes the ending -or, like in predator.)
data is used as a mass noun in Swedish.
Yes, it's like a fake word, created by analogy with other words like traktor and kalkylator. Btw another possible word for it is datamaskin.
The Danes use "computer" by the way. I guess you can say "datamaskine" too, but computer is taught by duolingo.
- 1906
No, there are a lot of English words which go into Swedish untranslated, but "computer" is definitely not one of them. "Dator" is so much shorter and more convenient to say.