"They have a thousand cats and hundreds of dogs."
Translation:De har tusen katter och hundratals hundar.
19 Comments
Varför hundratals och inte hundratal? Är det genitiv plural? Men varför genitiv?
Yup, genitive plural. English actually basically does the same, but Swedish doesn't really have the "x of y" way of phrasing possession.
But in English "of dogs" is genitive and in Swedish "hundreds", and not the dogs. Or do I miss something?
Note that it is
ett hundratal hundar = around one hundred dogs
but(!) hundratals hundar = hundreds of dogs = several hundred dogs
Aren't these just special quantity expressions in both languages? Compare to "a couple of", "dozens of", "lots of" etc.
I'm not really sure I understand the question. English and Swedish really work the same here.
- hundratal = hundreds, both are nouns in the indefinite plural
- -s = of, different ways of expressing possession
- hundar = dogs, both are nouns in the indefinite plural
Does that clarify it? :)
I think she means that in English dogs "possess" hundreds and in Swedish it is the other way around. Compare:
skolans namn - the name of the school
hundratals hundar - hundreds of dogs (not dogs of hundreds)
Ah, yeah - thanks. That sounds likely.
In that case, all I can really say is that English has two ways of showing possession ("x's y" or "the y of x"), but Swedish only has one of them - so the same phrase in Swedish corresponds to both or either in English.
"to have" = "att ha"
The rest is "har": jag har, du har, han/hon/hen har, vi har, ni har, de har.
Easy peasy :)?
As long as a number is less than one million, it is always one word in Swedish (123456 = hundratjugotretusenfyrahundrafemtiosex), but it is normal not to use letters if it is bigger than twelve :).
Why does it also suggest "med" or "om"? And why are u not supposed to write "av" here? It's just very confusing when you're supposed to use a certain word like "katterna" something like that and when you're just supposed to write "den" for "The". I feel like "Svenksa" is very particular, but maybe that's just me and English is just like that.
