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- Topic: Swedish >
- "Min tjej bor i Sverige."
58 Comments
Would "min flicka" imply daughter? If so would it be a young daughter or any age? Not sure if infantalizing your adult children is as common everywhere as here.
It could be any age but it usually sounds weird if it's not a child. And dotter (daughter) is still a lot more common.
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Other than that tjej can mean just 'girl' too, but flickvän is always someone's partner, no. tjej is a tad more colloquial but it's also probably used more than flickvän.
We're aware that some people do use "girl" like that, but in general we find that it just confuses the larger majority that does not. So in English, we stick to "girl" meaning "female child" but not "girlfriend".
Well I disagree. Girl or boy with the possessive imply girlfriend and boyfriend. You have even Otis Redding song "my girl, I'm talkimg 'bout my girl..."
Well, it can mean ’girl’ and then the difference is very overlapping, but flicka generally only refers to young girls whereas tjej can be used for older girls as well. However, you can also say tjej to mean girlfriend, but not flicka. If you use flicka then it sounds like you’re saying ’daughter’.
So, it could be translated to "gal" perhaps, when using it for older girls?
I don't think we accept it (more info on that in the FAQ), but it's a good comparison, yeah.
No. The tj sound isn't found in the English language. I was told to pronounce it inbetween saying the letter s- and saying the sound sh-. There's a great video of it on youtube that you can watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtpbB5-kA_0
When clicking on the word, it is the "k" sound like "shek", but in the whole sentence it sounds like "shey". Is this correct? If so, when would i pronounce it which way?
it is not, as far as i can say. the audio-on-hover seems to be wrong here.
No, the Swedish tjej always refers to a girlfriend here - and while "girl" can be used like that in English, it is far too colloquial to accept.
Not if you use a possessive - min tjej would always be presumed to be about a girlfriend unless extremely clear from context.
In English you would also say "my girl", meaning "my girlfriend". Otherwise you would say "my daughter". Is is different from "THE girl". Therefore "my girl" should be accepted as correct answer, even if it is not important. ;-)
The point is that it's not a very good translation, and accepting it would definitely give a lot of learners the wrong idea - especially the many who are not native English speakers. The course isn't supposed to accept all technically correct translations, just those that are reasonably feasible. I really do not think "my girl" fits that criterion.
tjej typically means just "girl", but you can use it to mean "girlfriend" as well. A flickvän, however, is always a girlfriend.
so, could I use "min tjej" as in "my daughter", the same way "my girl" is sometimes used in english?
You could, given the right context, but I really wouldn't. It's not common and it can sound really weird in the wrong context.
tjej originally just meant "girl", then came to mean "girlfriend" as well.
flickvän only has the "girlfriend" meaning.
"My girl lives in sweden" is marked as incorrect even though girl is given as a translation of the word tjej
Both are very common, although tjej is more colloquial. I don't want to guess at ratios.
devalanteriel, your comment advising why "my girl lives in Sweden" is marked incorrect is all very well, but when you hover over tjej it shows "girl" as an option. You can't be right and wrong at the same time! Consistency please!
Hints are set coursewide and hence do not necessarily apply to individual sentences.
"Tjej", ok...why? We just learned flickvän, so what does this word have that the other doesn't?
Both words are common, so you'll want to learn both. I'm sure whatever your native language is, you also have plenty of concepts for which people use multiple words. :)
