"Ett barn dricker mjölk."
Translation:A child is drinking milk.
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I don't understand. When do I use ett and when do i use en? After all, don't they mean the same thing?
They're different genders, just like e.g. un and una in Spanish, but with no biological connotation.
For some more info, please have a look here: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/26420394/Answers-to-some-common-questions-on-grammar-that-beginners-have
This is good to know even now, thanks. I typed in "A child drinks milk" and Duo said it was wrong - I guess probably because "drinks" wasn't an option in the tiles, but I choose to type instead (helps me remember spelling...) so never see the tiles. Sigh.
If 'ett' in this sentence is 'one' how would a person then say 'the' to make the sentence read 'the child....'?
Try pronouncing it like "myolk" and then replace the "o" sound with how you would pronounce the "u" in "burn"
Is the 'is' here really a mandatory translation? Why is 'A child drinking milk' inaccurate?
Yes. 'A child drinking milk' would be ett barn som dricker mjölk in Swedish.
"A child drinking milk" isn't a valid sentence in English. You can sort of get away with using it as a noun phrase ("A child drinking milk is a happy child." "Don't tell jokes to a child drinking milk."), but it sounds really awkward.
I don't know why they expect us to get these hearing questions right. They are very, very hard to understand especially if they don't sound the exact same as we say it.
"children" is the plural, meaning more than one child. But ett means "one" or "a", so it's only one child.
You don't really, it's mostly context. (in speech you'll hear it because it'll be more stressed when it means one).
That would be a different question, because 'mjölk' would need to be in the definite form.
Vikings may have raided the British Isles for supplies, but English sure raided your language for words.
This app chooses whatever the hell it wants with EN and ETT. It literally made me translate the same sentence with ETT and EN more than twice and its hit or miss. Their code is lacking big time, or they dont care about it to be honest. Im very frustrated because all i get is ads over and over to buy Plus, and there is no way in hell ill buy it with all this mistakes!!!!!
