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- "Det finns inget kaffe."
44 Comments
No problems with this sentence. It just makes me sad! </pours another cup>
560
I'm confused by "inga", too. I've been negating the verb by placing inte after it. If "det finns" means "there is", then "det finns inte" should mean "there is not". Unless we are trying to say, "there is no" using inga? Like "pas" vs. "rien" in French?
- 1453
Yes, inte negates verbs and ingen/inget/inga negates nouns. Det finns inte … would be There is not … (negated verb) but Det finns inget/ingen/inga … means There is no … (negated noun).
inget is for singular neuter
ingen is for singular common gender
inga is for plural regardless of gender
Oh, so it would be like, for example: "Det finns inte en hund" for "There is not a dog" and "Det finns ingen hund" for "There is no dog"?
So, it corresponds to English "any" only in negations like "I don't have any questions" (but not in "Do you have any questions?"), am I right?
That's the gist of it. Technically the more literal translation to your sentence would be "Jag har inte några frågor", but "Jag har inga frågor" is a perfectly valid and arguably more natural-sounding translation too.
I don't know when use it.! is there any difference between inte and inga, -et, -en?
- Inte = "Not", negates verbs
- Inget = "No", negates ett-nouns
- Ingen = "No", negates en-nouns
- Inga = "No", negates plural nouns
It's like saying "Il n'est pas de café" in French or "Es ist kein Kaffee" in German: it doesn't make any sense! I can't give any examples in English because the verb in that circumstance is actually "is", but what I can say that is that it's an expression and that (I think) there is not real explanation for it.( even though we find the same thing in Norwegian: "det finnes")
"Det är inget kaffe" is a valid sentence in Swedish, or at least it can be with certain intonation. It's the equivalent of saying "That's no coffee!", as if someone told you whatever you're drinking was coffee and you're deeply offended that it is, in fact, not.
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See above for ingen/inget/inga: they're used for "no" as in "none are available/free/existing/here/etc" for n-nouns, t-nouns, and plural nouns, respectively.
Nej is purely used in dialog, as in the opposite of "yes".
- Dricker du?
- Nej, det finns inget kaffe.
Shouldn't it be Det finns ingen kaffe? (because it is en kaffe. This suggests that it is ett kaffe)
Kaffe is indeed a t-gender word. "En kaffe" would only be used to talk about "a cup of coffee"
Jag beställer en kaffe - "I order a (cup of) coffee"
"There exists no coffee" didn't work, which sounds odd but also sounds grammatically correct. I just said it by accident anyway :)
Well, "exists" would imply that there exists no coffee whatsoever. That is not the point here. They have probably just run out of coffee for the moment. Therefore, "exists" would not work.
The word "finns" sometimes has the meaning of "exists", but you have to look at the context. Usually "exist" is not an optimal translation since we would use existerar instead of finns.
nej is used for conversation as the opposite of yes. Technically, I suppose you could use nej, but it wouldn't be gramatically correct.
I my knowledge that Inget is for Ett word, but is kaffe is a Ett word? why now Det finns ingen kaffe?
I finally get this. These comments were more useful than my actual swedish teacher. How sad is that
Well, at least you get it now, and that's the important thing! :)
