"De äter bröd."
Translation:They are eating bread.
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Is 'de' pronounced like 'the' or 'don'? There are both pronunciations on forvo.
These are really two different words. But the Swedes can't face that 'de' has, in the spoken language, disappeared in favour of 'dom', and they stubbornly keep writing a word that has passed away.
I've heard that Swedish and the other Nordic languages were known for being harder to learn in terms of spelling. Especially Danish.
I study Norwegian and among Scandinavian languages, it's the easiest and most logical
I started learning Swedish out of all the Norse languages because that's the most spoken (judging from what I've found)
I can't think of a single word in English that is like that, actually. Can anyone name one?
illijitimit Here comes a handful!
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/568043/tricky-1920s-poem-english-pronunciation-inconsistencies
If they still write it and go against its disappearance, then it hasn't really disappeared. Don't people usually control the evolution of language ( except for Arabic, as it's the holy language of a descended book ) ?
Well, there is a difference between "de" and "dem" ("de" = they and "dem" = them), but both are pronounced "dom".
Hi. From what I understand so far, "de" is "they" in English, "äter" is "eats or eating" and "bröd is bread". I would think this reads "they eat bread", but it turns out the answer is "they are eating bread". Why?
Also, to say "they are eating bread" would it also be correct to write "De är äter bröd"? Why? Why not?
We don't really have a continuous construction in English like is eating, so äter covers both is eating and eat. 'They eat bread is also an accepted answer here.
"De läser" (laser means the same thing as the English word laser does), but otherwise yes.
My teacher used to say that Swedes use dom and Swedish speakers in Finland use de
I would say this generally correct. After living in Finland for two years and learning Finnish have since started on Swedish. However some do use the dom because they want to be as close to actual swedish as possible.
Yep. As Arnauti has already explained, Swedish doesn't really make a distinction between continuous and simple present.
We often do in informal writing, and it's accepted (or should be) when translating, but there's a problem with the dictation exercises, so unfortunately dom is not an accepted answer in those.
Well this is different. I was taken aback because I have been learning Norwegian for a year. The same word in Norwegian is pronounced like 'dee' in English. I initially thought this was an error.
Random question but, should I say fjäderfän or fågelkött to refer to the meat of a bird?
I'd use the name of the bird - like chicken, or turkey, etc. Swedish doesn't really use an equivalent of "poultry" for talking about meats. That said, if you really do need to use a term - go with fågelkött.
What's the difference between simple present and present progressive in Swedish?
Short answer is that it isn't used like in english, and it is quite advanced, but I'll attempt to explain it here:
Present progressive (or as it's called in swedish, presens particip) is not used as it is in English. In swedish presens particip work like adverbs that can't be conjugated, so they describe that the main word in the sentence is doing the verb basically.
An example:
"He eats sitting down" - "han äter sittande", "sitter" is "sit" and "sittande" would be the present progressive form of "sitter".
The conjugation "-ande/-andes/-ende/-endes" is indicative of present progressive (presens particip in swedish). It can be used indicatively: "En sittande man äter" - "a sitting man eats" Or predicatively: "En man äter sittande" - "a man eats sitting (down)".
"Hon kommer springande" - "she comes running" - "springande" is describing the main verb in the sentence "kommer".
"En skrattande pojke" - "a laughing boy", where "skrattande" is used to describe the boy.
You can not use this verb form on its own like you can in english. "Han är ätande" the literal translation of "he is eating" is not a complete sentence in swedish, instead present simple is used: "han äter".
You probably mean svårt, since hårt means hard as in the opposite of soft.
Does anyone else have problems with Ms. Red, problems like I have with her? Mr. Green rarely finds things wrong with what I do, other than to comment on typos and a rare wrong. Whereas, Ms. Red is constantly marking me wrong. Anyone?
