17 Comments
Picture of Stockholms skärgård from Wikimedia.
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There's a nice map of it in Swedish wikipedia where you can see how big it is: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholms_sk%C3%A4rg%C3%A5rd
There's a similar archipelago outside of Gothenburg too which is very easily accessible. These areas have great importance as recreation areas and generally in Swedish culture, which is why we thought this was an important word to include in the course.
Is an achipelago/skärgård is a group of islands or something? I've never heard this word before but upon a quick search looks like it's something like that
A skär is a small stony island which was created during the ice ages. A skärgård is a landscape composed out of these little islands, only seen in northern europe and in the northern atlantic. I have never heard of it either, I will trust Wikipedia on this one.
An archipelago is basically a chain of islands, youll see them in various places if you look at a world map. Id venture to guess that skär is related to the english word skerry (another uncommon geographical word).
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May I ask why not "Stockholm's archipelago?" And would there never be a reason to use "Stockholm's archipelago?"
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It's incorrect to use the apostrophe for the genitive in Swedish, although you can certainly find lots of cases where people do anyway (hint: look at the names of hair salons and the like).
Exception: You may use an apostrophe for names that end in an s sound if it's absolutely necessary for clarity (Mats - Mats') but you shouldn't normally use the apostrophe there either.
Strange enough duolingo tells me I had a typo because I didn't include the apostrophe... (shall use the button for it)
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Rereading my old answer here made me a bit confused. I'm not sure what the original question was really about, it looks like I might have answered a a different question. Anyway if you get this as a translation exercise, of course you should type Stockholm's archipelago with an apostrophe in English, but if you get it as a listen and type in Swedish, you must write Stockholms skärgård since it's incorrect to add an apostrophe in Swedish.
In English, you could also write Stockholm archipelago, with or without 'the', we accept both + versions with 'of'. I don't think anyone ever calls it "Stockholms archipelago" without an apostrophe in English.
Sounds OK to me, but we're currently running A/B tests with the voice so we might not hear the same thing. What seems to be the problem to you?
To me it sounds like "Stock$#&^% skärgård". Since we might not hear the same thing I just recorded the thing I hear: https://clyp.it/s21vb5sd
I'm hoping that typing "archipelago" so many times here will finally get "archipegalo" out of my head, lol. I don't know why, but I always try to say it wrong. This is what comes from being landlocked!
