"No, not a tomato! A lemon!"

Translation: Nej, inte en tomat! En citron!

[ChloeWReuben]

I want to know the story behind this

[Awesomemango20]

Man, I guess they really don't want a tomato. Why they gotta yell about it?

[WasSapppp777]

This happens in gordon ramsey' hell kitchen

[Grace_Lejonet]

How do you say idiot sandwich

[MTAliz]

Idiot smörgås

[devalanteriel]

Idiotsmörgås without a space, since it's a compound.

[Namor_Votilav]

Why not "Nej, en tomat inte"?

[devalanteriel]

Not sure about the exact grammatical reasons, but it's the wrong word order. Just like in English, in this case: you can't really say No, a tomato not.

Edit: hmm. Actually, you probably can say that in English, although it sounds contrived. Anyway, doesn't work in Swedish. :)

[Zmrzlina]

Moderator agrees and approves.

[DerpyPhantom]

The thing is, for some reason, you can say "Han talar inte svenska" meaning literally, "he speaks not Swedish" I'm not sure what's going on with this one...

[devalanteriel]

Right, but that one's easier because it contains subject + verb + object, in which case the inte placement is typically straightforward (it goes after the verb but you put qualifiers between the two).

[LaneV88]

Oh, nm devalanteriel got to it before me.

I think because the "not" (inte) comes always comes after a verb? Don't quote me on this; I'm still new to Swedish too.

[Peter359678]

To me when i read that sentence it's more like, "I speak no Swedish"

[Donguiri44]

Nej, inte tomat! En citron!

Is this gramatically incorrect to say? Just out of curiosity. Realise that you have to be literal on DuoLingo

[Arnauti]

It isn't grammatically incorrect, but it would be No, not tomato! A lemon! in English, so it's a different sentence.

[bodwisteve]

i notice na is one of the solutions. is there a different between that and nej ?

[Lundgren8]

Do you mean nä? It’s a colloquial/spoken version of nej. Much like ’yeah’ for ’yes’ in English.

[littlefinger997]

So "inte" is negation for verbs and nouns or I got something wrong?

[Arnauti]

inte negates verbs and ingen, inget, inga negates nouns.

[littlefinger997]

Now I get it. Tack. I've got just few more questions. I suppose ingen goes before en nouns and inget before ett nouns, but when do we use inga, and why is in this sentence inte instead of ingen?

[Arnauti]

inga is for plural regardless of gender, and it's inte here because what is negated is an action although it is not mentioned in the sentence. Like, don't bring a lemon.

[littlefinger997]

Ok, tack så mycket

[XxAlbxy]

If your having trouble saying citron remember lemon has citrus

[FranekYeet]

Why is "Nej, inte tomaten..." wrong? Doesn't "tomaten" mean "a tomato?"

[Gnurfel]

tomaten means the tomato.

You need to use en tomat, which means a tomato