"Sveriges västkust"
Translation:Sweden's west coast
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I remember it from vastergotland and ostergotland, and there relative positions in Sweden.
What does "Sweden's west coast" actually mean? I mean, Sweden doesn't really have that much of a geographical west coast, so is this just a grammatical practice that has no link with reality or does it mean the shorter kind of western coast in southern Sweden? I'd like to know what it means in case I ever encounter this topic in a real conversation :)
What? Have you seen a map of Sweden? The south coast may not be much to write home about, but he west coast goes from where we split from Norway all the way down to where the country ends. The East coast may be longer, but the West coast has been more important from an economic point of view since the ships that sail from there have more places to go to.
Of course I have seen a map of Sweden, that's how I knew to ask this question. So the west coast just means the smaller piece of coast that I referred to as "[not] that much of a geographical west coast", if I understood your comment correct? It just struck me as weird because, as you said, the east coast is longer (making the west coast seem even smaller) and I personally am more used to hearing people use the terms "east coast" and "west coast" only when the coast is very long compared to the size of the country, as English is not my mother language and the word "coast" is not an unequivocal translation of the word in my language. Thank you for clearing it up for me :)
My brother in law is from there, I will ask him if he thinks Sweden has much of a west coast ;)
Why should the translation be "the west coast" if the swedish word is "västkust" and not "västkusten" ?
After the genitive, we always have the indeterminate form, just like you do in English – you can't say the country's the coast, this works the same in Swedish.
