"Hundens svans är lång."

Translation: The dog's tail is long.

[Jan-Olav]

'Svans' is pronounced with a short a. With long a it would be the genitive form of svan (swan).

[Adrian212157]

So "en svans svans är kort" for "a swan's tail is short"?

[devalanteriel]

Correct. :)

[thsisabadname4]

Could a more correct english translation be "The dog's tail is long"

[historicbruno]

It should definitely be "the dog's tail" in English. Saying "the tail of the dog" would sound awkward at best to a native speaker, although it's understandably confusing because sometimes we do prefer "of" (the periphrastic possessive).

[AnCatDubh]

So it’s a cognate of Schwanz? Is it used as a crude word in Swedish too?

[Arnauti]

Cognate yes, not used to mean that other thing by anyone over the age of 5 I think.

[hornedhorse9]

Hey why is duolingo no longer testing writing? All i have are click boxes. And its not testing my spelling

[Arnauti]

That's a very good question. It's a general thing for all courses and not specific for our course, so it should be discussed in the general forums, and it is. Here's a link to one of the most recent posts about it: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/14171868

[kendall1293]

For a noun like 'svans,' what would the possessive form look like? Is it something like 'svanses' or is no 's' added?

[EGull91]

The possessive of svans is svansens - it has to be in definitive form first (the tail) svans - svansen - svansens

tail - the tail - the tail's

[devalanteriel]

Indefinites can also take the possessive, although this is hardly common. The possessive form in this case is identical: svans. If needed for clarity, an apostrophe can be added: svans', although this is heavily discouraged by modern styleguides and almost never used in practice.

[jennifer856684]

what is plural of svans

[AddrError]

Svansar