12 Comments
505
'Svans' is pronounced with a short a. With long a it would be the genitive form of svan (swan).
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).
- 1625
So it’s a cognate of Schwanz? Is it used as a crude word in Swedish too?
- 893
Cognate yes, not used to mean that other thing by anyone over the age of 5 I think.
Hey why is duolingo no longer testing writing? All i have are click boxes. And its not testing my spelling
- 893
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
For a noun like 'svans,' what would the possessive form look like? Is it something like 'svanses' or is no 's' added?
- 505
It is the same although it wouldn't be used as often as the possesive of the determinate form svansens.
