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- "He eats the bread and the ap…
"He eats the bread and the apple."
Translation:Han spiser brødet og æblet.
29 Comments
Because this is a t-word. My English is not so good to explain you the rules in a proper way but there are 2 types of substantives in Danish: the one with "en" and the others with "et". Like "en bil" and "et hus". Both mean "a" in English. N-words are like mixed feminin and masculine gendre,t-words are neutrum. About 75% are the n-substantives. The bad news are that there is no strict rule which words go with "en" and which ones with "et". You just have to learn it. Oh,and the ending -en or -et is like "the" in English. I hope you understood me... ;-)
In swedish we have a rule of thumb that is connected to the substantive in neutrum singular defined form. For example "Hus" (house) translates to "Huset" (the house), ends with "et" and therefore we say "Ett hus" (a house) in swedish. "Bil" -> "Bilen", ends with "en", therefore "En bil" = Car -> The car -> A car
Not sure, but it seames to me that Danish works the same way in this regard. Please confirm someone.
It is not pronounced, just as in Norwegian in most of the cases, I believe, as far I'm seeing things, but, for instance, we can see just up ahead, I believe in the "DEFINITE" skill, that the word "kød"(meat) in the definite form we do pronounce the "t" rather than the so amazing and eccentric "d" pronunciation of the wonderful language, becoming, therefore, somewhat "kø-t" the pronunciation, if you pay really close attention to how they pronounce it - but, for the most part, again, that I've been seeing, actually all of the rest besides this eample I just showed follwing the eccentric pronunciation of the letter "d", such as in "brød" as well, for instance, taking the word "salt" as an example we do not pronounce the "t" such as in Swedish, from as far as I've been hearing from folks such as you and others who do know some about the language, but as in Norwegian pronouncing only the "e" becoming something like "salte". Hope I've been able to be of some help! Great learning! Farvel!
Goddag, Joseph. That is to mark the definite form - meaning: "the apple". Furthermore, because the word "æble" already ends with the vowel "e" so it takes only "t" to show that whoever is saying is specifying which apple it is(known grammatically as "the definite form") - this, what I've just said is explained by the the great danish team in more details in the notes from the skill called "DEFINITES" right bellow the skill "FOODS" and right next to "PLURALS" just right bellow ahead, there you'll find:
"If the noun already ends with -e most often only -n (for common) or -t (for neuter) is appended:
et æble (an apple, neuter gender) becomes æblet (the apple)."
Check this post, people has been gathering different ways to do it across different platforms. https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/44563818