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- Topic: Norwegian (Bokmål) >
- "Mannen elsker jenta si."
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Why would that cause problems? Because there "hans" would mean that he posesses the girl? As in slavery?
1330
What is the most likely connotation of "jenta si" in this sentence? Is this a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship? A father/daughter relationship? I'm just thinking that "his girl" can have multiple meanings in English...
It's equally ambiguous in Norwegian. This could be referring to either his daughter or his girlfriend.
A little bit late to the party, but a couple of times I have written "daughter" as translation for "jenta" and it turned out to be correct.
Can I say 'Jeg elsker jenta si' and 'Du elsker jenta si' or I can just use it for hun, han, det and de?
Yeah, as a Dutch person that seems to make sense. 'Sin' really resembles 'zijn' which literally translates to the English 'his.' Therefore, I would only associate it with the third person singular (his/hers/its). I really wouldn't have given it a second thought if I hadn't seen this post.
What if I wanted to say "I like his/her/their girl", wouldn't I use "si" ? If not how could I say that ?
"Jeg liker hans/hennes/deres jente"; reflexive possessive such as 'si/sin/sitt/sine' are used when the "owner" is the subject, not someone else. Sometimes it can be a bit tricky to tell who/what the subject of the sentence is.
So what's the difference between "Mannen elsker jenta si" and "Mannen elsker jenta hans"?
The second would be saying the man loves another mans girl. If you are referring to his girl you use si.
Why is it "jenta si" but it "kvinnen sin"
How do you differentiate between si, sin, sitt. Are not both the woman and girl feminine?
Also why was it "lunsjen sin"?
Im trying to understand. Maybe thia will be picked up the more I practice and learn the language, but right now it is difficult to understand.
So "en" after the word ( making it "the" ) makes it masculine? Even if it's a feminine word?
'en' is for masculine, yes, but it is also used for feminine words, it's just anomaly. You have the choice of using the feminine particle ''ei" or ''en''. If you look at the Tips and Notes under the 1st and 2nd Basics module it explains this.
Masculine: en mann (a man), mannen (the man) Feminine: ei or en kvinne (a woman), kvinna or kvinnen (the woman)
From 1st Basics: All feminine gendered nouns can be classified as masculine gender as well. In theory, one could treat all feminine nouns as masculine ones, but most Norwegians still use the feminine form, especially for certain words.
The choice really is up to you! Both en kvinne and ei kvinne are grammatically correct, and the tendency to use the feminine gender depends on geography and dialect. We have decided to teach it where it is most natural to use it, with words such as jente meaning girl, for example.
"If you look at the Tips and Notes under the 1st and 2nd Basics module it explains this."
This simple sentence just changed my world. I was having such a tough time with figuring out the differences and when to use certain (versions) of words. it never crossed my mind that Tips would have the grammatical instruction.
although doing things the hard way and without reading Tips did teach me how to break down the sentences on my own and find the rule of thumb for most. However, now I can actually understand WHY its a rule of thumb XD
Ok, so "si" goes with "jenta" because it's feminine right? Then why, in a previous sentece, I had to use "kvinnen sin" and "si" was wrong? Isn't "woman" feminine too?!
Because it has to be either "kvinna si" or "kvinnen sin", since "kvinnen" is masculine and "kvinna" is femine.
They mention in the key most of the possessives but not this one. I do not understand.
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Feminine, neuter, masculine.
Han elsker kona si. (fem.)
Han elsker barnet sitt. (neut.)
Han elsker sønnen sin. (masc.)
One further:
Han elsker hundene sine (plural).
N.B.: I'm not a native speaker.
