{"id":16,"date":"2008-07-04T01:53:38","date_gmt":"2008-07-04T05:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=16"},"modified":"2008-07-04T01:53:38","modified_gmt":"2008-07-04T05:53:38","slug":"en-or-ett-continued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/en-or-ett-continued\/","title":{"rendered":"En or Ett Continued"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember when we talked about \u201cett<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cen<\/strong>\u201d words? I think my post confused a couple of people, who were quick to point out that you can\u2019t put an indefinite article in front of SOME nouns. Yes, that is correct. But even without that article in front of them, the nouns can still be distinguished as either \u201cett<\/strong>\u201d or \u201cen<\/strong>\u201d. In fact, they MUST be distinguished, if you want to make yourself understood when speaking or writing.<\/p>\n

So, let me confuse you further.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s topic: uncountable nouns (icke-r\u00e4ckningsbara substantiv<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

We have them in English, too. Words like \u201cmilk\u201d and \u201cmeat\u201d and \u201cpeace\u201d, for example. Normally, we wouldn\u2019t put \u201can\u201d or \u201ca\u201d in front of them. They don\u2019t get an indefinite article, but of course they can take the definite form \u2013 the milk, the meat, and so on.<\/p>\n

Swedish works in exactly the same way. Uncountable nouns can\u2019t be accompanied by an indefinite article. But just like in English, such nouns can still be made into definite forms. In English, we put \u201cthe\u201d in front of them and our work is done. In Swedish however, it\u2019s not quite that simple. Don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s still simple, but done in a Swedish way.<\/p>\n

In the \u201cen<\/strong>\u201d or \u201cett<\/strong>\u201d post, I claimed that all Swedish nouns could be divided into two groups. The \u201cen<\/strong>\u201d group and the \u201cett<\/strong>\u201d group. And those little articles are very important, indeed. They tell us how to make the definite form of each noun, and that is done by sticking either the whole \u201cen<\/strong>\u201d or \u201cn<\/strong>\u201d or \u201ct<\/strong>\u201d at the end of the word. And that\u2019s the gist of \u201cen<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cett<\/strong>\u201d words. Not much to it. Why it\u2019s called \u201cgender<\/em>\u201d in grammar books, I am not really sure, it\u2019s probably a way for linguists make this language more exciting.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But, but, but\u2026 Here is where it gets a little bit confusing.<\/p>\n

Just like in English, some nouns \u2013 the uncountable ones \u2013 can\u2019t be bothered with an indefinite article. But unlike in English, those pesky Swedish icke-r\u00e4ckningsbara<\/strong> nouns are still \u201cett<\/strong>\u201d or \u201cen<\/strong>\u201d words. Not fun, I know\u2026<\/p>\n

Take a look at these examples:<\/p>\n

mj\u00f6lk<\/strong> = milk and mj\u00f6lken<\/strong> = the milk
\nkaffe<\/strong> = coffee (in a general sense) and kaffet<\/strong> = the coffee
\nk\u00f6tt<\/strong> = meat and k\u00f6ttet<\/strong> = the meat
\nro<\/strong> = stillness, quiet and ron<\/strong> = the stillness<\/p>\n

See? You still need to know whether a noun is \u201cen<\/strong>\u201d or \u201cett<\/strong>\u201d in order to make the proper definite form. That\u2019s the bad news.<\/p>\n

The good news is that the truly uncountable nouns in Swedish don\u2019t have plural forms, and all the ones I listed above fall into that group.<\/p>\n

Other examples are:
\n sand<\/strong> = sand and sanden<\/strong> = the sand
\n j\u00e4st<\/strong> = yeast and j\u00e4sten<\/strong> = the yeast
\n silke<\/strong> = silk and silken<\/strong> = the silk
\n mat<\/strong> = food and maten<\/strong> = the food<\/p>\n

And many others, which describe materials and substances.<\/p>\n

The same also applies to abstract nouns, just like the above-mentioned \u201cro \u2013 ron<\/strong>\u201d, as those are uncountable in the most literal way.<\/p>\n

And just like in English, there are two different words to distinguish between countable and uncountable nouns when it comes to quantities.<\/p>\n

m\u00e5nga<\/strong> = many
\n mycket<\/strong> = much, a lot of<\/p>\n

So for example,
\n mycket mat<\/strong> = a lot of food<\/p>\n

And
\n m\u00e5nga hundar<\/strong> = many dogs<\/p>\n

See? I keep telling you that Swedish is not all that different from English. It has its moments, of course, but they only make it that much more charming to learn.
\nOk, enough of this boring grammar stuff for today. Next time we will talk about something more exciting \u2013 how they talk in Sk\u00e5ne<\/strong>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember when we talked about \u201cett\u201d and \u201cen\u201d words? I think my post confused a couple of people, who were quick to point out that you can\u2019t put an indefinite article in front of SOME nouns. Yes, that is correct. But even without that article in front of them, the nouns can still be distinguished…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3106,3152,364864,3232,3496],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-articles","tag-definite","tag-grammar","tag-indefinite","tag-uncountable-nouns"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}