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Swe: The difference between "en" & "ett" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| lither Diglot Newbie SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4586 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 15 06 May 2012 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Greetings everybody! This is my first post in these forums. I'll hope as my language learnings progresses I will be
spending a lot of time here exchanging experiences, chatting and maybe sometimes have a chat on Skype/IRL. Anyways, I'm a native Swede and I had the discussion the other day with a friend of mine concerning Swedish grammar. I can't remember ever learning any sort of syntax or rules how to apply the English equivalence for "a/an". In Swedish that's either "ett" or "en"; ett bord (a table), en hund (a dog), ett spel (a game), etc. For me it's just a natural thing. Even though someone would invent a new word in Swedish, I would in the blink of an eye now what to put before that new-invented noun. And when I try to break it down, I have no idea where to start. I suppose it has to do with gender, but that's where it stops for me. So my question for you guys, who are non-native in Swedish, how have you learned the differences? Have to started to get a "feel" for what's right or not? If you sometimes are corrected, maybe saying "ett kyckling" (a chicken) instead of "en kyckling", do you have any tricks remembering what the correct word is? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 2 of 15 06 May 2012 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hello lither, welcome to the forum!
"En" and "ett" depend on the grammatical gender of the noun they accompany. Swedish has two genders: common (utrum) and neuter (neutrum). The only difference between common and neuter nouns is the article they take. Common gender nouns take the indefinite article "en", the suffixed article "-en", and the freestanding article "den" (en hund, hunden, den stora hunden). They are referred to by the personal pronouns "han", "hon", or "den", depending on the natural gender of the noun. Neuter nouns take "ett", "-et", and "det" (ett barn, barnet, det stora barnet). They are always referred to by the personal pronoun "det". There is no rule as to which nouns are common gender and which are neuter, because gender in Swedish is - as far as nouns are concerned - purely grammatical and goes back to the Old Norse, Germanic, and Indo-European gender system. So, you have to learn for each noun whether it is common or neuter. The easiest way to do that is to learn the article with each noun: ett äpple, en hund, ett ord, etc. There is only one exception to the rule, that is nouns with the ending "-ing". They are always common gender: en tärning, tärningen, den stora tärningen. There's also the rule that all nouns with plural on "-or" and "-ar" are common: en blomma, två blommor; en bro, två broar. On the other hand, all nouns with plural ending "-n" are neuter: ett piano, två pianon. After a while, you get used to the grammatical gender of a noun and do not have to think about it anymore. By the way, there are languages that are much worse than Swedish. German, Icelandic, Latin, Greek, Russian, and some other languages have three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. That can be quite confusing, especially when grammatical gender and natural gender do not agree. For instance, the German word for "girl" is "das Mädchen". The "das" indicates it is a neuter noun although girls by all means are feminine. Some languages do not have grammatical gender at all, e. g. English and Chinese. Some others like Swedish, Danish, French, and Italian have two genders. And some, as already mentioned, have three. I do not know if there are languages which have even more genders, but I suppose it might be possible. EDIT: Deleted Norwegian from the list of languages with two genders. Edited by Josquin on 07 May 2012 at 12:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6660 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 3 of 15 06 May 2012 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Utrum developed from masculine and feminine when they collided and the morphological system that previously
distinguished them from another became almost identical. Some dialects of Swedish do keep the three gender system (ea ko, koa, ea dörr, dörra) and when talking about boats and telling the time we use "hon" opposed to "den" in accordance with the old gender system. The old feminine genitive ending can be seen in older compound words like kyrkokör or människoson, gatukorsning or other words that end in -a. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 15 06 May 2012 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
Norwegian have three genders. The fact that you can chose to use the masculine form instead of the feminine form, does not mean that the feminine form does not exist. The percentage of feminine/masculine will vary with age, dialect and political preferences but the only dialect I know with only two genders is the dialect of Bergen. Otherwise even the oldest most conservative individuals will use some feminins, and the younger you are the more you will use. I will probably use about 5%, my daughters perhaps 30 %, my colleague who grew up in another part of Norway will use almost a 100%. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 06 May 2012 at 11:58pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 5 of 15 06 May 2012 at 10:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, Solfrid Cristin is right. Norwegian has three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.
In Norwegian Nynorsk and most dialects the three gender system is intact. The Bergen dialect has a two gender system, more or less like standard Danish and standard Swedish. As Solfrid Cristin has described, in Norwegian Bokmål and some dialects (Oslo among them), feminine nouns can be turned into masculine nouns. Depending on the analysis you make, you could say that Norwegian Bokmål and these dialects have: – a three gender system (masculine, feminine and neuter) where you can use the masculine instead of the feminine – a three gender system (masculine, femine and neuter) where feminine nouns have two alternate forms (one of which makes them look like masculines) – a mix between a three gender system (masculine, feminine and neuter) and a two gender system (common gender and neuter) Edited by tractor on 06 May 2012 at 10:30pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Pisces Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4623 days ago 143 posts - 284 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, SwedishC1, Esperanto Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 6 of 15 06 May 2012 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
There are quite a lot of rules, which cover a large number of words but not (nearly) all of them. Some endings like -ning, -tion are always or almost always -en words. Almost all words that refer to people or animals are -en, with some exceptions like ett barn, ett vittne. The large majority of nouns are -en words. Most new words are also -en. Often the gender can be derived from the plural form.
Are you sure that's true? There are some words whose gender has changed and others that can use either article. e.g. ett test, en test, ett paket, en paket 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6660 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 7 of 15 06 May 2012 at 11:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've never heard "en paket". "En test" would only be okay in certain contexts and it cannot be used in defined form, for some weird reason "tester" is the most common plural. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 8 of 15 06 May 2012 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
Oh, I'm very sorry. I thought only Nynorsk and its dialects had all three genders. Thanks for the correction. I have never studied Norwegian, so I do not know it very well. I have only read about the linguistic situation in Norway. As far as I know, Norwegian is in many aspects a very special language as there are two standard forms and many dialects in between. Would you say it's true that, in Norwegian, the dialects are more important than in other languages? For example, in German, it is not possible to write according to your dialect. You have to use Standard German, so there sometimes is even some kind of diglossia between written German and spoken dialect (e.g. Low German or Bavarian). I have the feeling this is not the case in Norwegian. Is it true you can use your dialect - or aspects of the dialect you speak (as gender use) - for written communication? I would be very much interested in this. Edited by Josquin on 06 May 2012 at 11:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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