Naomi Chambers Newbie United States thepolyglotexperienc Joined 5076 days ago 23 posts - 30 votes Speaks: Spanish Studies: FrenchC1, Swedish
| Message 1 of 4 07 January 2011 at 2:41am | IP Logged |
I know that when referring about dates and times, I must put first the verb and then the noun.
Mandag, DRICKER JAG vatten.
Tisdag, LEKER JAG med katten.
But are there a set of rules I can always rely upon? When do I know to always put the verb before the noun?
I England talar jag engelska. I would not say...I England, jag talar englelska.
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ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6147 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian
| Message 2 of 4 07 January 2011 at 3:21am | IP Logged |
Swedish, like some other Germanic languages like German and Dutch, is a "verb second language." This means that the main verb should always be the second item in the sentence, so when something (such as a date, time, or place, like in your examples) comes at the beginning of the sentence, the subject and verb need to be inverted so that the that the verb maintains its second position in the sentence.
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6914 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 3 of 4 07 January 2011 at 12:19pm | IP Logged |
Ellasevia is right. Swedish is a V2-language, and for that matter, your sentences should look this this:
På måndag dricker jag vatten. ("på" is necessary for certain time expressions, before weekdays, and seasons of the year as long as we're talking about general ideas or into the future) It's a funny sentence, although grammatically correct, perhaps you mean generally on Mondays? If so, 'på måndagar'.
På tisdag leker jag med katten. (see above)
[På+måndag/tisdag/etc) is of course viewed as one unit so you don't think that the verb is now in third position.
The verb is first in questions (other than those with an interrogative pronoun):
Talar du engelska? (Do you speak English?)
Är det fredag idag? (Is it Friday today?)
Vem är det där? (Who's that?)
Vad gör du? (What are you doing?)
Hope this helps.
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Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5386 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 4 of 4 07 January 2011 at 4:14pm | IP Logged |
ellasevia wrote:
Swedish, like some other Germanic languages like German and Dutch, is a "verb second language." |
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Ellasevia is right. We also say "V2 Languages".
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