i’d still take this over the ett/en thing in swedish. basically, “ett” and “en” both mean “a” if they come before the word, and “the” if they get smashed onto the end of a word. (e.g., “ett apotek” means “a pharmacy”, but “apoteket” means “the pharmacy”; “en hund” means “a dog”, but “hunden” means “the dog”.)
but despite “ett” and “en” meaning the same thing, they aren’t interchangeable. some words are “ett” words, while others are “en” words, and you just have to remember which ones are which.
to further complicate things, there are some words that can end with “et” or “en”, but each ending means something different. this typically happens with “ett” words using “en” for the plural forms of the word. for example, “barn” means “child”, “ett barn” means “a child”, “barnet” means “the child”, but “barnen” means “the children”. (it’s worth also mentioning that “barn” means either “child” or “children”, depending on the context.)
Lots of languages have gendered nouns, though. Three genders isn’t uncommon in European languages and in most cases you just have to learn the nouns with their genders.
you’re right that lots of other languages have gendered nouns. however, swedish nouns are not gendered in the “traditional” sense. i.e., it is not the case that some nouns are “masculine” and others are “feminine”.
i think the wikipedia page does a good job of explaining it:
Nouns have one of two grammatical genders: common(utrum) and neuter (neutrum), which determine their definite forms as well as the form of any adjectives and articles used to describe them. Noun gender is largely arbitrary and must be memorized; however, around three quarters of all Swedish nouns are common gender. Living beings are often common nouns, like in enkatt “a cat”, enhäst “a horse”, en*fluga* “a fly”, etc.
edit: i wanted to clarify that this isn’t some major gripe i have with the language. i think all spoken languages are bound to have their own quirks and that’s okay, it can just make certain things a bit tricky when learning the language. as a whole, i think swedish is a very nice language
Swedish used to have masculine and feminine gendered nouns historically - and some dialects still do - but they were simplified into two grammatical genders, utrum and neutrum, just as your link says. (There are remnants though, for example “vad är klockan?” “hon är halv fyra”). Masculine and feminine were just squashed into the “utrum” gender, basically, and neutrum is neuter.
thank you for the explanation. that helps to clear things up a bit and it’s also nice to have some context for why things are the way they are in the language. i had always been told that the “ett/en” thing was just an arbitrary quirk of the language, so it’s nice to get a more concrete explanation of it.
the example you gave was also super helpful. i found it confusing that sometimes “hon” meant “it”. i had always been told (in casual conversations) that swedish wasn’t a gendered language, so that whole thing was quite confusing until now.
Then it might also be useful to know that in these cases, it’s also correct to say “den är halv tio” which might be a safer route for non-native speakers.
Kudos on you learning swedish though, it’s not always easy or completely logical but coming from English a lot of things should come for free.
i’d still take this over the ett/en thing in swedish. basically, “ett” and “en” both mean “a” if they come before the word, and “the” if they get smashed onto the end of a word. (e.g., “ett apotek” means “a pharmacy”, but “apoteket” means “the pharmacy”; “en hund” means “a dog”, but “hunden” means “the dog”.)
but despite “ett” and “en” meaning the same thing, they aren’t interchangeable. some words are “ett” words, while others are “en” words, and you just have to remember which ones are which.
to further complicate things, there are some words that can end with “et” or “en”, but each ending means something different. this typically happens with “ett” words using “en” for the plural forms of the word. for example, “barn” means “child”, “ett barn” means “a child”, “barnet” means “the child”, but “barnen” means “the children”. (it’s worth also mentioning that “barn” means either “child” or “children”, depending on the context.)
Lots of languages have gendered nouns, though. Three genders isn’t uncommon in European languages and in most cases you just have to learn the nouns with their genders.
you’re right that lots of other languages have gendered nouns. however, swedish nouns are not gendered in the “traditional” sense. i.e., it is not the case that some nouns are “masculine” and others are “feminine”.
i think the wikipedia page does a good job of explaining it:
edit: i wanted to clarify that this isn’t some major gripe i have with the language. i think all spoken languages are bound to have their own quirks and that’s okay, it can just make certain things a bit tricky when learning the language. as a whole, i think swedish is a very nice language
Swedish used to have masculine and feminine gendered nouns historically - and some dialects still do - but they were simplified into two grammatical genders, utrum and neutrum, just as your link says. (There are remnants though, for example “vad är klockan?” “hon är halv fyra”). Masculine and feminine were just squashed into the “utrum” gender, basically, and neutrum is neuter.
thank you for the explanation. that helps to clear things up a bit and it’s also nice to have some context for why things are the way they are in the language. i had always been told that the “ett/en” thing was just an arbitrary quirk of the language, so it’s nice to get a more concrete explanation of it.
the example you gave was also super helpful. i found it confusing that sometimes “hon” meant “it”. i had always been told (in casual conversations) that swedish wasn’t a gendered language, so that whole thing was quite confusing until now.
Then it might also be useful to know that in these cases, it’s also correct to say “den är halv tio” which might be a safer route for non-native speakers.
Kudos on you learning swedish though, it’s not always easy or completely logical but coming from English a lot of things should come for free.