Language/Swedish/Grammar/When-use-Ett-or-En
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INDEFINITE FORM
In Swedish we have two words to choose between when we want to write about nouns in indefinite form: En or Ett.
For example:
- Ett bord = A table
- En hund = A dog
- Ett äpple = An apple
- En skola = A school
COMMON MISTAKE
- En (Swedish article) = An (English article)
- Ett (Swedish article) = A (English article)
This is not true. There is no grammatical rule to know when to use En or Ett, you just simply have to learn them.
DEFINITE FORM
When we want a noun to be in definite form we add a suffix to the noun; -en, -n or -et.
For example:
- Ett bord = Bordet
- En hund = Hunden
- Ett äpple = Äpplet
- En skola = Skolan
Here we just add -n since the word already ends with a vowel.
As you might have noticed, you can know which suffix to use by looking at the indefinite article.
- If it's an "En-word", the suffix is -en or -n.
- If it's an "Ett-word", the suffix is -et.