Word
Nyheten om spöket är inte falsk, utan sann.
Meaning
The news about the ghost is not false, but rather true.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Nyheten om spöket är inte falsk, utan sann.
Why do we use utan instead of men for "but" here?
utan means "but rather" or "but instead." You use it to directly contradict and correct a negative statement (here, inte falsk). If you used men, the regular word for "but," it would just add contrasting information. When replacing a "not X" with a "Y," you must use utan.
In English, "news" is generally uncountable. How does it work in Swedish with nyheten?
In Swedish, news is a regular countable noun: en nyhet (a piece of news). Here it is in the singular definite form nyheten (the news). If you were talking about the evening news broadcast or multiple news items, you would use the plural definite form nyheterna.
Why don't the adjectives falsk and sann end in -t to match spöket?
Because they describe the main subject of the sentence, nyheten, not the noun right next to them (spöket). Since nyhet is a singular en-word, the adjectives take their basic forms: falsk and sann.
Why does spöke become spöket to mean "the ghost"?