Breakdown of Jag hittar inte locket till burken.
jag
I
hitta
to find
inte
not
till
for (to go with)
burken
the can
locket
the lid
Questions & Answers about Jag hittar inte locket till burken.
Why do we say locket till burken instead of burkens lock?
While burkens lock (the jar's lid) is grammatically correct, Swedish strongly prefers using till (to/for) when talking about matching parts, accessories, or things that physically belong together. Notice that when using till for possession, both nouns usually take their definite forms: locket (the lid) and burken (the jar).
Does locket come from a word that means "lock" in English?
No, this is a tricky false friend! In Swedish, ett lock means a lid or a cover. If you are talking about a padlock or a door lock that needs a key, the Swedish word is ett lås.
The English translation says "cannot find". Why is there no word for "can" (kan) in the Swedish sentence?
In English, it is standard to say "I cannot find" when you have lost something. In Swedish, it sounds much more natural to just use the present tense and say jag hittar inte (I do not find). Saying jag kan inte hitta is grammatically fine, but it often sounds a bit clunky or overly literal to a native speaker.
How can I tell the grammatical gender of lock and burk from this sentence?
You can easily spot their genders by looking at the definite suffixes attached to the end of the words. Locket ends in -et, which tells you it is an ett word (ett lock). Burken ends in -en, which tells you it is an en word (en burk).
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