Breakdown of Människan får inte utrota fler djur.
inte
not
få
to be allowed to, may
djuret
the animal
människan
the human
fler
more (countable)
utrota
to eradicate
Questions & Answers about Människan får inte utrota fler djur.
Why does the sentence use the singular definite människan when the English translation says "humans" in the plural?
In Swedish, the definite singular människan (the human) is standard when referring to the human species as a whole, similar to "mankind" or "humanity" in English. Using the plural människor (people/humans) would refer to individuals or specific groups of people rather than the species collectively.
As a refresher, why does får inte translate to "must not" instead of "may not" or "don't have to"?
The verb får means to have permission ("may" or "is allowed to"). When you negate it with inte, it literally means "is not allowed to," which carries the strong prohibition of "must not" in English. If you wanted to say humans "don't have to," you would use behöver inte instead.
Why is fler used here instead of mer for "more"?
Fler is the comparative form of många (many) and is strictly used for countable nouns, like djur (animals). Mer is the comparative of mycket (much) and is used for uncountable nouns like vatten (water) or kärlek (love).
How do we know djur is plural here, since it looks exactly like the singular form?
We can tell it is plural from the context of the word fler (more / a greater number of). Grammatically, djur is an ett-word that ends in a consonant (ett djur). In Swedish, this specific group of nouns retains the exact same form in the indefinite singular and the indefinite plural.
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