r/norsk • u/dwchandler • Sep 27 '20

Søndagsspørsmål #351 - Sunday Question Thread

This is a weekly post to ask any question that you may not have felt deserved its own post, or have been hesitating to ask for whatever reason. No question too small or silly!

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u/helpwithlanguagepls Sep 27 '20

could you tell me about the rules that apply when it comes to the placement of these pronouns?

im also wondering about when to use "hans/hennes" and "sin" - do you know how that works?

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u/mr_greenmash Native speaker Sep 27 '20

As for "Sin" it is used for when a person interacts with their noun.

Hun setter seg i bilen sin - She sits in her (own) car.

Hun setter seg i bilen hans - She sits in his car, as in "someone elses car"

However "Sin" would also be used earlier in a sentence, if decribing something that belongs to someone else, such as: Det er Roger sin penn - It's Roger's pen. In this sense, you can also add just an S at the end of the owner's name, same as in english, but without the '

Again, i hope this makes sense.

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u/PnunnedZerggie Sep 29 '20

Is there a rule that you can't use the short "s" if the name is also ending in "s"? Like "Det er Niels sin bil".

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u/mr_greenmash Native speaker Sep 29 '20

You can, but that would be written as "Det er Nils' bil"

Not sure if the last S as in (Nils's) actually need writing or if the ' is enough. But I don't think it would affect the score of any test. I think...

The use of ' also goes for names ending in x and maybe z.

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u/PnunnedZerggie Sep 29 '20

Would it also be pronounced as "nilses"?

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u/mr_greenmash Native speaker Sep 29 '20

Depends on dialect.

I don't think too much about what I say (just realized) but I guess a normal way to say it (for me) would be either "Det er Nils sin bil" or "Det er bilen til Nils".

This sort of circumvents the pronunciation issue. I can't really think of many situations where I use " name' "

I mostly associate it with small local businesses with names such as "Nils' café" or "Rogers gym"

But if you said "Det er Nilses bil" you'd be understood 10/10 times.