# Swedish: Sveriges mest köpta bil



## Cold Breeze

Hello!

I believe everybody knows the "Ahlgrens bilar". The bag says "Sveriges mest köpta bil". I believe the rough translation is "The most bought cars in Sweden". The thing I'm confused about is that why it says "bil"? I believe they mean plural (because it says "köpta", not "köpt") but I don't think there are any typos. So there must be something regarding these words that I don't know.

So, could someone explain it to me, please?


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## DerFrosch

Hi,

I'm afraid your assumption is wrong, _bil _is in fact the singular form. In plural it would be _bil*ar*_, with the rest of the sentence unchanged: "_Sveriges mest köpta bilar"_.

It seems that your confusion arises out of the fact that  we say "_en *köpt *bil_" and also "_flera *köpta *bilar_". Hence, you assumed that _köpta _next to a noun always means that the noun is in plural. However, it's not that simple.

An "_a_" must be added after:

- a definite article: *Den köpta bilen*.
- a possessive pronoun: *Min köpta bil*.

and, as in your case:

- a noun phrase in the genitive case: *Sveriges mest köpta bil. *(_Sveriges _being in the genitive case)


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## Tjahzi

Indeed, _köpt*a* _is definite singular, not indefinite plural. The reason for this is that it refers to the brand ("Algrens bilar"), rather than the the actual "cars".


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## Cold Breeze

Thank you very much!

The fact that the bag contains many "cars" must have disturbed me. And then I also thought that there may be some little grammar detail which could cause this confusion. For example, you never say "min bilen" or "mina bilarna" but always "min bil" and "mina bilar", right?

And if I change the sentence "Sveriges mest köpta bil" little, it can also be "Mest köpt bil i Sverige", where you use "köpt" instead of "köpta". Is this assumption correct?


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## Sepia

Whatever you all say: It is not really logical. I'd go for "most bought car" = "mest köpta bil" if we were talking about a certain type or at least a brand. But I doubt that a company named Ahlgrens Bilar actually produces cars in such numbers - I'd rather say, its a dealership - at best a chain of dealerships. The copywriter or whoever thought up that strapline didn't really give much thought to what he wrote.


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## Cold Breeze

Sepia said:


> Whatever you all say: It is not really logical. I'd go for "most bought car" = "mest köpta bil" if we were talking about a certain type or at least a brand. But I doubt that a company named Ahlgrens Bilar actually produces cars in such numbers - I'd rather say, its a dealership - at best a chain of dealerships. The copywriter or whoever thought up that strapline didn't really give much thought to what he wrote.



This may be a dumb question but do you realize that we are talking about certain candies that look like cars instead of real cars?


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## DerFrosch

Cold Breeze said:


> For example, you never say "min bilen" or "mina bilarna" but always "min bil" and "mina bilar", right?



That's correct. A possessive pronoun is always followed by a noun in the indefinite form.



Cold Breeze said:


> And if I change the sentence "Sveriges mest köpta bil" little, it can also be "Mest köpt bil i Sverige", where you use "köpt" instead of "köpta". Is this assumption correct?



I can follow your line of thought, but "_Mest köpt bil i Sverige_" isn't a possible construction in Swedish. If we say "_mest köpt_", we have a particular car in mind, which means that the noun must be in the definite form: _"(den) mest köpta bilen i Sverige_".

Concerning Sepia's post, there seems to have been a misunderstanding -  and a quite amusing one I must say! No offence intended, Sepia, hard to know if you don't live in Sweden.


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## Segorian

> hard to know if you don't live in Sweden.



Quite, or in Norway, or if you have a sweet tooth and have found the way to the food corner at IKEA.


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## Segorian

> I doubt that a company named Ahlgrens Bilar actually produces cars in such numbers



Ahlgrens informed their Facebook readers earlier this year that they sold “over 2.5 billion” cars in 2013, leaving “another Swedish car maker” far behind in second place with only 20,290 cars sold…


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## Sepia

So by that logic my icecream is the best because I have sold 2.000.000 icecream cones - far more than the number of pizza that Luigi sold.

OK that happens and must be taken into consideration when one translates. You can't ans shouldn't try to make a logical statement out of one that isn't, when you translate.


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## Segorian

> You can't ans shouldn't try to make a logical statement out of one that isn't, when you translate.



This isn’t about logic; the statement is meant to be humorous.


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## Cold Breeze

DerFrosch said:


> hard to know if you don't live in Sweden.





Segorian said:


> Quite, or in Norway, or if you have a sweet tooth and have found the way to the food corner at IKEA.



They also sell them in regular supermarkets here in Finland. And after going to Wikipedia, I also know that they are sold in Denmark.


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## Segorian

> I also know that they are sold in Denmark.



Absolutely; I’ve seen that too. However, it seems to me that outside Sweden and Norway—and, presumably, Finland—they are not something that nearly everyone knows about.


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