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Tim och britterna

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Meddysong
Triglot
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United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*, Esperanto, French
Studies: Italian, Catalan
Studies: Swedish

 
 Message 17 of 34
15 May 2015 at 7:51am | IP Logged 
daegga wrote:
It's more fun with sound, isn't it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EegMYzYE-SE


That'll come in handy! I'm acutely aware that I don't know how the words are pronounced (I pretty much sound out ä, å and ö the same in my head) and that my internal monologue doesn't sound sing-songy at all. I'll defintely be making use of this after I've initially read the book in chunks and then again afterwards.

Thanks!
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 18 of 34
15 May 2015 at 10:20am | IP Logged 
Meddysong wrote:
- Dumskalle! Han ville inte mäta sina krafter med dina! Han ville bara hälsa! Du tror att alla vill slåss! (= Blockhead! He did not want to measure his strength with yours! He just wanted to greet! You think everyone wants to fight!)

A lovely sequence, and with some useful points in it too. I'm seeing a past form of want and some new possessive adjectives.


Possessive adjectives?

Quote:
- Det vore bättre om vi inte tog några risker! (= It would be better if we did not take any risks!)

That tog is jumping out at me. Could it be related to ta. If it is, then I have a suspicion that Swedish contains a subjunctive, which is used here.


ta - take
tog - took
tagit - taken

As simple as that. The subjunctive (which isn't in common use nowadays) is "toge".

Quote:
I've seen talar and tala. Now there's talade, a past form.

- Det har vi talat om i många år! Vi tycker det är synd att ni ska vara så isolerade på kontintenten. (= We have talked about that for years! We think it's a shame that you should be so isolated on the continent.)

And this time another past form of tala. So it seems there is one form for completed actions (talade) and another (har talat) for ones which are ongoing.


I don't see it as completed versus ongoing - while to some extent it is, technically - and if so, it's har talat/have talked which is completed. Does this pattern look familiar?
tala - talade - (har/hade/etc.) talat
talk - talked - (have/had/etc.) talked

The confusing thing is that, in English, both past tenses look the same for regular verbs (but not always for irregular ones such as go - went - gone, take - took - taken, write - wrote - written etc.). Just get used to spotting the auxiliary har/hade and you'll see that it usually matches has/have/had.

Hope this helps.
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Meddysong
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 Message 19 of 34
15 May 2015 at 11:00am | IP Logged 
jeff_lindqvist wrote:
Possessive adjectives?

My car, his sister, etc. There might be an alternative description of them, but I know them as "possessive adjectives" and mine, yours etc as "possessive pronouns".

Quote:
ta - take
tog - took
tagit - taken

As simple as that. The subjunctive (which isn't in common use nowadays) is "toge".

Ah, that's interesting! I think my familarity with other languages pre-supposed something that isn't a past [indicative] form in a conditional sentence, including knowing that even though English appears to do exactly that, it's really a past subjunctive. (We're generally not aware of such a thing because the past subjunctive is identical to the preterite for all verbs, except for to be, hence forms such as if I were.)

Quote:
I don't see it as completed versus ongoing - while to some extent it is, technically - and if so, it's har talat/have talked which is completed. Does this pattern look familiar?
tala - talade - (har/hade/etc.) talat
talk - talked - (have/had/etc.) talked


Yep. I picked up on it. I thought at the time "I need to find a better way than saying 'ongoing'" because I know that's not suitable. I'm a native English-speaker so, of course, I'm totally at ease with a distinction between preterite and present perfect. I just aimed to write a short-cut and, unfortunately, describing it as "ongoing" wasn't ideal. I should've just said "more or less matching English's preterite and present perfect".

Quote:
Hope this helps.

Defintely. Thank you for taking the time to write it up for me.
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 20 of 34
15 May 2015 at 5:27pm | IP Logged 
Ah, thanks for explaining possessive adjectives.

By the way, "Det vore bättre om vi inte tog några risker!" actually contains a preterite subjunctive verb ("vore", cf. vara - var - varit) and I wonder if it shouldn't be "toge" as well, if it weren't for the fact that it's archaic.

(In case you want to read about this mood in Swedish: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konjunktiv )

It seems like you're having a great time (and making a lot of progress) with Asterix!
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daegga
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 Message 21 of 34
15 May 2015 at 6:12pm | IP Logged 
jeff_lindqvist wrote:

By the way, "Det vore bättre om vi inte tog några risker!" actually contains a preterite subjunctive verb ("vore", cf. vara - var - varit) and I wonder if it shouldn't be "toge" as well, if it weren't for the fact that it's archaic.


Not sure if this is my German Sprachgefühl, but I would rather go for the present subjunctive (tage?) if I wanted to sound really really archaic.
Just because you can rephrase it as: "Det vore bättre inte att ta(ga) några risker!" Or at least I think you can.

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Meddysong
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 Message 22 of 34
17 May 2015 at 10:12am | IP Logged 
Here come yesterday's notes. I didn't get as much done as I should've, so I'll squeeze in a longer session later today.

- Du kör ju på fel sida av vägen! - Inte alls! Det är ni som bruskar köra på fel sida. För övrigt så måste ni ändra på den saken på kontinenten, när vi blir färdiga med tunneln från Britannien! (= You run [drive] on the wrong side of the road! - Not at all! It is you who are used to driving on the wrong side. Incidentally, you must change this in the continent, when we are finished with the tunnel from Britain!)

This is a nice reinforcer, Obelix's comment being sent back to him with a "It is you who". I like the addition of bruskar rather than a straight kör - not only do I see how Swedish handles to be used to but I also get a reminder of the difference in appearance between a conjugated verb and its infinitive.

I note too the use of bli + -a to indicate the future where English is using the main verb itself in the present tense.

- Jag tycker det hade varit bättre om vi kört på dem ... (= I think it would have been better if we hit them ...)

There doesn't seem to be an exact equivalent to "would have -ed". Maybe the presence of om is enough to send the message that we're using a conditional form rather than a statement of fact ("it had been better").

- Om ni inte finner dem, ska jag servera er till lejonen! (= If you do not find them, I will serve you to the lions!)

Fabulous! A sentence which is easy to remember and contains the information I need: "In the subordinate clause, there's an inversion of verb and subject."

- Det här skulle Troubadix se! (= Troubadix should see this!)

Again, that inversion is present with the conjugated verb needing to take second position. I suspect I'm getting a better feeling for this now.

- Sen kan ni fortsätta färden till den modiga byn (= Then you can continue your journey to the brave village)

Same as above. The adverb is in lead position, so the subject has to drop further back to make way for the verb.

- Drick ditt öl, innan det blir kallt! (= Drink your beer, before it gets cold!)

Hilarious! And also useful, because there's a possessive adjective there. Earlier on I spotted dina; now I can see ditt. My suspicion, therefore, is that there are different possessive adjectives depending on the gender of the word.

- Här är tomt på folk, men fullt med vin i källaren. - Vi beslagtar allt! (= Here is empty of people [there's nobody here], but full of wine in the cellar. - We'll confiscate everything!

A-ha. I've often had to explain to people that when we make a snap decision in English, we use the future form. ("Sorry, Tim's not here at the moment." - "OK, I'll call back later.") Swedish seems not to, hence "We confiscate everything" at the revelation of barrels of wine having been discovered.

Right, I'd better do some more reading. It's a Sunday and this time next week we'll be in Sweden, so now's my best chance to dedicate some time to it.
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Sarnek
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 Message 23 of 34
17 May 2015 at 10:40am | IP Logged 
Meddysong wrote:
Here come yesterday's notes. I didn't get as much done as I should've, so I'll squeeze in a longer session later today.

- Du kör ju på fel sida av vägen! - Inte alls! Det är ni som bruskar köra på fel sida. För övrigt så måste ni ändra på den saken på kontinenten, när vi blir färdiga med tunneln från Britannien! (= You run [drive] on the wrong side of the road! -
Not at all! It is you who are used to driving on the wrong side. Incidentally, you must change this in the continent, when we are finished with the tunnel from Britain!)

This is a nice reinforcer, Obelix's comment being sent back to him with a "It is you who". I like the addition of bruskar rather than a straight kör - not only do I see how Swedish handles to be used to but I also get a
reminder of the difference in appearance between a conjugated verb and its infinitive.

I note too the use of bli + -a to indicate the future where English is using the main verb itself in the present tense.



Are you sure it's bruskar and not brukar? I've never seen bruskar before and it doesn't appear in my dictionary either. It could be an archaism though, I'm not sure.

Meddysong wrote:

- Om ni inte finner dem, ska jag servera er till lejonen! (= If you do not find them, I will serve you to the lions!)

Fabulous! A sentence which is easy to remember and contains the information I need: "In the subordinate clause, there's an inversion of verb and subject."



Technically that's not an inversion. Remember that Swedish is a V2 language and therefore if the first place is taken the verb should immediately follow up. In this case the first place is taken by the bisats (dependent clause) "om ni inte finner
dem". English used to be a V2 language as well, but today has only a few remnants of this construction, especially in sentences like "- I don't smoke. - Neither do I" Sometimes you may see a "så" after the bisats, which can't be literally
translated into English: "Om ni inte finner dem så ska jag servera er till lejonen!". Also, commas are rarely used nowadays in these sort of sentences, unlike in German, Italian and English.

Meddysong wrote:
- Drick ditt öl, innan det blir kallt! (= Drink your beer, before it gets cold!)

Hilarious! And also useful, because there's a possessive adjective there. Earlier on I spotted dina; now I can see ditt. My suspicion, therefore, is that there are different possessive adjectives depending on the gender of the word.


Your suspicion is correct. Common gender: no declension (min, din, vår ecc...), neuter: + t (mitt, ditt, vårt, ecc..), plural + a (mina, dina, våra, ecc...). Exceptions are for the third person singular (Hans, hennes) and the third person plural
(deras). There are also vårat and våran which mean the same as vårt/vår, but are more colloquial.

Have fun in Sweden! :D





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Meddysong
Triglot
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Studies: Swedish

 
 Message 24 of 34
17 May 2015 at 11:15am | IP Logged 
Sarnek wrote:
Are you sure it's bruskar and not brukar? I've never seen bruskar before and it doesn't appear in my dictionary either. It could be an archaism though, I'm not sure.

You're correct. I've caught myself on a few occasions adding bits to words, like an n in the middle of ig. I'm still working on getting a "feel" for Swedish, and throwing that s in there is a case where I'm failing.

Quote:
Technically that's not an inversion. Remember that Swedish is a V2 language and therefore if the first place is taken the verb should immediately follow up.

Yes, you're correct. I should think about it as a deviation from SVO rather than an inversion, since nothing has actually been inverted in that position.

Quote:
English used to be a V2 language as well, but today has only a few remnants of this construction, especially in sentences like "- I don't smoke. - Neither do I"

Yep. We see it in sentences which start with never or seldom: "Never have I been so confused, as when I tried to read Asterix in Swedish without knowing any Swedish first. Seldom have I had a more ridiculous idea :) "

Grazie del tuo aiuto. Dopo di Svezia saremo con mia moglie nella bella Italia :)


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