"Er det sjuende gang de svømmer sammen?"
Translation:Is it the seventh time they are swimming together?
12 Comments
How come there's no "den" before "sjuende" in this sentence? Directly translated, it's a little strange, but is there a rule that pertains to this?
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it might be worth noting that in English, one would say "is this the 7th time they have been swimming together", ie they'd use the perfect continuous tense, not the present.
I agree - I'm slightly annoyed to be marked incorrectly for this since the perfect continuous sounds much more natural.
I put "is it the seventh time that they swim together" and it didn't take it. It is a correct way of saying it isn't it?
In this context, "det" does mean "it". Directly translated the question reads: "Is it seventh time they are swimming together?", however in English it is read: "Is it the seventh time they are swimming together?". In Norwegian, the "den" in between the "det" and "sjuende" is optional. In this context, the "the" for us is kind of like how Norwegian sometimes requires a "for" before an infinitive verb. In English, the "the" is necessary to make sense in "Is it the seventh time they are swimming together?", but in Norwegian, "den" is not necessary to make grammatical sense, at least before an order adjective.
