"It is not often I speak English."
Translation:Det er ikke ofte jeg snakker engelsk.
17 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
I do believe that would translate as 'I do not speak English often', or 'I do not often speak English'.
"Det er ikke ofte at snakker jeg engelsk." is not a correct answer. Why is that so? Is it because the word "that" is not in the original sentence? Or did I miss something?
2142
It could be because the reason you provided (as "that" was not in the English sentence either), but if that's not the reason then it's probably because of your word order. The second part of the sentence is its own subclause in which the verb should go second I think (V2-rule): "...(at) jeg snakker engelsk". To be sure I'll ask a mod to confirm ;)
Ikke comes after the verb, or in some cases, like 'Vil ikke ha', in the middle of two verbs acting in unison. It's somewhat like 'Have not read' in English.
If someone in Norway were to say this, is that how they'd say it? The english pronunciation is quite formal.
I wrote Jeg snakker ikke ofte Engelsk and is correct but another possible solution is "Det er ikke ofte jeg snakker engelsk" but this sounds so weird to me. Would Norwegians really speak like the second sentence?
- 814
The latter is the actual answer Duo wants. I'm certainly not a native or fluent speaker of Norwegian by any means but if it's anything akin to English as a distant relative of a Germanic language, then I'd wager that in a given circumstance that it's entirely possible that someone would say "det er ikke ofte jeg snakker engelsk" such as if someone was making a sort of exception to speak English with you if all they ever really did was just speak in Norwegian.
- 628
Maybe this would make more sense "I do not often speak English....the sentence "I do not often speak" is more like words are hard and so I don't talk in any languages......then adding the phrase " in english" is actually seen as incorrect but is often said.......LMAO
