"Hon har satt en köttbulle i halsen."
Translation:She is choking on a meatball.
19 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
The literal translation would be "She has put a meatball in her throat."
sätta i halsen means that something is stuck in your throat, it's a fixed expression corresponding to the English verb to "choke on".
Can you ever use the present tense form, sätter i halsen, or does it always have to be present perfect?
Well, no - it's the literal translation, not a correct one. English would never phrase it like that.
Thanks for the infinitive form. I've seen people choke on fish or chicken bones, but a meatball, especially a tiny Swedish one, is a little hard to imagine. Oh well, everything is possible, I suppose. :-)
So is "Hon har satt i halsen" translated like "She is choking" or is there another way to say that? It seems like a long way to say that sentence when somebody is choking.
"She is choking" can be translated as "hon kvävs". But you won't hear anyone say "Hon kvävs av en köttbulle i halsen"
"Kvävs" is more a general word for suffocating in general, whether it be from choking on a meatball or from something else cutting off your air supply. It can definitely be used in this situation, though.
To correspond the tenses in the translation, wouldn't it be better to use perfect tense in English too, like 'She has choked on... ? Or present tense in the Sweden version 'Hon satter...'?
Swedish actually uses har satt for currently choking as well, so translation into both tenses should be accepted, but into the present is the much better default as that has the much more likely meaning.
Report it next time. I assure you it's correct whether it's accepted or not. :)
Thanks. I think I just used the perfect tense in English and got it wrong, but it is also possible I have made another mistake. :)
The reason for past tense is that it is describing the action that has caused the choking.
The sentence is in the perfect tense, though, not in the past tense.
