37 Comments
Oh, man. This sentence in listening is an evil way of testing a person's faith in his/her ears.
That's interesting, I just wrote "sheep, sheep, sheep", thinking it was some idiom or word puzzle, and Duo accepted it.,
I've removed that now, three years later. It serves absolutely no pedagogical purpose to accept nonsense translations like that.
Perhaps, but that doesn't exactly make it more suitable for a language course. :)
Svaret på frågan (som alla barn lär sig) är: Nej, får får inte får, får får lamm.
Reading the "Får får får?" and the resonse "Nej, får får inte får, får får lamm" it makes more sense to me now- even if it is a bit awkward in english- I can see why it's something that you would learn early in Swedish. Not something you would use everyday... but at least if the two words popped up in the same sentence you won't be quite as confused. I enjoyed learning this one, thanks!
Do sheep get sheep doesn't make and sense in English. Is there abetter translation please?
In this case I think that the verb "får" is the one that Swedes use when the mean "to have offspring". While English speaking parents are going to "have" a child, the Swedish speaking parents are going to "get" one, but both mean that it is growing in a womb and will be born later. So those sheep "get" their lambs (which will become sheep when they grow up) by giving birth to them.
Exactly. In English, we don't "get" children and sheep don't "get" lambs. I tried "beget," because that is at least correct in English, if archaic. We would actually have to say, "Sheep give birth to lambs."
Yes, I too had it as "do sheep beget sheep" but duolingo rejected it.
I'm away for the weekend but I'll add that once I get back home. I mean once I beget back home. No, wait. :p
(Edit: done)
I actually did not understand the English translation, so while this sentence may be hard to translate, I don't think "beget" is clear for everyone.
44
Still the preferred translation is not good English. As other people have said, animals do not get their young, they have offsprings.
@Mokvinna: Ah, I thought I changed the default. My bad - will see to that in a minute.
This is almost as funny as the sentence 'Var var farfar?' (where was grandfather?)
Is that a saying in Swedish? Or did you think of it yourself? (It's funny!)
- 736
It's not very noticeable in (spoken) Swedish since the "r" in the second "var" isn't pronounced.
No, but it is not obvious.
lam (long a) = förlamad = paralyzed
lamm (short a) = lamb
But(!)
man (long a) = hair that grows on the back of a horse's head
man (short a) = man
Interesting! And I must confess that I'd never heard about a "ramm" before :).
