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- "Får får får?"
61 Comments
271
Google translate translates "may sheep get sheep?" to "får får får får?" is that wrong and should that be "Får får få får."?
And "may sheep get sheep or may sheep get lambs?" translates to "får får får får eller får får får lamm?" via google as well.
Google is wrong - you need an infinitive få after the present tense får.
- 271
That's too bad, but thanks for clarifying :)
I guess at best it would be "Farfar, får får få får eller får får få lamm?" then...
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!
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. :)
I don't understand how this is a question.... Do sheep beget sheep? That's non sensible
It's silly, but it's a perfectly understandable question. "Are sheep able to sire offspring?" basically. Of course, it's only in the course for fun.
Do sheep get sheep doesn't make and sense in English. Is there abetter translation please?
- 187
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)
- 129
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.
- 319
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.
Jag tacka dig! (I just went via Moscow to get any understanding of this question/statement. You are the definitive "Clarica Agent" here for us English speaking folk.) -Du är en bra guide.
It is more of a pun than a tongue twister. Sju sjuka sjuksköterskor is a real tongue twister.
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!)
- 1330
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 :).
In English, a battering ram for ramming other boats or, if on land ramming gates or doors open.
No den, and före instead of förrän. Which only makes the tongue twister better, anyway.
före, not förrän, but sure:
The grandfather of the sheep of the year before last gets four sheep before his/its father.
- 145
I meant "det förrförra fårets", which I thought was "the sheep before last". Why would there be no "det"? Does "förrförra" not count as an adjective? Does it change your explanation to someone else that it's a series of sheep, not years?
It's an adjective, but förra and nästa aren't regular. Most of the time, you'll want to skip the article with time. I'm not really sure to what extent idiomatics trump rules here, since there isn't an exact rule to go by, but I'd wager the overwhelming majority of natives would always choose to skip the article in the case of sheep, which tend to be very countable.
It should actually be neither, since förra doesn't want to take the article.
- 140
That’s news to me. A search of "det förra" gives > 1 million results, e.g. DN ledare ” Misslyckandet med det förra pandemivaccinet får aldrig upprepas”. (?)
Yeah, sorry, I meant in this case. Generally speaking, you skip the article if it denotes a noun that's in a series. Years are a great example of that - but pandemic vaccines are not. It's not a strict rule, though.
Note that out of the 660k results I got for "det förra" on Google, looking through the first 50-60 results the overwhelming majority appear not to be applicable to this construction. There are many results like vi såg det förra veckan, which would mean "we saw it last week".
