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- "Nej, snälla!"
99 Comments
The word "snälla" can mean alot of things and it's use is very contextual. A direct translation cannot be done. In this case "Please don't!" is a better translation of the sentence since "No, please!" is rarely used in English.
Example of uses:
- "Snälla" can be used when to request or beg for something. "Snälla sluta gnälla" = "Please stop whining" or "Snälla gör det inte" = "Please don't do it".
It's use shouldn't be equated with the word "please" in all situations.
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"Yes, please" is not "Ja, snälla". "Yes, please" = "Ja, tack". In this case, when someone offers you something then you can accept by saying "Ja, tack".
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Snäll is also an adjective that means nice or kind. Snäll is singular and snälla is plural. "The teacher is nice/kind" = "Läraren är snäll".
Is it mostly a negative phrase, eg: someone is being annoying and you say "Nej, snalla!"
Or can it be used in manners, eg. "Have the last piece, I insist!" "Nej, snalla!"
?
Yes, it is more of a negative phrase and is not used in manners. Closest you can get to it in english is "no, please don't" and it can not be used as "no, please go ahead".
If you're going for the manners approach, it'd be much better to use "No thanks".
"No, please!" in English makes me think of some really desperate situation where someone is about to do something awful to you and you're begging for your life.
What do you all mean you don't see this sentence in English? Do none of you watch horror movies?
Please bare with me for what I'm gonna say right now hahaha It's never "No, please" that doesn't make sense. It's "No! Please!" There's a big difference to be made right here. And it's not because it is not coonfusing to you, that it is not confusing for other people. Good for you if you understood, but not everyone did and it's very comprehensible.
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P.S. It's "bear with me", not "bare with me" - is about carrying a metaphorical burden ("to bear"), not taking your clothes off ("to bare").
Just chiming in here. "Yes please" or "no thank you". "No, please" makes zero sense.
And why test someone on words they haven't encountered yet? Is there some dodgy randomisation going on, to ask someone what the translation is without having first encountered it the other way around?
No, please happens all the time in english: "More cake, vicar? Thank you, I'm full. O go on, another small slice won't hurt (puts cake on vicar's plate). No, please".
I'm sorry but that's wrong and it doesn't happen all the time. I can honestly say that in my 65 years I have never heard a native English speaker say that. The correct response is, 'No, thanks.' 'No, please' is incorrect. It only works if you flesh it out. For example, 'No, please don't give me another slice, I've had enough,' would be OK but just 'No, please,' simply doesn't work.
I totally agree! I've never, ever heard any native English speaker say "No, please" in my life.
In any case, "No, please" can happen when you actually don't want someone to do something, something alike "no, please don't."
But that isn't what the Swedish phrase presented here means! It means 'No thank you', not 'No, please don't kill me' or equivalent. Completely different inflections.
Ah, that's something I didn't get the first time :P Have a lingot!
Edit: Just in case, I clarify: when you said "no it doesn't", I originally thought you meant that it didn't happen all the time in English (like langadic said).
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It's the former. Duo assembles lessons at random from per-lesson vocabulary words and global lists of sentences.
I don't think I have ever heard a native English speaker say "No please". I know that this is the literal translation, and should perhaps be accepted as an answer, but "No thank you" is really the only correct translation.
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Well I may be wrong but I feel it more like "no, please don't". Can I climb on this statue? nej, snälla.
Actually, yes - thinking about it I suppose I can imagine a situation where it might be said. It still sounds odd though - but at this stage sticking with "Yes please" and "No thank you" would seem a better idea.
Well translation aside, 'no, please' might be said in English if there's a politeness dance going on, and someone is 'giving way' to another person. Like if someone is deciding not to do something out of politeness, and you want to say 'no it's OK, please go ahead'
"No, please" is not just rare in English. It is never an idiom and it is simply confusing. Nobody ever says it in natural English and, as a native British English speaker, I don't know what situation you would imagine we would say it in.
You would still not say it. A comma is a brief pause, which is unnatural in this example and misleading. The exclamations would be separate with a long pause, i.e. "No! Please!"
I disagree - both ways are fine.
Look, I'm not saying it's the perfect translation by any means. As Erik noted above, "Please don't!" is a more idiomatic translation by far. But if we put that as the default, the reverse translation exercise gets weird instead. I'm just pointing out that the translation given is not incorrect, just an unidiomatic tool to teach the Swedish.
I would never ever understand this sentence because no and please just don't go together in native English. If you won't listen to a native speaker then ask yourself why there are so many comments expressing confusion. This is not English usage in any way. I am a native speaker, translator and professional linguist but don't believe me, believe the first 5 native speakers you ahow the phrase. They will tell you it is not a natural or meaningful combination.
This is a totally niche example. Just because one would understand (guess the intention correctly) in that instance doesn't make it good or natural English. These words never go together in English and make no idiomatic sense. It sounds like a clear foreign language mistake so I am glad it will be removed.
Again, I didn't argue that it's in any way idiomatic. You claimed that you "would never ever understand this sentence", so I provided a simple counter-example. Whether it's a "totally niche example" is hardly relevant to that argument.
Please be aware that we do feature a lot of less idiomatic English throughout the course. This is mostly because of the way Duolingo's backend is built, where what we put as a default English translation turns into what you get as a "translate into Swedish" exercise. Since the point of quite a lot of exercises is to teach a specific Swedish sentence construction, we frequently need to enter unidiomatic options, or run the risk of not being able to teach the construction.
That's not to say that it's always the best option - clearly, sentences like these illustrate how the system fails at times, and I've made several thousand changes to the course just this year, based on user input.
I'm sure if you watch a horror movie and the subtitles say "No, please!" instead of "No! Please!" you would understand perfectly what is meant.
The reason people are confused, here and on the reverse exercise thread, is largely that they expect the phrase to mean "No thanks", which it doesn't.
Clearly, this is a concern to us. Any sentence with high error percentages needs to be reevaluated continuously. And frankly, this sentence probably won't survive the next tree because I don't like it either. :)
"No, please" is an incorrect translation and shouldn't be accepted.
What's the difference between "snälla" in this sentence and "tack" in the sentence "Ja tack!"?
Well, depending on the context they might have the same or different meaning, I guess, but "snälla" means "please" and "tack" means "thanks".
Thank you.
I guess I was more asking why "snälla" is used here, with "nej," while "tack" was used with "ja." I guess it's just an expression of some sort!
I see. So with "nej," there's a distinction between snälla and tack; however, with "ja," they mean basically the same thing (though, given Duolingo's sentence choice, I assume "ja tack" is said a lot more than "ja snälla," though I wouldn't be surprised if it's situational).
Was just thinking why did my last exercise have tack as both thanks and please
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I would guess that in this context, 'nej,snälla' would be the equivalent to 'no, thank you', a polite refusal. This course is still in beta version, this will probably be fixed in the future.
Native Swedes: Is "No thanks" a suitable translation, or does this have to always specifically mean "No, please"? The software doesn't accept No thanks as a translation but I am wondering, after reading the conversation, if it ought to?
From my understanding of reading this thread, it means "No, please do not do that" or "Please don't", rather than "No thanks."
As has been said many times in this thread, "No please" is at best confusing and at least meaningless in English. The consensus is that this phrase means "Please don't" or "Don't do that, please".
Did you also read my other replies in this thread? I've stated that the sentence was marked for revision to likely be removed from the next version. That said, I've since resigned from the Swedish team so I can't make any such claims any longer.
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It doesn't. Instead they use this word "snälla" which means "kind (you)". With requests you can also say "kan du vara snäll och..." which means "can you be kind and...", or "vänligen" which literally means "kindly" but is often translated as "please".
I didn't get it at first, because to me, without context, it doesn't make sense in English, but my take on it now is something like this. "no, please!', but spoken with emphasis on the please to emphasis 'don't!' .
Yes: they're not just letters with accents - they're letters in their own right! In other words, "å" is as different from "a" as "b" is from "d".
This also means that using the wrong letter will almost always change the meaning completely. For instance, höra is "hear" but hora is "prostitute".
Please can we scrap this sentence? It is so contrived an unnatural in English - and totally unsuitable as an introductory phrase!
Quoting myself from above:
And frankly, this sentence probably won't survive the next tree because I don't like it either.
Unfortunately, removing sentences from the current tree is not technically advisable. But it's been marked for revision, meaning there's a large chance it wont make it to the next version.
What sound does the ll make? With the a at the end it almost sounds like snallya, or am i just misinterpreting a heavy accent on the last syllable?
Ok, so I am confused. When do I use snälla? Is it to say yes please or to ask for something. Like to beg? I will give you 3 lingots to answer my question!
Tack så mycket!!!
Going through the answers above, it looks like snälla is used to ask for something - In this case asking to not have something, or for someone not to do something. I gather that it means 'kind', so could be seen as like 'if you'd be so kind' on English. Going by that, you can also use it in sentences asking for something specific - 'kindly pass the salt'. Someone also said that you can use it to describe someone as kind.
Many others think this isn't used in English, but: "Would you like some food?" "No, please!" There are many other ways you can use this, it just isn't thought about much.
That sound absolutely bizarre to me (Australian English of 47 years). Sorry! I'd think the person who said "No, please!" was not a native English speaker. In that situation I'd say "No thanks!"
Yeah, Duolingo does that at times. It's terribly annoying. Same thing with quotation marks.
I'm having a bit of a hard time knowing when to double consonants. Previously i wrote tallar and now i wrote snåla. Is there any link from doubling consonants with speech or any other rule i can follow?
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It seems like "snälla" is usually for asking a favor, like "snälla du" can you hand me that book, or try to be quieter, etc.
Please refer to the other comments on this thread regarding this.
tack means please as in thank you ("one apple, please"), and snälla means please as in begging or pleading.
I though snälla was only used in the beginning of a phrase. Can anyone confirm this?
