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- Topic: Swedish >
- "Det vet inte han heller."
66 Comments
Why is this sentence not "Han vet inte det heller"? What causes the pronouns to be where they are here?
You could say that as well, but it’s common with ”veta” to front the pronoun for emphasis. You say ”jag vet inte”, but if you include ”det” it’s just more common to say ”Det vet jag inte”. It literally translates as ”That I don’t know” but it’s how we normally say it.
You say "front the pronoun" but you specifically mean, "front the object pronoun" correct?
The question uses "inte" before the pronoun, but in the example you used in this comment you used "inte" after the pronoun. Are both options always correct?
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There's also a slight difference in meaning:
Det vet inte han heller means that someone else doesn't know, and this guy also doesn't know.
Han vet inte det heller can mean that, but it could also mean (depending on which word you stress when you pronounce it) that this guy doesn't know thing A, and also doesn't know thing B.
It's a fine line, though, and mostly, both would work.
If you don't mind, could you tell me how you would stress it differently? That's something that seems really essential to learning the language, yet I haven't seen any mention of it yet in the course.
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Hmm ... it was clearer in my head when I wrote that earlier today than it is now.
Essentially, like in other languages, you would put the stress on different words depending on what the above sentence is referring to. (It must be referring to something said earlier, because of the heller = (n)either.)
The TTS stresses both "vet" and "inte" in this sentence in my opinion, which sounds a bit strange (but then again she and I aren't speaking the same dialect, so I might be wrong).
If we skip the heller in this case for simplicity, you could say:
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Det vet inte han, which might refer to a man knowing that there will be a suprise party for him, for not knowing that his favorite artist will perform there, the last bit being the "det". So he knows something, but not that bit.
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Det vet han inte, which might be that someone suspects something, but he isn't sure, which is important to the speaker.
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Det vet han inte, I know something but he doesn't.
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Det vet han inte, here the important (or maybe hotly debated) thing is that he really doesn't know.
I don't know if this makes it clearer for anyone, but I sure confused myself :-)
No no, you explained that very clearly (tydligt), and it makes sense. English would use a similar intonation, stressing those same words for the difference in meaning.
The only thing I don't underbar is why you put the "inte" before "han" in the first example, but in the rest it's after the subject.
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That's just how they happened to come to my mind...
In fact, han and inte could switch places in any of my sentences above, except for the last one where it would sound unnatural.
Could this also mean 'it does not know him either' in certain situations? I know that translation would most likely be less common but if you were talking about an animal or something..?
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It can't mean that, for two reasons: a) since han is in the subject form (it would have to be honom if it were 'him') and b) because when you 'know' people, the verb is känner. So that sentence would have to be Det känner inte honom heller.
It's not strictly ungrammatical but really not a good translation either.
Compare it to "That knows not he either" and perhaps it'll sound less strange, if absurdly unidiomatic. :)
By the way, do have a look at my reply to fraumueller above - that might be of use to you!
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I'm sorry to whinge, but it would be a H--L of a lot easier/clearer if Duolingo could give us either new vocabulary or new idiomatic structure, but not both at once. Especially when (as pointed out above) the typical structure of "han vet inte det heller" would work as well.
Very frustrating being asked to run before I can walk, especially when it undermines confidence in the accuracy of what I've previously learned. This is not the first example of this, either. As a professional fiction writer I'm enthusiastic about the nuances of idiom and how they can be used to enhance communication, but "all in good time" might be an appropriate sentiment here.
(And I don't mean to pick on you in specific, devalanteriel. This post is instigated by kirafaust's entirely appropriate observation that the word order feels insane.)
That's fair criticism and a perfectly reasonable source of irritation.
It's a bit hard for me to answer properly since I haven't added any sentences myself, having joined the team after the course was initially built. And to be honest, I don't think I'd have added this sentence in this way - but I also have the benefit of hindsight. I get to see what didn't work in the first tree, in a way that previous contributors didn't really know beforehand.
But the gist of it is that:
- I agree. :)
- The next tree version will hopefully be an improvement in this regard and similar ones.
- Duolingo's outspoken strategy is to teach by trial and error. The apps don't even offer lesson notes (except for courses built in-house), and we're also expected to teach people ranging from children to linguistics PhDs. So in many cases, finding where to draw that line is difficult.
I do appreciate your concerns, although I can't really do much to alleviate them at the moment.
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Tack så mycket, for your sympathy and understanding.
Trial and error is a great way to learn, but when the errors start stacking up and become demoralizing, the technique becomes counterproductive.
On that note, I don't know if you're taking suggestions for the next tree version, but if you are: You (meaning whoever is running the show at Duolingo) might consider slowing the rate of new vocabulary introduction as the tree progresses. Maybe split some of the lessons into two parts? At a certain point along the tree, the original vocabulary is still new enough, not yet fixed in memory, that too much new vocab becomes overwhelming. About the time you hit those prepositions and start learning not just different words, but how the language works, the brain needs to downshift and take the learning curve a little more slowly.
And if there's a "suggestion box" where I could offer that, I'd be happy to put this there and stop cluttering up a simple lesson discussion. I've got a couple other format suggestions, too.
Feedback is always welcome, but bear in mind that I can only change course contents, not how the site works. I'd suggest leaving general feedback for the course in the Swedish forums (https://forum.duolingo.com/topic/908/), and send feedback for the site to Duo HQ through the links here (https://support.duolingo.com/hc/en-us).
As for the new tree, I think the issue of lesson sizing became really obvious very early on, and that's definitely something I know that previous contributors wanted to improve on as well. So that's top of the list, really.
Looks ungrammatical. "Neither" is used when you are talking about two things like "Neither you nor he knows it". You can use it as a pronoun and say "Neither knows it" instead of having two pronouns in a row like in your version, but it wouldn't be a translation of this Swedish exercise. We don't know what two things neither refers to in my example. You could say "He knows neither", but we don't know what two things he doesn't know in this case. Again, not a good translation. Your version could be a phrase to be extended into a complete sentence like: "He neither knows it nor cares [about it]".
That doesn't he know either. Sounds a bit weird but not wrong. I'm not an English native(German), sooo why is this wrong?
German and Swedish are both v2 languages, meaning that the verb wants to go second.
So if you have a sentence like Er weiß das nicht, the verb is second and it corresponds to "He doesn't know that" in English.
Now, if you move the "that" to the front, you need to move the verb in German or Swedish so that it's still in second position, and you get Das weiß er nicht - but in English, you don't move the verb because it doesn't have v2 rules, so you still get "That he doesn't know".
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Can you reorganize sentences like this in other cases? For example, can I say "Det tar jag" or "Honom älsker hon"?
Occasionally, for emphasis. But it's somewhat of an advanced topic and it's far more often severely unidiomatic or downright ungrammatical than not.
I wonder if English forbids: That he does not know either. with a strong emphasis on THAT.
That absolutely works in English given proper context and prosody, but should perhaps not be accepted as it isn't really a very standard phrasing otherwise.
OK, (because of a better agreement with the word order when you translate word by word, when clock is ticking, one is more time efficient to go for that sentence, but I agree)
I know how frustrating that is, but we can't really use the timed practice sessions as a guideline for which translations to accept.
I agree, I just wanted to be reassured that I don't miss something in my grasp of English. Thanks.
As Lundgren8 says above, it's common to front the object pronoun with veta for emphasis. Then you have the v2 rule which means that you need the verb next. The inte and han can come in either order, and then you put heller last just like with "either" in English.
No, han is he. The third-person singular of English do is does.
I do, you do, he does, it does, they do.
Why do I put the pronoun before 'inte' in "Det vet jag inte." and behind it in the example sentence?
No, that's actually ungrammatical. Like saying "That doesn't either he know", in a way.
Is it necessary to include implied pronouns in Swedish? The version of this statement I hear most often is "he does not know either." Not that the pronoun is uncommon, it just got me thinking.
Also, out of curiousity, how would you say "either he knows, or he doesn't?" Even though it's not an exact translation I assume something like "han vet det eller inte" would suffice.
det here is closer to "that" than to "it", if that makes sense. You can say han vet inte ("he doesn't know"), and han vet inte det ("he doesn't know that/it"). But for det vet inte han heller, you can't leave det out. If we use less idiomatic English, in the passive, it's easier to see why: you could say "that isn't known by him" but not "isn't known by him". Basically the same reason.
I think it must be"Det var jag inte heller"can any one explain for me why do we have inte before han even though it is not a rakordföljd
You probably mean det var han inte heller. The most normal word order is simply det var inte han, with inte directly after the verb. Then you add heller at the end.
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So, we’ve already seen that “det” can go in front with “göra” (Springer du? Det gör jag). And now this can also be done with “veta”. What other verbs can this be done with?
For example, if someone were to ask, “Är du lång?”, would it be more idiomatic to respond with “ja, det är jag” instead of “ja, jag är det”?
It's like in English - essentially, any question that can be answered by "Yes, that I [do/see/make/hear/want]", etc., can be answered in this way in Swedish as well. It's just idiomatic to leave the "that" out in English, but that's ungrammatical in Swedish.
And indeed, ja, det är jag is much more idiomatic in your example. :)
Das weiß er auch nicht
Det vet inte han heller
In german we put the inte at the end of the sentence. Its like this:
Det vet han heller inte
Can i say it this way?
There's an English idiom, "either-or," which is an expression used to indicate that there are only two options, but to also imply that both of the two options would be acceptable or equivalent.
My question is: would such a phrase have any meaning in Swedish if I were to directly translate it and say "heller-eller?"
That'd be antingen eller, and you'll actually encounter it later in this course. :)
Yes, neither basically means "not either", so since you already have a "not" you can't use it.
The word order really threw me on this one. I would have guessed that 'inte' would have come before 'han.' Then again ... even that sounds strange.
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But inte does come before han in the suggested answer.
See above for other options and their slightly different meanings.
Oops. Guess I was tired when I posted that last comment - Ha! What I meant to say is that I would have guessed "han" would be before "inte" .... Det vet han inte heller.
