28 Comments
So I thought since sorg was "sorrow" I translated sorgligt as "sorrowful"... not good?
Should be
Can 'ledsen' be used instead of 'sorglig' here, or is it used for people only?
Tack! (So far I've gathered three words for 'sad': Ledsam, sorglig och vemodig)
And when you master their respective nuances, you've come quite far! :D Vemodig has sometimes been suggested as an example of a word really hard to translate properly and still catch all its meaning.
I checked 'vemodig' and my dictionary gave 'längtande' as its synonym. That sounds like 'yearning', a sense of 'nostalgia' (and a perfect translation for Finnish 'kaihoisa'), but I have no idea if 'vemodig' means the same.
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Yes, feeling blue is a very similar feeling to vemod, but there is often a nuance of regret, longing or nostalgia in it too. Literally, vemod means woe mood. The sort of mood when you'd say woe in old English.
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'Kaihoisa' is pretty close to 'vemodig'. Could it be 'feeling blue' in English?
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The closest I can think of is melancholy. A sad yearning or longing, usually for an unattainable element or experience in the past. It is more nuanced than that so it is flexible to fit a range of moods.
Is sorgligt an adjective (in neuter form) here, or an adverb associated with 'being', i.e. it is, sadly, for us... ?
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Why was "That is sad for us"? rejected? Some grammatical clue I don't recognize yet?
I assume he didn't like the "that", as there is nothing in the sentence that indicates a "that".
"sorgligt" almost sounds like 3 syllables in the audio.. is that how it should be said?
Yes. The "G" is pronounced more like an English "Y" ie almost like sorry-lit... that is a very coarse description though and not the right pronunciation, more a demonstration of the structure of the word.
