37 Comments
119
and to French... "en un clin d'oeil" ? (in a blink of the eye)
Does it also mean 'in a very prompt/quick/short amount of time' ? The english translation "in a moment" feels so slow :/
Ögonblick means a short moment, but not very very short. At most a couple of minutes, I'd say.
ögonblick seems to be as in German Augenblick : 'un moment', plutôt qu''un instant'.
@Reubenio: Saying tackar is very common. It's more like it's short for jag tackar = "I am thanking".
- 21
If öglonblick means "in a couple of minutes", why is "in a little while" not accepted?
No, a couple of minutes is the absolute maximum - normally, an ögonblick is way shorter. Something you might say if you're being called to dinner and expect to get to the kitchen in 30 seconds after you've saved your document, for instance.
there is even a similar phrase in polish: "w oka mgnieniu" (oko - the eye, mgnienie - the glance" :)
Maybe I missed the boat for the word "Om", but can this sentence also mean "For a moment!" ? As in, "Can you help me? Yes, for a moment."
- 830
Not sure about your example, but om means 'after' rather than 'during' with time.
I am slightly confused by the word "om". It was first introduced to me during the course in the phrase "Om du vill", "if you want", so I identified the meaning of "om" as "If", but further on it started appearing as "on/in" and in the word suggestions "if" wasn't even mentioned. Is "om du vill" a sort of saying or fixed phrase that doesn't take count of the single word meanings or is "om" also used as "if"? And if it is, when is it used?
- 830
It's a confusing word. om meaning 'if' is a conjunction, it coordinates phrases.
om can also be a preposition meaning about (en bok om blommor 'a book about flowers') or with a temporal meaning like 'in' in English – jag kommer om en timme 'I'll arrive in an hour')
There's also a verb particle om which is a part of the verb tycker om = 'likes'.
Oh man! Guess I'll just have to remember all of this then! I'm finding Swedish to be a fairly easy language to learn, but the most difficult part for me is definitely these small 2-3 letter words that often have multiple meanings, because I can't quite pin down yet when to use them and what they mean! I'll just keep learning. Tack, Arnauti!
- 830
Yes, Swedish should be pretty easy if you know English, the prepositions and especially particles are probably the worst part. (the particles are always stressed, so you'll hear the difference in speech).
yes exactly, and I have yet to hear a native Swede speak, so whenever I'll get the chance to I hope some things will clear up (especially on pronounciation).
- 756
In all constructions, "om" makes sense if I emphasize the English definition "about."
"En bok om blommer." For a book's contents or other similar uses for "om," the sense is clear.
"Om du vill." Because of the indefinite connotation of "about," "if" makes sense.
"Jag tycker om dig." When "tycker" is understood as thinking in the sense of a positive opinion, the "tycker om" combination unrolls to "I think well about you," shortened to "I like you."
"Om ett ögonblick!" Even the approximate sense in application to time becomes clear.
If I have missed any of the uses of "om," please add a comment.
So would a loose translation of "ögonblick" be "the time it takes to look at something" or am over-analyzing this a bit much?
Not really "look at" but more, "the time it takes to blink your eye". Ögonblick = eye blink
We use i to tell the duration of time, so i ett ögonblick means "for the duration of a moment".
If anything, I personally think it would make much more sense if both Swedish and English used "after a moment".
Yeah thanks. So it's sometimes på and sometimes om then? På onsdag for example and om maj. So basically på replaces the English on and om replaces in (In these cases not all the the time)
om means "after a duration", e.g. om två timmar = in two hours.
på means at a specific time or during a specific duration, e.g. på onsdag = on Wednesday.
However, we do use i for months instead of på, so it gets even more confusing...
