"Vi går på bio."
Translation:We go to the movie theater.
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Note that "We walk to the cinema" is wrong in this case since "Gå på bio" is a fixed epression in Swedish meaning "Go to the cinema" If you want to say that you walk to the cinema you'd have to change the preposition to "till".
I.e. "Vi går till bion" - "We walk to the cinema"
What makes "cinema (bio)" here definite? Why "the cinema" over "a cinema"? Tack.
It’s just a fixed expression, Swedish says ”gå på bio” just as English says ”go to the cinema”.
I answered the same question above. English sometimes prefers the definite form where Swedish prefers the indefinite form and vice versa.
Is there anyway to say something like "You just have to go to a cinema" then? Or is it forever tied with "the".
British English also has a few similar oddities, such as "go to university" or "go to hospital."
Wait, don't you say go to university in US English? What do you say instead?
We usually say we are going to college, even if university is part of the name of the school. For example, John is off to college. He is going to Washington State University.
I think the salient point ior this thread is that in America we will say that we are going to THE hospital, not to hospital.
Do typo alerts work on listening exercises? I misheard, and wrote "vi går på bil". It was marked correct, with no typo warning. Duo admins - if typos are accepted with no warning in this kind of exercise (?), it really doesn't help the learning process!
Would the sentence "Vi åker på bio" be correct, meaning that we go to the cinema by train, car, etc? Tack!
It's something you might hear sometimes, but gå på bio is the set expression and åka på bio doesn't really sound as good.
Shouldnt it be "vi går på bioN" if you want me to translate it that way?
gå på bio is a set expression meaning 'go to the cinema [and see a movie]'. It's like gå på bio is almost a verb in itself.
If you walk to a specific movie theater, that is går till bion 'walk to the cinema'.
We use the noun without an article like in the first sentence in some cases in Swedish where you prefer to have an article in English. For instance we can say either köpa bil or köpa en bil to mean 'buy a car'. The first version of the sentence expresses the action more in general, with no focus on the specific car. There are some more examples in this thread: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/5824774
In my part of the US, "cinema" has an artsy connotation. American English uses "movies" rather than cinema. I recommend that be the default translation for bio.