"Vi går på bio."
Translation:We go to the cinema.
16 Comments
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"
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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”.
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Is there anyway to say something like "You just have to go to a cinema" then? Or is it forever tied with "the".
I answered the same question above. English sometimes prefers the definite form where Swedish prefers the indefinite form and vice versa.
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British English also has a few similar oddities, such as "go to university" or "go to hospital."
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Wait, don't you say go to university in US English? What do you say instead?
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We're more likely to say "college" than "university" in that circumstance.
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Would the sentence "Vi åker på bio" be correct, meaning that we go to the cinema by train, car, etc? Tack!
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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.
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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
