59 Comments
What would until the weekend be in this case? For me using till here comes a bit as a surprise.
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I agree with the other two, "i helgen" is more common than "till helgen" (but both are ok). However, we don't use "i månad" like this. We would have to say "den här månaden" or "denna månad".
So this year i år , this month denna månaden, this week denna veckan ,this day(today) idag , this weekend i helgan. This morning på morgonen, this afternoon i eftermiddag , this evening i kväll , and this nigh ( tonight) i natt
This morning (as in, the morning that has already passed today) is "i morse"
Otherwise, the coming morning (aka "tomorrow morning") would be "i morgon bitti"
This is one of those sentences that remind you of how difficult learning a language is. Literal English translation is a mess. Not that hard to decipher the meaning from Swedish but translating from English will be difficult to remember.
Am I the only one who doesn't hear a difference in the TTS pronounciation of gör and djur? Is one of them (or both?) bad pronounced or do they just sound alike? (especially when you click the slow TTS button, with the normal one I can hear a difference)
I think there is a subtle difference, but having forgotten the word "gör" and it's 'y-sounding' g, I made the same mistake too xD
It's an incredibly slight difference between the two. djur has more of a 'u' sound and the o(I dont have the keyboard set to Swedish on this computer) in gor is a more open sound. The u is more of a closed mouth whereas your mouth is open to say o. The u sound in djur sounds like the o in two. The o sound in gor is the oo in good as far as the position of the mouth, not necessarily the exact sound.
I agree. I also hear the difference like you describes it. But probably only because the two sounds are similiar to the German sounds of ö and ü and my ear is used to distinguish them.
Is there a distinction between at/on the weekend and over the weekend? "Over the weekend", which was not accepted, is very common in American English. I just wanted to check whether there's a different way to articulate that in Swedish.
I have already read expressions like "under helgen" as well as "över helgen". From my point of view, both are expressing "over the weekend" but hopefully a native Swede can clarify it.
I'd say that "under" is at some point during, and "över" is until it ends.
Jag har lånat en bok över helgen - I have borrowed a book over the weekend (probably got it friday and will return it monday morning, or at least early sat. to late sunday)
Jag ska läsa en bok under helgen - I'll read a book during the weekend (Not the whole time, but at some point)
It is not always any real difference though.
- 897
Yes, but that's more 'during the weekend' – till helgen specifically means 'this weekend'
I take it that helg is more commonly used, but is there much difference between helg and veckoslut?
- 866
"Veckoslut" is always Saturday - Sunday. "Helg" is connected to any day which is marked red in the calendar: a Sunday, or Christmas Day, if it occurs on e. g. a Wednesday. "Helg" is also referring more generally to a holiday period, like Christmas.
- 355
Is "helg" really the same as "weekend" in Swedish? I spent 11 years in Sweden, studied in Uppsala etc., but for me the Swedish word for "weekend" always was "weekend". "Helg" in my humble opinion (though I'm not a native speaker, that's true) is a "holy day", every sort of it. Am I really so largely mistaken?
I remember even the term "veckoslut" for weekend. But the weekend doesn't seem so holy to me to merit the name of the "helg". Am I mistaken?
- 897
It can be easy to miss this kind of thing. We can say weekend in Swedish for instance if we book en weekendresa 'a weekend trip'. But in most cases, the weekend is helgen and 'a holy day' is rather en helgdag. Words like veckoslut and veckända are used by some speakers, it can be both regional (saying veckoslut is common in Finland) and possibly a question of sociolect or age, but helg is the overwhelmingly most common and neutral word.
- 1682
It is impossible to hear the word 'du'. Is it normal in the fluent swedish speech, or is it a mistake?
Because that is neither grammatically correct in English nor an accurate translation of the Swedish sentence. Helgen means the weekend, which is the correct way to say it in English.
Ohh, I forgot about "the", sorry, but would it then be correct if I said "What are you doing for the weekend"??
Yes, I'm fairly sure that's how I used to answer it when I was still active in the Swedish course (I took hiatus to focus on Norwegian since I'm taking too many and they're similar).
Can you say "vad gör du för helgen?" That would mean the same to me, I'm English.
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THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING!!! My attempt was corrected to "What do you do over weekend?" Adding to my list of Sentences I Am Unlikely To Ever Say.
I am not a native speaker (neither swedish nor english) and I always thought it must be "will" (what will you do...). I even asked some brittish people who told me that "what do you do at the weekend" sounds very German. (We germans say "was machst du" for presend and most times for future. We have the "werden"-future but we dont use it) So can native english speakers tell me whether "will do" and "are doing" are equally acepted? Thanks!
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To my American ear, "what are you doing this weekend" sounds much more natural (but only if you run the 1st two words together: "what're"). ;)
- 69
From the lessons i've done so far it seems like the prepositions in Swedish have no real logic... You just have to learn which one is correct in different contexts.
