63 Comments
Does anyone know a good way to remember the translation for "under"? I keep getting it wrong
It is a little complicated, but bear with me: Swedish language uses the very same letters for the English word 'under'. Here comes the twist: unfortunately the letters are in the same order as in in the English 'under'. It is tricky - I know - but with a few years of practice and perhaps living in Sweden for several years can help you get it down to some extent.
Tack! Can it be used for hierarchical things, such as "I am under you" being said to a superior within a company? Thanks again.
Anyone else think this is creepy? It sounds like something someone in a scary movie would say...I'm right under you
374
or maybe an adventure/action film I'm right beneath you on the next level down in the spaceship!
Am I correct that the u in under is supposed to be pronounced like that? The voice person lady thing pronounces it right? It isn't said like the English u in under, right? Just wondering :)
- 890
We're currently in an A/B test so I can't know for sure which voice you're hearing, and I can only hear one of them myself, but I think they both say this correctly. It's a sound you don't have in English and it sounds nothing like the English 'under'. Hear a native speaker say it: http://sv.forvo.com/search-sv/under/
Swedish has more different vowel sounds than English.
Edit: the A/B test has ended and the new voice definitely says this correctly.
Tack!
I also enjoyed this comparison with Danish & Norwegian. Never hurts to do some disambiguation (if you will) of especially similar languages. http://sv.forvo.com/word/under/#sv
The link you gave me sounds about the same as the voice on here. Thank you for the clarification!
- 747
I hear only a small difference between the Swedish vowel sound in the first syllable of 'under' and the English vowel sound in 'put'. Also, in certain British accents (e.g. Yorkshire accents) many more words contain that sort of 'u'. The Forvo English pronunciation of 'under' by TristanJaimes, for instance, isn't so very far from Swedish, is it? Am I just not tuned in to the subtleties of Swedish vowels yet?
- 890
I'm sure the sound exists in some English dialects, you can also hear it in Japanese for instance. To be more exact I guess I should have written that this sound is not a phoneme in Standard English.
The sound that most speakers would use in put however would be another vowel phoneme in Swedish, which would usually be written with the letter o. (o can sound in two ways, either like that or in the same way that the vowel written as an å sounds.)
- 400
Do Swedish people really talk this fast? It's so difficult to hear words with no break between them.
- 1302
Can it be taken for 'you are my boss'? Or is it just about physical position?
Kind of a weird expression, does it has any other meaning than littlelatly being under somebody's else body?
Well, it could mean for example that someone is lower in the hierarchy than the person they're speaking to, or they're on a lower floor in a building.
What means "I am under you"? Something as I live on the floor which is located under your floor?
What i don't understand is,what is the difference in du and dig for example ? I would appreciate if someone could briefly explain how to use those in an example.And does min mean my,but mina means mine ?
- 890
du is the subject form and dig is the object form. Both are you in English, but you have the same difference between we and us, so you can compare to that. You wouldn't say You are under we (I hope), for the same reason.
It's not that "my" means "min" and "mina" means "mine". Min/mitt/mina can all mean either "my" or "mine", you must just have run into different forms in different contexts.
- Det är min hund. / Hunden är min. - It is my dog. / The dog is mine.
- Det är mitt hus. / Huset är mitt. - It is my house. / The house is mine.
- Det är mina skor. / Skorna är mina. - They are my shoes. - The shoes are mine.
Er.. what is the context of this? Does it mean literally under, or does it describe (for instance) a manager - lesser employee role?
- 115
Another example for use of "under": "I am under your comand or spell"= "Jag är under ditt befäl eller stavning".
I'm assuming you mean "under your spell" as in a magic spell, and I'm afraid that phrase doesn't really work for two reasons. First, "stavning" means spelling in the grammatical sense. You spell a word right. Du stavar ett ord rätt. A magic spell is a "trollformel" or "magisk formel". Second, the phrase "under your spell" as a whole doesn't really translate literally to Swedish. I would recommend for example "Du har förtrollat mig". "You have enchanted me".
It does work with befäl/command, however. That part was right.
does this carry some of the same meanings as in English where one is not literally under someone else in a spacial dimension? if someone is a subordinate, or their name is listed lower on a ranking or table would this phrase be the same?
No, it should not. You need the object form. Same in English - you wouldn't say "under he" but "under him", for instance.
That someone is under you? It's quite literal, unless context makes some other interpretation clear.
It's not rude unless you make a context in which it is. My first thought was that they're on different levels of a building.
"Och du är ovanpå mig". "På toppen av" is more "at the top", as in you're at the top of a high place. "Han är på toppen av byggnaden." "He is at the top of the building."
