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- "Det står en korg på bordet."
26 Comments
Got here through a practice session and find myself in the same boat as past commenters. It does seem like a slightly different construction than before. 'Det finns' would also work here, correct?
Det står en korg på bordet = There stands/is a basket on the table
Det finns en korg på bordet = There exists/is a basket on the table
What about something lying on the table, like a book?
Det ligger en bok på bordet (?)
Swedish natives please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'll try to answer with how I've been impressed.
I've encountered a sentence with det ligger here (iirc had something to do with ligger-ing on a hylla), so that's definitely possible.
I remember a Swedish native saying in a comment that the difference between det står and det ligger is that the former indicates the thing in question having been placed where it's placed, whereas the latter just mentions the existence of the thing in a specific place. Det finns I think is even less specific than det ligger and only indicates the existence of said thing in a place.
1326
står means that the object is perceived to be in a standing position, ligger means it's lying down. finns is more general. So there is a book on the table could be either det ligger en bok på bordet or det finns en bok på bordet (less likely). If the book is standing up, you could say det står en bok på bordet.
I believe in this sense it is talking in a metaphorical sense, where the basket isn't standing as a human or animal would. It is instead just existing in a standing fashion (thus only "There is/Det står". All of the words (ligger, står, på and whatever else there may be in different contexts) directly translate to "is", with the different words only specifying the current state of the object.
(Sorry if I got this wrong, I'm not too fsr in the course, but this is what I believe/think about when i come across these)
So, baskets are considered to be 'standing?' If it was knocked over, would it then be ligger på?
Literally that is correct, but not typically idiomatic for English. For Swedish, however, it seems to work.
It's slightly archaic in English but perfectly acceptable and understandable to any native English speaker.
The start of the translation is "There is..." does this come from "Det star"?
- 1097
Up until now, the course had taught us, "det finns." So I put, "It's a basket on the table." This was marked wrong, even though the meaning is very similar. Perhaps consider including it as an accepted answer. :)
Står is not "is." It is acceptable to say in English "there stands a basket on the table" which is what I put.
It's so awesome how there are some things in swedish that are verry similar to russian. In russian we also say there stands instead of there is.
- 1405
There is no "there is" (or "there stands") in Russian. A Russian would say "basket stands on table" (корзина стоит на столе).
- 1326
If we compare with Russian, the best translation of Det står en korg på bordet is На столе стоит корзина, and the best translation of Корзина стоит на столе would be Korgen står på bordet. This is because the indefinite en korg is talking about something not previously mentioned or known to the listener, so it's more typical to have that thing at the end of a Russian sentence because of the information principle (start out with old and known facts, go on to new information).
What is very similar though is that we're very likely to use position verbs such as stand, lie, hang in similar ways in Swedish and Russian, in cases where they'd be more likely to use more general verbs in English.
'På bordet' what actually mean, just on the table, or even near, next to, in the way to the table?
- 417
swedish -> english "står" is ok, but today i had exactly this sentence english ->swedish, where my answer with "står" wss marked wrong
- 411
Interesting that “står” is the preferred verb here. I wouldn’t normally consider a basket to “stand” on a table, like how a glass or an upright book would. I feel like stand/står implies that it’s taller than it is long or wide, but a basket really isn’t. Kinda like how “Det står ett glas på bordet” wouldn’t make much sense if the glass were on its side.
Something like “Det sitter en korg på bordet” sounds more correct to me. Would that also be acceptable? I’m probably just overthinking this though.
