"Vart går farfar?"
Translation:Where is grandfather going?
43 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Vart implies direction, whereas var implies place.
Vart går farfar? = Where to is grandpa going?
Var är hatten? = Where's the hat?
In spoken or informal contexts they're often mixed though, so you might well hear one mean the other and vice versa. However, you should get to know the difference as it might come in handy.
This is why I think "To where is grandpa going?" should be accepted as an answer.
That is exactly what I wrote and Duolingo marked it wrong! Here is copy 'Where to is grandfather going' DL corrected it to 'Where is grandfather going'
I got lost about family names, so I found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fspzcZjtNc
It explains the differences between farmor/mormor, farfar/morfar etc.
I think there should be an explanation about this particularity of the Swedish language. I was told that Hungarian also distinguishes 4 forms of saying 'brother/sister', that's a lit bit unusual for us Western people.
Unusual to us western people? Hungary is technically in the west... Or at least the eastern part of the west...
So is Sweden. :-). And I believe this is true for all the Scandinavian languages.
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I put "Where is your grandfather going?" and it said that it was referring to the speaker's grandfather, rather than the person they are speaking to. How do we know whose grandfather is being referred to? Is it just the context of the situation?
Just out of curiosity. Why the "Where is paternal grandfather going?" phrase is not accepted?
I think you're thinking of gör.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/g%C3%B6ra#Swedish
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/g%C3%A5#Swedish
I really heard "vad gör farfar", which i think is gramatically correct. The lady really didn't pronounce the går very clearly
Why is Var used in 'Var går farfar' and a previous sentence Vart is used in 'Vart är morfars bruna skjorta? Tack
Other way around - this sentence uses Vart går farfar? and the other one is Var är morfars bruna skjorta?
It's because var = where, and vart = where to. English can sometimes use "where" to mean "where to", but Swedish keeps them strictly separated.
How can we understand "går" is used here, not "gör"? I'm not sure I hear a difference... could these 2 sentences be correct (each with its own meaning of course)? Thank you!
No, gör means "do / does", so vart gör farfar? would be as nonsensical as "where does grandpa to?"
The g in går is hard and the g in gör is soft. And they're different vowels: the long å is like the o in English "bore", and the long ö doesn't really exist in English.
6 years ago Zmrzlina (who I assume was one of the mderators) wrote:
Vart går farfar? = Where to is grandpa going?
That was exactly what I wrote but DL marked it wrong and corrected it to 'Where is grandfather going'. Why? And what does one have to do to get a reply to a query? Is it simply luck?
I know Zmrzlina wasn't a contributor at the time he wrote that answer, and the sentence hasn't been edited in 6+ years, so most likely no active contributor ever saw the question. I see I started writing in it about a year ago, but I don't generally scroll through an entire thread unless I have the time for it.
Anyway, I've added the translation now, plus a couple of others.
Why is it here "Vart"? I do not understand when and when not to add that t