"Man behöver alltid vatten."

Translation: One always needs water.

[jaiirapetjan]

I always miss this one, because in English the word "man" can be used as an impersonal pronoun. Man always needs water.

[Ben_Jahh]

Why does Man=One?

[Zmrzlina]

It's an impersonal pronoun, comparable to English one, Dutch men or French on.

[Bluthund]

• or German "man"

[ClockworkElf]

Is "people always need water" incorrect?

[Lundgren8]

That would be folk behöver alltid vatten.

[clayKaboom]

Would it be valid to say " one needs water all the time " ?

[Arnauti]

The meaning would change somewhat and it would be Man behöver vatten hela tiden instead.

[Landwalker04]

So, in English, it would not be unusual to say "Man always needs water." (At least, not unusual in a grammatical / stylistic sense.)

So I always try to translate this sentence that way, and always I am wrong.

Can someone explain to me why "Man always needs water" is an incorrect translation of this, and what the Swedish version of such a sentence would be?

[Arnauti]

That "man" should be människan in Swedish, but actually you could pretty much take your pick between the different number/definiteness combinations, I'd say all of Människan behöver … , En människa behöver … , and Människor behöver … are acceptable translations in this case (because definiteness doesn't work the same in Swedish & English here).

[Innuli]

Why not 'water is always needed'?

[Zmrzlina]

That changes the sentence too much.

[QGloaf]

Is the pronunciation "allti" without the "d" in real speech too, or is this another quirk of the generated voice?

[chainswa]

Why is "One always requires water" deemed incorrect?