"She comes at any time."
Translation:Hon kommer när som helst.
28 Comments
It means "whenever".
... som helst is an expression meaning any.... It can be used with question words to form vad som helst, hur som helst, vem som helst and the like. Comparable to adding -ever in English.
315
Thank you. I've been studying Swedish for almost two years and I had never heard that expression before. Much appreciated.
Would this be synonymous with the English phrase "She's coming at any moment"?
Yes, but you could also use vid varje tidpunkt, which translates roughly as "at each point in time" or vid tidpunkt som helst (not certain that the latter is grammatically correct, though).
- 888
Yes, that is also a good sentence. If you want to, you can add a preposition and say Hon kommer vid vilken tid som helst, but the preposition is optional.
Vilken means which, right ? So Whats is the literal translation for vilken tid som helst ? and vid vilken tid som helst ?
När som helst = at any time // any time ? Vilken som helst = at any time // any time ? Vid vilken tid som helst = at any time // any time ?
What about whichever then ?
- 583
Hi Duo! Could you please recommend some English article where I could read about conjunctions usage? For example as far as I can see word "som" could have many meanings depending on words near and it not really clear at all. Thanks in advance
I can't understand "när som helst" = "at any time"!!! Can anyone explain this?
som is a broad word, it means much more than "who". Here, it's more like "when-so-ever". Also please refer to Zmrzlina's comment above.
när som helst literally means "when-so-ever". If you replace när with att, it turns into "to-so-ever", and doesn't make a lot of sense.
- 372
Hmmmm.....
"At any time" feels a bit wider than the definition of "när som helst" that I'm used to in Swedish (which usually implies "very soon" or "now in a minute")
We accept quite a few options here, but I honestly think the English and Swedish defaults correspond pretty well here, actually.
It doesn't really translate literally. The best direct translation is "when-so-ever". In isolation:
- när means "when"
- som means "which", "that", or "as"
- helst means "most preferrably"
