"Ju snabbare, desto bättre"

Translation: The quicker, the better

[Adelhaidar]

can anyone explain more about "ju" and "desto" for me? . Do they only mean "the" or they have other uses?

[Arnauti]

ju … desto is a combination, in English the combination is the … the
These expressions work like this: If you have more X, you will have more Y.
Ju mer du läser, desto mer lär du dig - The more you read, the more you learn
Ju större fötter du har, desto större skor behöver du - The bigger feet you have, the bigger shoes you need
Ju fler desto roligare - The more the merrier
Ju fler kockar, desto sämre soppa - The more cooks, the worse the soup (Proverb: too many cooks spoil the broth)

[yourbuddy_]

So like a cause and effect?

[devalanteriel]

It could be correlative rather than causal, but yeah, that's the general gist. :)

[creativemetaphor]

Direct translation aside, could a more creative understanding of this be something along the lines of "if ... therefore"? or something similar?

[Arnauti]

If X to a higher degree, then Y to a higher degree too
Or covariance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covariance

[creativemetaphor]

Perfect! Thank you, I think that gets me where I need to be in my head. :)

[Arnauti]

Ju has other uses too. A common one is to reinforce that something is already known. This is often not translated into English.
Jag har ju sagt det! - lit. I have [ju] said that - idiomatic translation: I told you so!

[heimaey]

What does Ju literally mean?

[Arnauti]

It doesn't really mean anything else, it's a word in its own right. Ord.se has good examples of how to use it.

[Matt92HUN]

Is it kinda like doch in German?

[Arnauti]

I think it could be doch, aber or ja in German:
Det vet jag ju! 'Das weiß ich doch!'
Du talar ju tyska – 'Du sprichst ja Deutsch'
Det är ju inte så bra – 'Das ist aber nicht so gut'

[Matt92HUN]

Thanks, that's what I thought. Also, doch can be used as aber and ja too in German. And I think as jo is used in Swedish too.

[Arnauti]

I thought some more about this and came to the conclusion that ja is the best translation after all. In doch, I feel there's always a sense of contradiction, and in most cases it would be better translated with fast (or fast + ju) in Swedish (although fast works a little differently syntactically). And fast is definitely a very false friend :)

[Matt92HUN]

Speaking of false friends, you probably know this one, but I'll leave it here for the rest:
It's not the fart that kills, it's the smäll.

[Arnauti]

Yes, so there's no 1=1 here. And you can't ever put this ju first in a sentence in Swedish, as you can with doch in German.

[Matt92HUN]

Yeah, it's just easier to understand things if you can compare them to something you already know. Germanic languages are so similar, yet there are a bunch of minor details that make even very similar languages different.

[Tony979198]

In German: je schneller desto besser = ju snabbare desto bättre = the quicker the better.

[gale_amar]

je mehr, desto besser
the more, the beter
in german

[Aqualorium]

In german it's also Je... and desto... no one can explain why, it just is

[_Avgust]

Thanks for the great explanation!

[Solvind]

This construction should be very easy for all Germans^^

[Matt92HUN]

It's pretty cool that Swedish has this.

[PresswurstZwei]

Is there a difference between using "Ju ..., desto ..." and "Ju ..., ju ..."?

There's this Swedish article here: https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=411&artikel=3240910
I believe it says that using "Ju ..., ju ..." is more colloquial. Am I interpreting this right? Is there anything else worth knowing about this?

[devalanteriel]

ju ... ju is actually an older form, but it's been considered incorrect or very colloquial for ages now. I would recommend not ever using it, and we only accept ju ... desto.

[PresswurstZwei]

Tack så mycket! :-)

[RickTol]

It is funny, Dutch has the same construction and sounds much the same too. Never thought about it when translated to English