- Forum >
- Topic: Swedish >
- "Garderoben har inga dörrar."
56 Comments
in italian is "guardaroba" ! you could think of it like "guarda"=watch, "roba" =stuff
In English, it's "wardrobe" (which is an accepted answer). Old French was "garderobe", but Old North French was "warderobe". English has both guard and ward in the language.
In Croatian "garderoba" means "cloak room" or "changing room" (in a shop) XD
In Spanish, "guardarropa" is the place in a restaurant/discoteque, etc where you can leave your jacket, bag, etc. They watch it for you.
Biensûr, but today English is indeed the language most influential on Swedish.
Wow good to know! that is why there are so many french speakers over there!
I took four years of French, but I'm not seeing the French influence here. Can you point it out to me?
Gosh, thank you for saying this! I just started learning 'roman' as 'novel' in Objects and I had no idea where that came from.
Just wondering if 'wardrobe' or 'cupboard' would be other acceptable answers here? I know a closet is actually a different thing but I don't know if the word closet is used that frequently outside of the US.
Garderob in Swedish refers only to a closet for keeping clothes, thus I feel cupboard wouldn't fit here. Wardrobe is fully accepted though.
The word is also a literal translation of "wardrobe", which is the word for "closet" in British English.
Us dirty Americans { ;) } say 'closet,' but this usually refers to a small room built into a wall (or a 'walk-in' if you've got lots of $), not a free-standing box for clothes. We do call those wardrobes, but they're just not very common.
582
Does anyone know how to say "out of the closet", would garderoben also be used in this phrase?
As a figure of speech for coming out, it's exactly the same in Swedish: komma ut ur garderoben.
- 1365
Yes, it could be either – if you mean free-standing vs built-in. It can also refer to 'someone's entire collection of clothes'. It's en garderob btw, Doge. A big closet can be en klädkammare, but real estate dealers love to talk about en walk in closet in Swedish too these days.
- 1365
It accepts that in several versions. A common answer we don't accept though is The wardrobe has no door since singular/plural works pretty much the same in English & Swedish here so there's no good reason for switching. Other than that I don't know what could have happened, it should accept wardrobe.
No I remember it crossing out wardrobe... I will probably come across this sentence again when practicing soon, so I bet I will make the same mistake again and I will see.
- 1365
I just think it crosses out the wrong word sometimes … anyway report it if it happens again.
A garden or yard is a little "guarded" area, probably with a little fence around it. In that sense, yes; it's an enclosed area where your robes are guarded.
Yes, I had a hard time knowing what exactly a closet was because I am Australian and we say wardrobe. I thought a closet in America was also where you store stuff like mops and brooms for cleaners ("janitors").
Indeed, in America you can keep cleaning supplies, office supplies, clothes, etc. in a closet. Fun fact, though, if your kitchen has a little room about the size of a closet but it's where you keep you dry goods (flour, canned goods, boxes of cereal, etc.) we call that a pantry.
The Swedish word comes directly from old French garderobe, wardrobe comes from wardereube which is an old northern french (thus heavily Germanic) word, so it is closer to Swedish as a whole.
Zmrzlina answered above that garderob is for clothes and that cupboard is not. Wardrobe is also accepted, not just closet.
- 957
Garderobe was the term for what passed for indoor toilets in castles. They were a tiny room that bumped out from the outer wall above the moat or just the ground with a seat with a hole open to the outside. I have to always remind myself that a Swedish garderobe serves a very different function. :-)
Actually, the original usage was for a wardrobe/closet/storeroom, and it ended up becoming normalized to mean a small private room, and from there logically evolved into referring to an indoor privy (with the shift happening around the time of the Renaissance).
Cupboard should be accepted here, I would never use "closet" based on my upbringing in the UK.
I remember when I got "The Lion, The Witch, and the Cupboard" from the library, I thought it odd how people store their clothes with their cups in the UK. Must make the tea taste like moths.
- 190
In Britain we do not use the term closet. We say cupboard. If it is for clothes we say wardrobe. So it is very annoying when either of these is marked wrong, because Americans use the closet word!
But wardrobe has always been an accepted answer, or at least for several years, so why get annoyed? They always add the British word as one of the answers, even though it may not show as the default. If it's not accepting it anymore, use the report/flag button.
- 190
OK I will do, as it didn't accept it on my computer. Sometimes it objects to cupboard instead of closet and then seems to remember I got it wrong and won't accept any other alternative to closet, so wardrobe gets knocked back as well.
