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- Topic: Swedish >
- "Jag sover i flera timmar."
74 Comments
Can you explain a little bit more. So far I thought that "i" in swedish means in!
It does! But it's also the preposition Swedish just happens to prefer with durations of time. Prepositions are highly irregular between languages, as you might have noticed.
How would you say, "I will sleep in several hours." Is it still i for in, or is a different preposition used
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I cannot reply to Zmrzlina's post so I'll write it here - why "Jag kommer sova om flera timmar", not "Jag kommer ATT sova om flera timmar"?
@KaBo07: You can use jag går och lägger mig for I'm going to bed. Saying jag går och sover would have the same meaning, but be less idiomatic. Just jag går sover doesn't make sense - are you going to sleep, sleepwalking, or something else?
@KaBo07: Not entirely sure what you mean here. Han går simmar reads like "He goes swims".
Although, in some other constructions, we'd use på. Jag har inte sovit på fem dagar. I'm not sure why, a bit too native for that.
I believe prepositions are not friendly in svenska. a single letter )not even a word!) has variety of meanings. do you confirm this as an expert, or I assume it harder than reality?
"I believe prepositions are not friendly in svenska. a single letter )not even a word!) has variety of meanings. do you confirm this as an expert, or I assume it harder than reality?"
I can't even express the facepalm I'm feeling right now.
Prepositions are difficult for every language learner. They never match up one-to-one between any two languages that aren't extremely similar to each other.
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Even in Portuguese and French they can be abit weird, it's just languages and there's really no way around it. As an English person I get this, it's like attempting to explain to a person why do we use "on" for saying "we're on a plane" or "on a bus" when we're actually in them not phisically on them. Then we say we get "in a car" and not "on it" which makes no sense at all but it just comes naturally to us when we speak.
When we were previously discussing a sleeping moose, Älgen sover i natt meant that the moose sleeps tonight. Älgen sover på natten meant the moose sleeps at night. Does this sentence mean I am sleeping for several hours now, this time? And if I wanted to say that I habitually sleep for several hours, would I use på? Tack så mycket!
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No, it's just that i natt means 'tonight'. Those (i natt, i dag, i morgon etc) are set expressions.
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And this time it's really... What's wrong with "I sleep for many hours."? "Flera" is a countable form of "många", then translating it as "many" can't be wrong.
We keep to "many" = många; "several" = flera throughout the course. However, flera can also somewhat colloquially be used for "more", so it's accepted at some further places.
Is that a colloquial use? I thought it was countable vs non-countable, i.e. "Jag vill ha mer mat" vs. "Jag vill ha flera kakor"
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No, slept is the past tense.
I slept for two hours 'Jag sov i två timmar'
I have slept for two hours 'Jag har sovit i två timmar'.
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It can actually be either, but timme is the main form and timma is an alternative singular form. We recommend using en timme, but en timma is also acceptable.
I would not trust google, even for words. It's usefully only in very minscule ways. For looking up words I would use ord.se or wiktionary
I got false when I translated 'flera' with 'many'. Is that really that bad a translation?
Jag är helsvensk och skrev också many. Many översätter man väl till många, så ja det kanske inte är bästa ordvalet här.
Flera means several or many, but not few. Apparently, få is few, but I'm not sure if it's taught on DL. In English, "few" is less than "several."
We do teach få, but I think since that also means "receive" that Duolingo doesn't realise they're different words and hence doesn't show it in red when it first appears.
Also, please note that we make a difference between "several" and "many" throughout the course, so flera only translates to "several" here.
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Why is I sleep for a few hours incorrect? Several and a few mean the same thing in American English.
I remember i by thinking: "in the space of" (several hours)
I remember 'för' by thinking: "for the sake of" (several hours)...
I know it must be 'i' because an hour is not a person/entity.
I'm very new at Swedish though, so maybe my mnemonic device will prove erroneous the more I learn!
Why is "I sleep in several hours" wrong here? As in I go to sleep in several hours, would you use a different word for "in" here if that were the case?
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Is there a difference between multiple hours and several hours? My answer was incorrect because I translated flera as multiple.
So...technically, given the meaning of "Jag sover i flera timmar", one couldn't actually speak this sentence, right? Because you would be actively sleeping. Tack!
Sure you could, given proper context. :)
- Sover du gott på söndagar?
- Jag sover i flera timmar.
Jag förstår, tack! I see now what was confusing me. I thought sover was only "am sleeping" as in right now.
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Thanks. It remains difficult, those English prepositions. I know what is meant in Swedish, but then things go wrong with the translation from Dutch to English.
på is also used for durations, but in the negative. For instance:
- jag har sovit i flera timmar = I have slept for several hours
- jag har inte sovit i flera timmar = I have not slept (continuously) for several hours
- jag har inte sovit på flera timmar = I have not slept (at all) for several hours
Let me see if I got this.
i = duration of time om = amount of time until something happens på = a time when something happens regularly
Is that right?
Bizarre sentence in the translation using the English continuous present. If one is sleeping then one can't by definition be talking about it i.e. the sentence cannot be said. This must be translated as "I sleep for several hours" (regularly not right now).
"I sleep for several hours" is the default, but bizarre though it might be quite a lot of people actually enter the present continuous as well, and since it's not wrong I figure we do less harm to learners by including it. Maybe we have a lot of sleeptalkers taking the course. :)
"I sleep for several hours" without any context does not sound natural in English (and to be honest, that makes the meaning hard to understand). If the sentence were "I sleep for several hours on Sundays" then it clearly should be translated in the present tense. Otherwise, I would still translate it as "I'm sleeping for several hours," since that's a real sentence even if it's illogical.
