"Most people went home after the break."
Translation:De flesta gick hem efter rasten.
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I entered "De flesta människor åkte hem efter rasten", but was considered wrong. May I know why the answer was not accepted?
689
I notice your noun is in the indefinite plural. If you use a noun, wouldn't it have to be in the definite plural here --namely, "människorna"?
Not sure that's the reason. For example if you search Google for "de flesta barn" you'll find hits from Swedish public health authorities with sentences like "De flesta barn föds efter..." "De flesta barn sover...", etc.
I'm not sure why "de flesta människor" sounds so strange. Maybe it's cause "de flesta" by itself is assumed to be talking about people from context.
Could you please explain "de flesta"? I understand that "flesta" is the superlative of "många" in the plural, but where is "people", and what is the function of "de"?
- 689
English sometimes uses adjectives as if they were nouns. For example, "take from the rich and give to the poor".
Swedish uses this construction even more than English does.
Here "de flesta" is literally "the most", but it means "most people", just as "the rich" means rich people in my earlier example.
It's an accepted answer. You can use åkte hem if you want to stress the fact that they used some kind of transportation.
The break in a play for instance is called pausen in Swedish, whereas rasten could be at school or work. (in English you can't tell, so both are accepted, I just felt I should point it out).
- 376
Also a learner here but i think the "människor" here is not necessary due to the context changing the meaning of flesta to imply people.
- 689
Your noun is incorrectly in the indefinite plural. If you use a noun, it would have to be in the definite plural here --namely, människorna.
But you don't need to use a noun here at all! See my earlier post on this page.
