"Får jag fråga honom?"
Translation:May I ask him?
21 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
You could also replace “Can I” with “Do I get to”, which might be less confusing ;)
In a context like this, could "kan" be used in place or "får"? Or would that change the nuance of the sentence?
I think we have pretty much the same situation with these verbs as in English – there's this example often quoted (when discussing the English verbs), where the pupil asks Can I go to the bathroom? and the teacher answers Well, can you? – the teacher would like the pupil to say May I…? but in practice, that is not how the language is used, people do say can to mean may. Same in Swedish, in theory kan should mean 'am able to', but in practice it's used to mean the same as får too.
Kan is like 'am I able to/capable of...', whereas får is like 'do I have permission to...'
So the word 'får' can mean: -Sheep -May/can -have children Why so many meanings for one word?
English also have a lot of homonyms. Suit, file, match, ground etc. Its all about context
Example: light a match on fire. To match something or someone together. Soccer match. On the ground. Ground beef.
It's analog to the german dürfen. Like "one is not allowed to smoke hier" = "hier darf man nicht rauchen" = "här får man inte röka". Right?
The verb question is either ifrågasätta (if you mean as in 'put into question') or förhöra if you mean it as in 'interrogate'.
May I ask him was allowed but in English may and can have different meanings
Yes, but most English natives use "can" to mean "may" here. Hence, we allow both.
"question" is better as e.g. förhöra - it's rarely synonymous with "ask" in English.
'to question someone' is usually a pretty formal or serious event. It's usually used to mean 'interrogate'. Police might question a witness, or a lawyer might question someone during a trial.
You might hear it used in informal settings (eg:- She questioned her daughters boyfriend after dinner), but even then it has connotations of asking a lot of questions to try and ascertain someone's character or motivations, not just a single question about anything at all.