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- "I natt sover jag hos er."
36 Comments
The English here seems grammatically incorrect. At least I would not say it as a Canadian English native speaker. It needs to be "Tonight I WILL sleep at your place." or "Tonight I AM sleeping at your place." "I sleep at your place" means that happens habitually, not just once. Adding tonight just makes it awkward.
I agree that it's awkward but I don't think it's grammatically wrong. "Tonight, we dine in hell!" comes to mind as another example of the same sort of strange grammar.
I disagree. It's awkward but there's nothing incorrect. Perhaps your Canadian English is influenced by French?
Tonight I sleep at your place. Tomorrow? I may, I may not. What do I owe you for tonight?
Makes sense and grammar is fine.
Not sure if I already asked about this but is the inversion completely necessary here?
1447
Short answer: yes. Longer answer: The V2 rule is very firm. Once you start a sentence (that is not a question or a subclause) with an adverbial, the verb needs to go right after that.
Regarding "hos mig", does it actually mean " my house/place"? I've seen texts where the clause was "hemma hos mig", wondering whether that makes a difference
Why is 'I natt' used as tonight as it directly translates to 'in the night', and we have 'ikväll' to use as tonight do we not?
- 1447
i natt means this night. In Swedish, kväll is evening and natt is the 'real' night, but in English they seem to use night to cover both, which causes some confusion.
PS so i kväll means 'this evening' (of course 'tonight' is also used in this sense) and 'in the night' would be på natten.
i could understand, based on one of below comments why the verb came before the subject. but i still dont understand why it is '' hos er'' rather than '' er hos'' as we normally use.. am i missing something here
I think you miss the meaning of "hos" :). It is a preposition and means "at someone's".
Why is "Tonight I sleep with you" wrong? Is it just because "hos er" is a fixed phrase?
From another site: "The Northern Germanic languages all share a handy preposition meaning something like ‘at the home/place of’. In Swedish, this preposition is hos, pronounced [hʊs]."
Plus, in English, "I sleep with you" takes on an entirely different meaning.
I got this phrase 3 times as a speaking test.
The first time, I mimicked the lady exactly, although she seemed to me to pronounce "jag hos er" as one syllable. I hear "I natt sover yang sir"
I was marked wrong.
The second time, I tried saying each word...marked wrong and fewer words turned blue.
Third time, I tried more slowly, pronouncing each word...this time it turned none of the words turned blue.
What is the correct pronunciation of this sentence?!! Tack!
Subsequent speaking tests have been ok, so it's not the mic! And the fourth time I failed too!
Would "Jag sover hos er i natt" also be correct? In the context of a conversavtion, I mean.
'hos' is a preposition which is generally used to mean at someone's place (home/workplace). At least when it's referring to people (hos dig/hos er, etc). So I would say no.
v2 rule - the verb wants to go second, and i natt counts as the first unit.
why "i sleep" in swedish behave like a question sentence( the word "sover jag"), shouldn't it be like "i natt jag sover hos er"?
The verb needs to be the second unit of the phrase, with i natt being the first.
- 79
On a literal translation this seems to be constructed as a question, translating literally as 'Tonight sleep I at your place?' If it means as is shown above, why is it not written 'I natt jag sover hos er' ?
The question would put the verb first: Sover jag hos er i natt?
You could, informally, put the prepositional phrase first, but it wouldn't be part of the clause per se: I natt... sover jag hos er? That way, sover is still the first word of the actual question.
- 79
OK so the verb must be the first word in the sentence to form a question. But in that case why is the sentence written sover jag (sleep I) rather than jag sover (I sleep)?
v2 rule - the verb wants to come second, and the prepositional phrase counts as the first unit. Hence:
- jag sover hos er i natt, but
- i natt sover jag hos er
