"It was the worst night of my life."
Translation:Det var den värsta natten i mitt liv.
21 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Not really, no. "Värsta" can seem a little stronger, like the difference between "that was the worst day of my life" and "that was the WORST day of my life" in English.
I thought värst was only for things naturally bad, like worst storm or worst death.. and sämst was for things not necessarily bad, which would seem like it would work better here. I read about this somewhere. I guess I'll never know.
I can't get the ad blocker to go away on that site.
But I found another site: https://www.omsvenska.se/ord-och-uttryck/ordval/samre-eller-varre
It says that "sämre" is the most common comparative for "dålig". It is used when something is not as good as something else.
And it says that "värre" is the most common comparative for "illa". It is used to compare with something that is already bad and can be thought of as "even worse".
Duolingo accepts "sämsta" here, but by putting up "Another correct solution", it implies that "värsta" is better. Maybe this sentence is comparing bad nights, not just nights in general.
Jag kan bara gissa att när man säger "av mitt liv" det kommer inte att bli en vanlig uttryck mellan svenskarna. Du kunde låta som en engelsman... "of my life". I Sverige har vi tysthet språk regler så vi kan inte acceptera det. Man måsta alltid säga "i mitt liv" som en svensk. "In my life"
I don't know, when to use värst or värsta. Ond, värre, värst - en ond natt, den onda natten; en värre natt, den värra natten; en värst natt, den värsta natten. Is that correct? Thanks for help.
A little late, but that's pretty close. Just two things:
- den värre natten, I think you just made a typo
- en värst natt doesn't really make much sense, like "a worst night" doesn't
I am still confused. What is the correct translation of a/the bad night? A/the worse night?
- bad = dålig
- worse = värre
- worst = värst
So "a bad night" = en dålig natt; "a worse night" = en värre natt; "the worst night" = den värsta natten.
(There are other possible translations, but this is the one you asked about.)
I always wonder, in sentences like this with an adjective thrown in, since Swedish persistenly puts the definite article in the noun, and natten is the noun and has the definite article attached, why do we need the extra den in front of värsta. Why isn't "Det var värsta natten i mitt liv" correct?
1) When can you say "i livet" instead of "i mitt liv"? I'm thinking of "Den vackraste stunden i livet var den när du kom" - the lyrics of an actual song. 2) is starting this sentence with Den instead of Det actually wrong or poor form? "Den var den värsta natten i livet" was marked wrong, trying to figure out why.
You can generally use the definite instead of the possessive whenever it's obvious to which life you're referring. Where to draw that line can be muddy, but it doesn't work in this sentence since removing the possessive means you could be talking about anybody's life. In your lyrics example, it can probably be safely assumed that you mean your own life.
Swedish always defaults to the neuter option when the subject isn't known, grammatically speaking. This tendency is so strong that most natives will usually use det är even when the subject actually is known.
get so pissed when the hint is wrong, thought natten, but not sure so checked hint which says kväll, changed to kväll and it was wrong.