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- "På restaurangen sitter barne…
"På restaurangen sitter barnens mödrar och fäder."
Translation:At the restaurant, the children's mothers and fathers are sitting.
33 Comments
924
If you said the translated version in America people would understand you, but it would sound Very odd. "The children's mothers and fathers are sitting in the restaurant." makes much more sense. Being lazy we'd even more likely say, "The kids' parents are in the restaurant.", but that's not the best way to learn the Swedish words for mothers and fathers. :-)
Certainly. This is one of the cases where the default English translation is off because it is necessary to aid the reverse translation exercise.
Which one and why? We appreciate criticism, but if you want us to address it, please be a bit more constructive.
- 835
Yes, it's really awkward in English and not natural at all to have the parts of the sentence in that order. But, it' Swedish that I'm learning so I'll go along with it. I have two questions: 1 - is this normal, in Swedish, to start the sentence/thought with the location? 2 - how would you invert this sentence to make a question? Tack!
To be fair, Barnens mammor och pappor sitter på restaurangen would be the most natural construction in Swedish as well. But you may encounter this construction as well. I'd say it sounds the most natural in certain contexts, like a narrative - in which case it works for English as well.
As for making it a question, I'd go with Sitter barnens mammor och pappor på restaurangen?
Well in English it should be something like "the children's fathers and mothers are sitting at the restaurant". Or "at the restaurant sit the children's fathers and mothers".
We accept both of those options and many others as well. But like I wrote above, this is one of those sentence where the default needs to be unidiomatic for the sake of the reverse translation option.
The default is perfectly grammatical if you add a comma, though. "At the restaurant, ... are sitting". I'll see to that it's added.
Since children is the plural form, you write children’s in English and not childrens’.
Does "In the restaurant the mothers and fathers of the children are sitting" sound too awkward?
I think it does sound awkward, but not grammatically incorrect. It's not a translation I'd recommend though, so I hesitate to tell you to report it.
- 2170
For some reason, " kids' " is 'almost correct' here, and the correct one is " kids "... silly Duolingo.
It's mostly due to the structure of the English sentence. While it is more usual to say "the children's parents are sitting at the restaurant", you could just as well say "at the restaurant, the children's parents are sitting" just for emphasis. It works for the Swedish sentence the same way, so you could as well say "barnens mädrar och fäder sittar på restaurangen." Hope this helps!
Great example of V2 that isn't obvious when reading from an English point of view. Is this OVS? Could I also write:
"Barnens mödrar och fäder sitter på restaurangen." S: Barnens mödrar och fäder V: sitter O: på restaurangen
Yes, absolutely, though I do not know if it is accepted - since constructional rewrites tend to not be. As a real-world sentence, it is excellent. :)
Tried "At the restaurant the children's mothers and fathers are sitting. I always get that children's is wrong, even though I put children and the 's provided. What am I getting wrong?
You're not getting anything wrong - apart from a comma, which should be irrelevant, your translation is exactly as the default provided. You really should not be marked wrong.
...children's mothers and fathers I will wait for the day I would use this sentence in a real life conversation... are you kidding me?
I really don't find anything weird with this sentence whatsoever. Not likely to be said in practice in its entirety, sure, but "children's", "mothers and fathers", "in the restaurant", etc. are all perfectly common.
- 845
I make sure to frequent restaurants with playgrounds so my kids can play while I eat in peace. This sentence is perfectly applicable.
I've tried "At the restaurant the mothers and fathers of the children are sitting" and it's not accepted. Neither was "The fathers and mothers of the children sit in the restaurant". Can't see why, it seems to me the sentence' construction has been made unnecessarily complicated for the sole reason of teaching us a Swedish sentence.
- 176
I think your first suggestion should be accepted. As for the second, you have said "fathers and mothers" instead of "mothers and fathers", which in my opinion is enough to disqualify the suggestion.
It's possible that the first one is simply missing, but I think it's more likely that it's a bug. I remember a whole host of solutions being accepted here.
I'm restoring this skill, so i have a question from the future. Based on the continuous form, can this sentence mean "The children's mothers and fathers are at the restaurant"?
It restructures the sentence a bit too much to accept, perhaps, but it's got all of the relevant parts right.
