"Beviset är att vi pratar om det."
Translation:The evidence is that we are speaking about it.
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This is a very odd sentence (in English, at least)... in what context would this be said in Swedish, if at all?
The English really needs to be "are speaking" and not "speak" in this case. I didn't understand the English at all until your explanation.
It's a subtle difference. The form "we are speaking about it" means we are talking about it actively, in the moment. The form "we speak about it" means we talk about it habitually, but it is not the topic at the moment. Using the latter form causes a disconnect in the sentence, because "it" is "the proof" that is actively being spoken about.
To clarify the difference, take the sentence "His face is juicy because he is eating watermelon". That makes sense. If I said "His face is juicy because he eats watermelon" it would be odd, because he would likely wash his face between the times he eats watermelon.
I've changed the main sentence just because it was you who said this, but I must confess don't really understand your explanation.
The way I understand this sentence, the proof is not that we're speaking about it right now, the proof is that we often talk about it.
So I'd rather compare it to a sentence like His face is bloated because he eats watermelon – where he isn't eating watermelon right now, but he does it habitually, which has long-term effects on his face.
Contrary to what someone said, X is in fact a famous person, and the proof is that we talk about X a lot. The proof is not that we're discussing X right now.
It's actually a very natural sentence in French: "La preuve est qu'on en parle." / "La preuve, c'est qu'on en parle." (the latter is more common is spoken French).
Actually, this makes sense to me as a sentence, in the sense that if one wanted to say, "This event was not important," but if someone responds, "The fact we are even mentioning it is proof that it is," then this is relevant as a sentence. :)
What are we supposed to learn about Swedish from this sentence? Whatever that purpose is, can you course designers give us learners a completely different sentence that illustrates that purpose? I think this sentence is far too confusing because it either doesn't make sense to us or we would have to concoct some artificial situation in which to use the sentence. Tack!
What's wrong with "the evidence is that we are talking about it"? Is "evidence" incorrect here?
I can't see any clear reason why "The evidence is that we speak about it" is not accepted, it makes about as much sense to me as the primary translation, or is there a reason in Swedish that wouldn't apply in English?
I wrote the same and it was not excepted: the evidence is that we talk about it
I find this sentence a terrible example to learn from, without context the ambiguity in translation changes the meaning.
It definitely won't survive the cut for the next tree version, if that's any consolation. I'd remove it right away if the removal process didn't have bugs.
After seeing the discussion of ett bevis should be translated as "a piece of bevis", then I tried "the piece of evidence" for beviset here. Failed.
Evidence and proof aren't quite the same thing, and I don't think "evidence" is a good translation here in the first place, and to make it definitely singular makes it fit even worse. Here's a link to a discussion about the difference between proof and evidence which I think clarifies it a bit: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=101209
But then why is "bevis" translated as "evidence" elsewhere in the course? And why is it in the dropdown definition for "beviset" here if "the evidence" isn't an acceptable translation?
The drop down menu always gives you all translations of a word, not just the one you need in this sentence.
I don't want to split hairs here but it seems that the difference between "proof" and "evidence" gets substantial mostly in legal language. It might be relevant when you are talking with your lawyer, but in an everyday situation the two terms MIGHT be used interchangeably without too much fuss.
Also if you are using the fact that you are talking about something to prove it, some "issues" may arise. First, it's not something i would expect to hear in a court, making the distinction between the two terms less relevant; second, it is circular reasoning and third, you probably don't have enough evidence to support your claim in the first place. Think about all of these issues together and you realize that there is no proof provided for the claim: there is, at the very best, some loose evidence.
So, i think "evidence" is not only acceptable but it also fits the context better.
EDIT
It is also true that the person saying the sentence believes his/her claim strongly enough to talk about it as proof and thus choosing the word "proof" over "evidence" might a tool to convey exactly this meaning. Still convinced that both the solution should be accepted but i thought it was important to add this little bit.
I agree with MikyNik1856. Aside from the legal context, I think it's at least as likely that we'd use "evidence" here.
But even using legal difference between evidence (something might be true) and proof (something is true), I think "evidence" may be even better than "proof" here.
But in police procedurals, the police gathers evidence from the crime scene in order to prove someone comitted a crime. So would the evidence in that context be translated as bevis or?
Hopefully this is true in Sweden as opposed to U.S. Sometimes it seems the less we are sure, the more we speak. Or in the case of facebook, we repost without consideration to factfulness. (Yes, I'm plugging Hans Rosling's research)
I get that bevis is an ett word that ends in a 't' in the singular definite and in an 'n' in the plural definite, but when would you use "beviset" vs "bevisen"? Does "beviset" translate to both "the proof" and "the single piece of evidence"? Since you would probably never say "the proofs", does "bevisen" always translate to "the [multiple pieces of] evidence"?
Yes, precisely - "proof" is countable in Swedish in the same way e.g. "furniture" is, but you can also treat it as a mass noun if you skip the article: Har du bevis för det?
I typed "evidence" and it marked it wrong whereas "bevis" was translated as "evidence" else where in the same course. Its really misleading
bevis can be used to mean either "evidence" or "proof", but that doesn't mean that both options are always reasonable choices in English.
Thank you from me, too!
And now I know that "möbel" follows the same pattern as "bevis" (althought möbel is an 'en word'). This is good, too!
:D
I definitely agree with the moderators' comments that evidence and proof are not interchangeable, but this doesn't really address what I believe is the main source of confusion: the sentence doesn't give any context that allows us to discern whether we're talking about evidence or proof. Can the single word "bevis" be used to refer to both evidence and proof, or were the other exercises where it was translated as evidence misleading?
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It seems to me that the interesting problem in translation is that the Swedish word bevis is made more specific in English having two distinct and not completely overlapping meanings, so it is presumably easy to translate from English to Swedish (though maybe additional words to provide more specificity might need to be added), but depending on context the Swedish to English can be tricky. Similar to the morfar/farfar translation to grandfather representing a difficulty in the other direction. Most languages probably have some words where the different level of detail can make for translation into some other languages--for example Russian using one word, рука, for either hand or arm, leaving the possibility for misleading translation from Russian to English.
Please see Arnauti's above comment on "evidence". Whether right or wrong, that's the reason it's not accepted.
I wrote this as my answer: "The evidence is that we are talking about it", how is this wrong?
Please see Arnauti's above comment on "evidence". Whether right or wrong, that's the reason it's not accepted.
"The evidence is that we are talking about it." was marked wrong. What am I missing?
