26 Comments
Compare these two: http://www.forvo.com/word/vitt/#sv & http://sv.forvo.com/word/vit/#sv
He has on him a white sweater? Is that the literal translation cause it says I'm wrong
literally yes. is your translation gramatically correct? yes. would one say that in english? no because it's wordy.
You could say "He has a white sweater on him", but almost everyone I know would using the "is wearing" phrase instead.
No English speaker from this part of the world would keep the him. "He has a white sweater on" is the way people would say it
But this isn't an English lesson so the literal translation (which helps to remember how the swedes say it) shold be acceptable.
In Canada, the "on him" usage is dying out in favour of "is wearing" or "is carrying" (especially among non-native speakers), but it's not at all unusual to hear someone say "Does he have his phone on him?" I've heard this usage far and wide, in both Canada and the US, and I've read it a lot in books. That being said, I've also heard the variant without him, especially in American speech.
But you know what they say: a preposition is the wrong thing to end a sentence with. :)
To this English speaker, asking if he has his "phone on him" or his "gym-clothes on him" sounds like you are asking if he is carrying them, not wearing them. Much the same as "on his person". "Does he have his clothes on", without the "him" gives me a clearly separate meaning.
I always prefer the more literal translations (especially when i took Latin) but Duo apparently refuses out of principal.
Hum... a second ago I was like: Ouuups! I translated it as Shirt and not Sweater! Then it was accepted.... it shouldn't be, right?
829
Some English native speakers, especially in the US, use shirt to cover more or less anything worn on the upper body, so we have to accept that translation. In the stricter sense, shirt is only skjorta though. (Those people may call that 'a dress shirt' or 'a button up').
Also, Duo's policy against profanity is that we shouldn't use it at all here, not even with stars or abbreviations, so please edit your comment if you can.
Thanks as always Arnauti! In french we kind of have that to, it's more likely to happen in a familliar setting, you would sometime hear the word Haut used to talk about any clothing you could wear on your torso. (genre: J'aime bien ton haut; c'est sympas comme haut; J'ai vu un haut trop bizarre l'autre jour...)
Anyway I will avoid those mistakes in the future. ^^
- 829
Thank you! There's a similar word in Swedish, en topp, which is about anything worn on the upper body, but as far as I know it's only used about women's clothing.
I answered vest, and was wrong. I was given the answer "jersey" which I suppose is slightly different than vest, but then came here to see "sweater" which sounds even more different than jersey.
- 829
Accepted versions are sweater/sweatshirt/jumper/shirt/pullover/jersey.
A vest normally has no sleeves and is called en väst in Swedish.
The best answer is sweater.
Thanks, I now understand. The 'jerseys' I'm familiar with are sleeveless basketball jerseys which led me to be confused on how that resembled a sweater.
So vit is used just for en words? Is vita used for plural words? And vitt for et?
