"Skulle du bli ledsen om hon inte kommer?"
Translation:Would you be sad if she does not come?
33 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
14
Aren't the tenses mixed up here? I think it should be "Would you be sad if she didn't come", or "Will you be sad if she doesn't come". Mixing the two sounds unnatural.
The conditions in English go like this:
- If it rains, I will stay at home.
- If it rained, I would stay at home.
- If it had rained, I would have stayed at home.
From what I gather, Swedish is more lenient in the possible combination of tenses than English. The default answer mixes cases one and two, which doesn't work in English.
2378
I've just started my "Swedish for Immigrants" class, and the first grammar lesson I got discussed this kind of construction in the category of "Bisats". Words like att, eftersom, därför att, om, and när indicate a subordinate clause, and in the subordinate clause an "inte" splits the subject and the verb.
I had always been confused by this because I hadn't ever distilled the rule down to that simple a statement. It would be nice if Duolingo had a "Bisats" unit in the Swedish course with some introductory text and examples that used these trigger words (and, from what I understand, about ten others) to give a lesson specifically on subordinate clauses and word order.
156
I had 'would you be sad should she not come' marked incorrect. This is t the coorrect grammar in English. Any idea why it's wrong here?
Thanks! The speed of your responses is astonishing! Just on another point, can you confirm that there's no equivalent in swedish of what happens in English with the subjunctive mood in this sentence, with respect to latter half of the sentence where we see the use of "didn't" rather than plain present tense "doesn't". Is it always 'inte kommer'" in Swedish ? In English (British English) the use of "didn't" rather than"doesn't" is much preferred in this context.
It's a little advanced, and honestly probably impossible to get a 100 % correct answer to. Personally, I'd be perfectly comfortable using either ... inte kommer or ... inte kom, depending mostly on what connotations I wish to convey. There's certainly nothing wrong with either of them. But using kom does make it sound more subjunctive, for lack of a better phrase.
In the previous sentence " If grandmother came home, grandfather would be happy", would (skulle) was the first word in the second part based alledgedly on the V2 rule.In this sentence skulle is first because the sentence is question or because "if she ..." even if it comes after is considered the first element ?
1109
Is it just me or does the voice say something closer to "skulle du bli ledsen om MAN inte kommer"?