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- "När vi skulle åka upptäckte …
"När vi skulle åka upptäckte vi att bilen var stulen."
Translation:When we were going to go, we discovered that the car was stolen.
28 Comments
1304
Why is it "was stolen" instead of "had been stolen" here? For both the English and the Swedish sentences?
It sounds more like the car they were going to use was a stolen car (and that they still had it and might have still used it), not that their car had been stolen (so as to prevent them from using it go anywhere).
Is this what the Swedish sentence is trying to say (the subjects are about to drive around with a stolen car), or do the tenses of the English(/Swedish) sentences need adjusting?
2455
Yes, I use the comma all the time. I think it is a question of 'generation'. My daughter does not use commas. I do.
Do people still use them when they speak, like make a brake between "När vi skulle åka" and "upptäckte"? How would you say this in person?
1453
The second sentence can cover both what the first says, and have another meaning that the first one doesn't have.
1453
It's another form, it's the past tense of the verb, like in Någon har stulit bilen 'Someone has stolen the car'. But this is the past participle Bilen är stulen 'The car is stolen'. (= it's a stolen car)
2455
Någon har öppnat dörren, dörren har öppnats. Dörren är öppen. Någon har tvättat bilen. Bilen är tvättad. Någon har vattnat blommorna, blommorna har vattnats, blommorna är vattnade.