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- "Hon arbetar på en fabrik."
25 Comments
1527
Not in case of something like "по пятницам" or "по утрам". This is when I feel very surprised by the similarity between the two languages.
So, it is "i hamnen" but "på en fabrik." What exactly is the difference? Both translations from Duolingo say "in the port" or "in a factory." Why is one of these locations "i" and the other of these locations "på," when as far as I can tell you are communicating the exact same information, just changing the location of the job. (For the record, the other sentence I refer to is "Min bror arbetar i hamnen.")
Is it the building vs. the outdoor locale? Or are i/på interchangeable in these situations? (Kind of like in English, you could also say "at the port" or "at a factory"?)
1453
Some nouns take i, others take på for location. The underlying idea is, much like in English, that i/'in' stands for being 'inside' something whereas på/'on' stands for being 'on top of something'. If we take very clear examples, such as på golvet 'on the floor' and i en låda 'in a box', they're usually the same in both languages. But when it comes to more abstract things where it isn't that obvious, it's just down to what's been codified in language. For instance, both in English and in Swedish we say på tåget 'on the train', although you could argue you're more like inside the train than literally on it.
1453
People will understand what you mean, but it's wrong for what this sentence probably wants to say in English. If you do want to say that she's working inside a factory but not employed by the factory, you can say i en fabrik. For instance if she's a graffiti artist making murals on the walls in a factory.
1453
We use på for that, too. Hon arbetar på sin uppsats 'She's working on her paper'.
Or you can say med but that's more like saying 'with' in English.