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- "Det står en man i rummet där…
"Det står en man i rummet där jag ska sova."
Translation:There is a man in the room where I am going to sleep.
39 Comments
In other places, "ska" is translated as should. Why not here? It seems to make semse.
Great question, Harold.
This annoying little word may actually be the single trickiest one in the entire course. Modals are generally difficult between any languages, since they seldom have one-to-one relationships, but ska in specific can be translated into so many things, and what's idiomatic can vary greatly. Depending on the context, ska can translate to either "should", "would", "will", "may", or even occasionally "must". And that's without even taking into account the considerable differences within English (such as "must not" typically meaning two separate things in the US and the UK).
We've actually discussed this internally recently, and I'm afraid the best general answer I can give is that ska more often than not means "will" or "is going to", and that we use "should" mainly when it's unidiomatic in English to not use the future tense. I realise that in this case, some sociolects - primarily UK ones - may use "should" to indicate the future, but I think allowing it would cause more harm than do good. It's important to realise that ska, here, can mean neither a recommendation, nor an expectation, nor an obligation - hence, "should" is not a good choice.
It's a really difficult word to teach well, and we'll probably be continuously evaluating it forever.
I'm pretty sure 'shall' is acceptable as well as 'will' in this sentence.
Go for will/going to, it's a safer bet. We won't include "shall" on every sentence, that'd be too much work on us contributors.
Could I use instead of ''står'' the verbs ''finns'' or ''är''? Just like the sentence ''Det är en flugga i soppan.''. When do I use each of these verbs?
1461
Very late answer here but it's still a good question so I'll give it a shot. – They're all accepted answers in this case, but står probably sounds most idiomatic. We can't give any strict rules for when to use är vs finns, but as a general rule of thumb, finns is for more permanent existence and är for more temporary presence. So finns is not a very natural choice here.
For things that are perceived to be in a position like standing, sitting, or lying, we very often prefer to use those verbs instead of just är or finns when we're describing something. So Det ligger en tidning på bordet 'There lies a newspaper on the table' is more idiomatic than just Det är en tidning på bordet.
On the other (third?) hand, if we're just asking where something is located, we're pretty likely to just use är or finns. E.g. Var är tvålen? 'Where is the soap?' At least for movable things. For geographic entities, the default is ligger. For instance: Var ligger Timbuktu? 'Where is Timbuktu?'
Absolutely, but it sounds borderline stilted. So I use it all of the time. :)
- 1030
Thank you! A bit like in French: "La chambre où je dors" / "la chambre dans laquelle je dors."
1 ) Där sover jag
2 ) Där jag sover
Do these sentences have the same meaning ?
As a standalone sentence, only the first is grammatical. In the subclause of the example sentence, only the second is grammatical.
Why "där jag ska sova" instead of "där ska jag sova"? Does it work both ways?
That means the same thing and is perfectly idiomatic. I think it should be accepted.
I thought that " there is a man standing in the room where I have to sleep" would be acceptable as a translation...can someone please give me some feedback about why it is not?
Well, it doesn't say you "have to" sleep there - ska only signals future tense here.
It does accept "there is a man standing in the room where I am going to sleep".
I wrote :" ther is a man in the room in which I should sleep" which was not accepted. I realize that I have a typo but (ther) but I think that is not the reason. Is it because I used in "which" and the conditional "should"? Would shall sleep be also considered wrong?
It's definitely the should - your overall sentence construction is perfectly fine, and (I assume) accepted.
I wrote this as my answer: "There is a man the room where I will sleep". It is marked wrong somehow. Is it actually wrong?
- 817
I think I've read about some rule saying that when there was a relative, the name before could stay indefinite rather than definite, but I'm not sure what it is exactly. Wouldn't it apply here?
That's for when you include an article as well:
- ... i rummet där jag ska sova
- ... i det rum, där jag ska sova
The latter is typically considered formal.
It's a pronoun that is used to introduce a subclause which links back to something in the main clause.
For instance, in "the woman who painted this house", you have a relative pronoun "who" containing the info that the subclause is about the woman.
