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- "Jag tar gärna lite mer kaffe…
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531
How about I would happily take a little more coffee, compared to the gladly which seems to be acceptable?
Yeah, it’s an adverb. The comparative and superlative are hellre (rather) and helst (’most of all’). There are no 1:1 English translations of these except for the comparative.
gärna (comparative hellre, superlative helst) gärna both means ''willingly, gladly, readily'' and ''easily; which easily or readily happens''
Could I say "Jag åt gärna glassen." if I were to mean I ate the ice cream with pleasure/enjoying it. Or can this structure not be used with past tense?
You can say it, but the meaning is more like "I was happy to eat the ice cream."
I would like to take some more coffee is something I could want to state when I am pouring myself a tiny bit of coffee in order to share equally with the others present. I would love to have some more coffee is something I would use if someone else is pouring the coffee. I think both can be fine translations for the Swedish sentence.
I've definitely heard "take some coffee" in former British colonies, but never in America I guess
Why would?? I love to have some more coffee. I can't see where the would should come from.
It makes the sentence conditional, with the implication of "...if that is possible". There is a politeness imbedded in the statement (actually a request). "I love to have some more coffee", although technically grammatical is an unnatural statement in English. "I want to have some more coffee" is a correct, though more direct and less polite, statement.
Why doesn't gärne come second in the sentence? It literally translates to "I take would love to more coffee". Is there a rule I'm missing?
- 531
The V2 rule (verb coming second in the sentence), which seems to apply in simple sentences except potentially for questions, where it might get moved into first place. Things can get more complicated in a second clause of a compound sentence. (The second place may not be strictly the second word, as the first word might have a modifier or two attached to it, but is what might be characterized as the second functional element of the sentence).
It's more like that gärna expresses the same kind of positive preference that "love to" does, so we use variations of "love to" to express the same thing in English translations. But it doesn't strictly translate directly to a set phrase.
Thank you. It makes sense, and hopefully it gets easier to use it correctly as I go along
