46 Comments
It always amuses me to see how some languages can say things in one word that other languages need a few words to express...
Me too, it could get quite philosophical. like japanese komorebi or boketto. swedish gökotta or my new favorite Lagom. nerwegian utepils sounds cool too.
http://www.boredpanda.com/untranslatable-words-found-in-translation-anjana-iyer/
In spanish we sure have many, though i don't remember any now, though i think most are slang. In argentina specially we have a special slang called lunfardo, it sure has many words in it.
This verb 'hinner' makes me wonder seriously about how important punctuality is for swedes.
Haha I live in Sweden now and let me tell you something, Swedes are never early and they are never late. They literally arrive the exact time expected. But I also must say, Swedes are the most efficient people in the world. Except in July. Forget about getting ANYTHING done in July! :)
And yes, many small businesses are closed for the whole month from cycle shops to restaurants. Even the buses change schedule to allow for lack of employees!! Swedish people are so used to the July shut down that it really is no big deal to see so many closings. The key is, everyone here has the vacation time so no one gets jealous or upset to see others using their time off :)
Oh yes, all the major chain stores like IKEA, H&M, ICA etc are all open. I live in a "big" city here in Sweden so its really just the mom-and-pop-shops that close down. Funny little story, I applied for my Swedish residence permit in July last year but lucky for me I didn't have to wait too long after for a response :)
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Italy practically shuts down in August. Not because the weather is so nice nice but because it is so hot. Everybody who can go to the seaside or other cooler places leaves the cities especially.
Because all working Swedes have the right to at least 4-6 weeks vacation a year, most take vacation in July because its the absolute best weather. Well, maybe not this year lol
July is a time in Sweden where everyone basically has a summer holiday. Some businesses may close for this entire period
In Russian there is the same meaning word "успеть". It is often used when delaying something and leads to lateness eventually :D
The greek verb ''προλαβαίνω'' has similar meaning to ''hinner'' so, I reckon, it's an easy word for us greeks to remember :)
After reading your comment it finally made sense! Greek here as well, glad to see it comes in handy to have a similar word to translate this to.
There's a slight difference between making it in time and having time, that's what got you here I think.
Yeah, l would say there is a difference between having time and having enough time to accomplish a task.
A: Quick, B & C! The train is leaving in five minutes
B & C: Skit. Vi hinner inte!
does hinner refer only to trying to get to a specific location (or do a specific thing) before a specific time, or does it have other applications too?
I put we will not have time and it was wrong. I don't understand why; any advice?
if we haven't learned future tense yet then how are we supposed to differentiate between this and "we aren't making it in time"?
The Swedish sentence isn't literally in future tense, it's just an accurate way of carrying the meaning over to English. Since I don't think you can say "We aren't making it in time"
I could tell it probably wasn't future tense, but it's quite a bit misleading to count it wrong if you're not expecting future tense to be in the answer.
Anyway I can see that sentence being used, so it should be at least counted as almost correct.
As far as I figured it out, sometimes the future tense is expressed by the present form. Like saying "I eat in the afternoon." when it is still noon, then you're basically saying that you will eat in the afternoon, without using the auxiliary verb "will".
No, while it contains very related information, that would translate to "vi kommer bli sena" or something like that.
I'm wondering why "we won't arrive in time" is incorrect, when the hint for hinner is literally "arrive in time".
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I think 'arrive' is taking it a bit too far – there's no reason to believe that this sentence is about arriving somewhere. Maybe it's just about us finishing our essay in time or whatever. (I think the hint has been changed since you wrote this, it only says 'make it in time' or 'have enough time' at the moment, which is probably better).
hinner can mean 'arrive in time', but I'd say it only means that if there's something else in the context that shows it does. Like Jag hinner inte till skolan i tid could be 'I won't arrive in school in time' where it's clear from the rest of the sentence.
The default answer is given as "we don't make it", rather than "we won't make it". This sounds very odd.
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The only place you can see the default translation is on top of this page. So as you can see, the default translation is in fact We will not make it in time!
When you enter an answer that is not accepted, the machine will try to match your input to the closest acceptable answer. So you will often get shown things that are just acceptable answers, not the default answer.
Interesting, thanks. I'd say though that "we don't make it" is actually wrong in this context (and I did report it).
Our mission is not to teach proper English and many people who take these courses are in fact not English speaking. Therefore we are very kind when it comes to the English sentences, accepting sentences that might be a bit off, but the point is that as long as the sentence shows that a person understands the meaning of the Swedish sentence, it should be ok. We are, however, very strict when it comes to the Swedish sentences since that is what we're here to teach.
It can be used in the same way (I'm speaking for Dutch here, since that's my native language and I can't say that for Swedish) but where "halen" can be used as "ik haal de hond op(I'm picking up the dog)" I don't think "hinner" can be used that way.
It's really boring and i don't anderstand this sentence .The exercise is normally at the present time or this one is in the futur form. Why ?
