- Forum >
- Topic: Swedish >
- "Det är bara teorier."
30 Comments
1457
I agree, the thing is that in Swedish, we use det as a formal subject to introduce talking about something, regardless of the gender and number of that thing. The problem is that in English, you wouldn't want to say It is just theories.
796
What if it’s referring to previously-introduced things: Quantum mechanics is well-established, but string theory and quantum gravity are not. Those are just theories. Would this still count as a formal subject and use Det är…, or would it be De är… in this kind of context?
1457
I agree with you, unless it's explicitly stated what de refers to, it must be det. This is called a presenting construction, I wrote much longer about them here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/9708920 – As a native speaker of Swedish, it's easy to forget that they really don't like using the It is construction for plural objects in English.
464
I really hate this sentence... As a scientist there's no thing as "JUST theories". A theory is a proven thought, while a hypothesis is an unproven thought.
For me, as a mathematician, I would consider a theorem a proven thought while a theory is more of a framework. So a theory is one way of looking at the world where you can have both theorems, conjectures and other things inside that framework.
The theory in itself can't be wrong, but it can be a bad model of reality.
Anyways, I agree, it's a weird sentence.
1400
A theory is still speculation, even when it has been tested in experiments, and the expression "just a theory" suggests that further testing could expose flaws in the theory:
811
I have compared the pronunciation of "teorier" with other available sources, and with them the pronunciaton is clear. Here it sounds like "tyrier"
1319
The Swedish pronunciation for this exercise is atrocious. Den svenska uttal för denna övning är avskyvärda.
464
No it's not :P And you want to say "Det svenska uttalet i denna övning är avskyvärt" because "uttal" is neutrum and conjugates to -et or -t in related words (such as "den"->"det", "avskyvärd"->"avskyvärt") :)