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- "Glaset är sönder."
25 Comments
Is the English word asunder not a good translation for sönder? They do sound similar and have a similar meaning.
'Asunder' is not a commonly used word in (American) English. You usually hear it in wedding vows "Let no man put asunder" and occasionally in literature or romance novels.
How is it an adverb? I think it is a predicate adjective, describing the subject and joined to it by a form of "to be".
243
Exactly. My dictionary says it's an adjective. But if it really is an adverb, why is it introduced in the Adjectives 3 unit?
Yeah, except I don't think I ever see it by itself like that. I see "split asunder", "tore asunder", or maybe "came asunder". Just like with "apart", I guess I might see "the two halves of the plate are apart", but could I say "the plate is apart"? I suppose it works if "The couple is asunder". In that case, let's translate this:
I will sunder it asunder and after that sunderance, I'll see it to be asunder, for it will have sundered.
I found this discussion very helpful, especially when it was finally established that sönder is an adverb. I'm now left wondering why this sentence is included in an exercise for adjectives, when there are no adjectives in the sentence.
Most likely just an honest mistake. I'll make a note to put it in a more logical place in the next tree.
"Ta sönder" like "Jag tog sönder min telefon" ( I broke my phone ). Or "Bryta" like "Bryta en kvist" ( break a twig ).
- 1488
There's a lot of regional variation here. Some people say ta sönder, others prefer göra sönder or ha sönder. According to this article: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=411artikel=759942, the most neutral version is ha sönder:
Den karta vi kan rita upp om dessa uttryck visar att ”ha sönder” är det mest standardspråkliga uttrycket, det finns på flest ställen, men är övervägande nordligt. I södra Sverige, Halland, Skåne, Blekinge, Småland säger man ”ta sönder”. I västra Sverige, ungefär Västra Götalands län, ”gör man sönder, och norr därom kommer ”ha sönder”.
To me personally, ha sönder and göra sönder both sound OK, but ta sönder is something I mostly hear from children.
I should add that these three are active verbs for when someone breaks something. When something breaks, like the glass broke, there's only one version: gå sönder, in this case glaset gick sönder.
sönder is actually an adverb. That is why it clashes with the grammar of some native speakers to use it like this - e.g. TobyOak above who considers it ungrammatical. I would never use sönder like this either, personally, but obviously other contributors disagree since it's in the course. :)
You are saying then that sönder is never an adjective and "ett söndert glas" is not an option.
Thank you! My first reaction was that in English “broken” is used here as a predicate adjective, not an adverb. I expected to use a similar construction in Swedish. The use of “sönder”, an adverb, really confused me.
the English to Swedish version of the course makes so much more sense than the Spanish to Swedish!
