"The black castle is in the Valley of Death."

Translation: Det svarta slottet ligger i Dödens Dal.

[Timurso53]

Minas Morgul?

[Chris-Butler]

I take it this doesn't mean Death Valley in California or does it?!

[kardemumma]

Is there an acceptable translation for "Valley of Death" that's like "Dalen om död?" Or do you have to make death possessive?

[HelenCarlsson]

The only other way I can think of is to make it a compound word "dödsdalen".

[Seraph259]

Trots att jag går genom dödsskuggansdalen, jag blir rädd för inget ont, eftersom du finns med mig.
Would that work at all as a literal translation of that line?

[HelenCarlsson]

You were close :)! Om jag ock vandrar i dödsskuggans dal, fruktar jag intet ont, ty du är med mig.

[Seraph259]

Tack :)

[jarrettph]

Did you really mean intet?

[devalanteriel]

Helen is quoting the 1917 Bible translation, which uses a lot of Swedish that is not grammatical in modern language.

[wxfrog]

Duo marks that wrong.

[devalanteriel]

Edit: Wasn't thinking straight when I first replied. This is indeed accepted. :)

[Evgeny101]

Finally we are learning some useful everyday phrases!

[PhilipBullen]

I wrote 'slottet står' and was marked wrong. Why does a castle 'ligger' rather than 'står'?

[devalanteriel]

A lot of things use ligger if it's in a geographical sense - cities, forests, mountains, buildings, etc. I imagine it's because it's not about spatiality. Then again, ligger is pretty arbitrary even in that sense.

[podgorsk]

är for is Is it wrong in this context?

[devalanteriel]

är is also accepted, though less idiomatic.

[podgorsk]

finns for ligger. Is it wrong?

[devalanteriel]

Yes, that makes it sound like "exists".

[Macjory]

Some unanswered questions here. E.g., why ‘ligger’, why not ‘är’ or ‘stär’? And though you’ve explained it before, I keep missing the ‘a’ on words like ‘svarta.’ I knew that ‘slott’ was an “ett-word,” But I still got it wrong. :(

[devalanteriel]

Well, keep at it - I'm sure you'll get the hang of it eventually. :)

Swedish adjectives generally follow this pattern:

• Use -t (lång vowel) or -tt (short vowel) for singular indefinite ett-words.
• Use -a for definites and plurals.

svart already uses -t in its base form, so it only changes in definites and plurals.

[Macjory]

I think I learned the -a for plurals, but missed the -a for definite forms!

[OpenVMS]

Is "Det ligger det svarta slottet i Dödens Dal" correct?

[devalanteriel]

No, you can only use that construction with indefinites.

[CarloGamag1]

The only Castle in the death Valley that I know is called Scott's Castle and is not a castle but a Spanish style Villa. Is this a made up sentence or there is a real Black Castle there?May be a rock formation? I'm curious to know. Thanks a lot!

[devalanteriel]

I don't think there's a specific valley in mind - just a random sentence.