"Det är tradition att gifta sig i kyrkan."

Translation: It is traditional to get married in church.

[JarlNydahl]

"Det är tradition" is a phrasal expression corresponding to "It is traditional" (in my opinion). Even "It is the tradition to get married in church" sounds inelegant to me.

[devalanteriel]

I don't think "a tradition" is necessarily wrong, but I definitely do agree that "traditional" should be added. We have a quite a few reported variations using that. I'll be entering them right away.

[seemail3]

How about, "It is tradition (or traditional) to get married in a church." Why not? In American English "in church" is a bit different than "in a church." The former connotes "during a church service" while the later denotes a location. There are things we would never do "in church" that we have no problem doing "in a church."

[dcounts]

Agreed. I did the same thing. Reported 2.8.18.

[devalanteriel]

I'd say no - the Swedish phrase does not mean in a church, either, but rather as opposed to having a civil/secular marriage. It's not possible to translate perfectly etiher way, though, so I can see the argument for acceping "in a church" as you suggest as well.

[andrew414109]

Surely "it is tradition to get married in a church" is equally correct.

[devalanteriel]

Please refer to my above comment on that.

[d3m0nhawk]

Is the sig mandatory in this phrase, or can "Det är tradition att gifta i kyrkan" be accepted too?

[devalanteriel]

It's mandatory. :)

[Tegwyn5]

In English this should read 'it is traditional..' 'It is a tradition' is not a correct way of saying this in English

[devalanteriel]

Both ways do work, but I agree that "traditional" is much better, so I'll make that the default instead.

[Tegwyn5]

Can I suggest: It is traditional to get married in a church. It's better English than 'in church'

[devalanteriel]

Yes, but as noted above, that is not what the Swedish sentence means. In essence, the sentence says that it's traditional to get married in a religious ceremony - not necessarily physically in a church, although that would obviously be the case for most religious weddings.

[Tegwyn5]

Ah ok I see what you mean. We would say then that: It is traditional to have a church wedding. I would never say 'to get married in church'.

[devalanteriel]

Yep, and I've actually marked this sentence for future deletion since way back, since it rightfully confuses most native English speakers.