14 Comments
269
"Var är speglarna?" Van Helsing frågar greven. (Is that correct for "Count?")
Yup! Although it would be a different word order:
"Var är speglarna?" frågar Van Helsing greven.
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Hmm, how does that work? And just to be clear, I want to say "Where are the mirrors?" Van Helsing asks the Count."
It's good to be extra clear. :) But that's actually proper word order in Swedish. The verb needs to be the second unit of the sentence, so since "Var är speglarna?" is the first unit, the verb moves to the front of the name.
There's an English equivalent, you could say
"Where are the mirrors?" asks Van Helsing the Count.
But of course, it's not very common nowadays, except possibly in some books by David Eddings. :)
Using "asks" and "said" immediately after dialogue is very common in written English, if the verb is being used intransitively, especially in books aimed at young readers.
I think you meant '"Where are the mirrors?" asks Van Helsing of the Count.' though, which is indeed rare. "asking ... of" is commonly used outside of dialogue, however: "you're asking too much of the workers".
You make a good point. :) I didn't consider "said" at all. I haven't seen ask used transitively much in that manner, but like you say, it does exist.
I omitted the of on purpose, to make it match the example given, but I agree with that too.
Spegel must have been what gives the esperanto word Spegulo, with the same meaning. Does anyone know if other germanic or slavs languages have similar words?
Slavic languages have no similar word, mirror in Slovakian is - zrkadlo, in Czech - zrcadlo, Russian - zerkalo, Polish - lustro
Wiktionary says it comes from the German "Spiegel", also meaning mirror. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spegulo#Esperanto
I wrote "Where are the mirrors at?" and now I'm wondering if that's grammatically incorrect in English or if in Swedish you'd also add an adverb for "at"?
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I dont know if it is grammatically correct but in northern England around Newcastle you would hear that, as it is a local dialect phrase.
