30 Comments
I think the sound is not correct here. I keep hearing it as "De var roligt" ("Dom var roligt"). The only thing that helped me perceive it correctly was the "t" in "roligt", which would have become "roliga" if it were really "De".
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You're right, the new voice does this mistake here. I've never heard it do that anywhere else.
Yes!!! I totally agree. I keep typing "They were fun" and getting it wrong. They should fix the audio because she is definitely saying "De var roligt", but they never will! There are many incorrect sounds in this Swedish course that have been reported years ago, but they still have not fixed them. "De är inte roliga"
Unfortunately, all Duolingo courses made by volunteers share the problem that their contributors have zero say over the TTS implementation. A few other courses have far worse problems than the Swedish one does, and they don't get fixed either. It is very, very annoying - but nothing the Swedish team can do anything about, I'm afraid.
I'm quite confused with 'roligt' since 'fun' and 'funny' are two very different words in English.
On the subject of the slightly ambiguous translation of "rolig", I knew a Swede who would often describe grave or otherwise serious things as "not funny" when there had been no suggestion that they were. Does anyone know if this maps to an idiomatic expression involving "rolig"?
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Oh yeah. Det var inte roligt could mean anything from 'That wasn't funny' to 'I'm very sorry to hear that'.
It's because roligt is the adjective for ett-words but the t ending is also for adverbs making this word ambiguous.
That wasn't really my question (but thanks for clarifying the 't' ending anyway). My question was whether roligt translates to FUN or FUNNY. Am I right in thinking Roligt = funny & kul = fun? That would make this question wrong though......
Maybe I'm just being pedantic here, but in English 'fun' means enjoyable and 'funny' is associated with laughter. I guess funny things are generally fun, but the opposite isn't true that often. Going to watch a Shakespeare tragedy or a serious film would be fun, but probably not funny. Maybe I'm just splitting hairs!
If you ever speak to a swede in English, you will notice they often say that events (such as Shakespeare tragedies) were/will be "funny" when they mean fun, because they are the same word ("rolig") in Swedish. You can tell which one is meant based on the context. I think "lustig" can be more specifically "humorous" but it's not as widely used.
I would like to ask any native swedes on here that also speak fluent English how they conceive of "roligt". It is a common mistake for Swedes speaking English to use "funny" when they mean "fun", but I have had great trouble explaining to them the difference. Many argue that something funny is by definition fun - but could it be that language shapes the way that we conceive of our emotions?
So Swedes - when you use "roligt", are you ever thinking specifically that the experience is what we in English would call "fun"? Alternatively, specifically "funny"? Or is it always just a general expression of enjoyment?
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roligt can be so diluted at worst that it basically only means 'good'. I personally believe that language shapes our cognition a great deal, and I think my native language makes me disinterested in the distinction you're making between fun and funny.
have fun is 'ha roligt'
the movie was funny is 'filmen var rolig'
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dbrown23 I think if you want to get really good at a language, this is one of the greatest hurdles. It's so natural to prefer things to be as they are in one's native language. Some distinctions may even be hard to accept.
We see lot of examples in the opposite directions in this course :)
Thanks for the insight Arnauti! It is interesting to read that your native language makes you disinterested in the distinction, as for me, as a native English speaker, the distinction seems so "obvious". No doubt there are examples in the opposite direction as well.
In a raw manner of speaking
fun = entertaining funny = makes you laugh
So for example a book can be fun to read, but it doesn't mean it was funny (made you laugh).
Therein lies the difference in connotation between the two words.
Just my two cents... ;)
There are many cases like this in Swedish. It seems that It was fun and It was funny would both be valid translations here as there is no context. Someone correct me if I am wrong. Also am I right in saying that rolig only means funny?
Re-recording
The voice is not quite perfect on this sentence, as of July 27th, 2017, so I've taken the liberty of re-recording it.
As many others have noted above, it sounds like she's saying de rather than det. It gets further confusing since both de and det are pronounced dom, while det is often pronounced just de.
Please find a correct recording on http://duolingo.vydea.io/84eed58c8f5640ada8f2c41600cf0839.mp3
For more info on re-recordings, please check the info thread: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/23723515
Thanks for listening. Ha en bra dag! :)
i noticed that you pronounced the 'g' . i thought it was supposed to be silent?
It's more common without the g, but it's not wrong to pronounce it either. Generally speaking, the more you're trying to enunciate clearly, and the slower you speak, the more likely you are to pronounce it. I am a very, very fast speaker normally, so in everyday speech I would indeed tend to drop it. :)
I thought in phrases like this in the past tense in Swedish were also used in the present tense. Would "it is fun" make sense as a translation as well?
