27 Comments
Good question, I think in this case it is the past participle from the verb 'att sluta' and not an adjective, but i'm not sure either.
I know it is more convenient in English to say 'We are out of razors.' but in other cases should we ignore that -arna makes it the razors?
893
We had a super long discussion about this on another sentence forum, maybe it helps, if not, ask again! https://www.duolingo.com/comment/6058122
In that discussion you also mentioned that the construction of the translated sentence is perhaps not the best. For this one I put "the razors are finished" which was marked as wrong. Surely that would be a closer translation though (in terms of word order or sentence structure)?
I think it's also worth mentioning that there is no possessive term in the Swedish sentence, so the "preferred" English answer is misleading. Also, as a native English speaker, I think it's perfectly normal to state either "the razors are finished" or "there's no more razors" without abstracting another sentence that has an entirely different form.
- 893
I don't think it's misleading, my first interpretation of this type of construction is actually that it's your own things you're talking about. Just like we say Jag borstar tänderna but you say I brush my teeth. I've added the version with finished though, since that's also ok.
How do you specify that "we" are out of razors rather than "I" am out razors?
Yes, I also wrote this as a literal translation, it's a bit irritating that it's not accepted.
This was also my answer- I'm guessing that the razors have specifically "run out"? rather than being generally "gone" or "misplaced"
- 893
Yes, gone would be borta in Swedish. slut really means we're out of them, they're finished, we don't have any more of them.
- 893
Yes, I've since realized that this works at least in some versions of English. I should just have said that gone is ambiguous in this sentence in English. I've added 'gone' here. We have some other suggestions for accepted answers too but I don't know which ones to accept, so I'll leave it to the native English speakers on the team to decide. Do report more (via the Report a problem button).
I wrote "The razors are finished" and it was accepted, but this is a very awkward English sentence that no one would say.
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I put 'the razors are finished' because I figured it's what Duolingo wants. But yes, I'm a native Englush speaker and nobody would say this in this way.
I answered "the razors are sold out" since "the razors are out" is quite a nonsensical sentence or at least doesn't specify that the razors are sold out (maybe the razors are out on the table or out of the packet)
- 893
No, because rakhyvlarna är slut only means we are out of razors, not necessarily that they are sold out. You could perfectly well say this sentence at home when you don't have any razors left because you've used them all. sold out is slutsålda in Swedish.
the razors are out is an accepted translation because native speakers have told us they say that, but it's not the main translation.
