"What are you laughing at?"
Translation:Vad skrattar du åt?
20 Comments
At least in everyday conversation, yes. It might work in poetry, but you would probably get some odd looks if you used it in real life, so to speak.
Can you please explain what would be a more correct way of saying that, in this case?
My guess is that the official answer is the more natural way to say it: "Vad skrattar du åt".
"Åt vad skrattar du" is probably odd in the same way as "At what are you laughing" is odd except maybe in poetry or super-formal writing (assuming there's any scenario where you'd be talking about laughing in super-formal writing ... :-)
No real reason I think other than that it simply isn't. Prepositions are tricky like that, they don't always translate neatly.
Why is it skrattar and not skratta? I think I saw a comment somewhere else about gå being "infinite" and går being present, does that principle apply here also?
What is the difference between åt and mot ? They seems to me very similar.
- "At what are you laughing?" Let's at least get the English sentences correct.
Firstly, this course does not teach English. We are deliberately trying to be a bit more open when it comes to the English translations in the course, since not all those who take the course are English native speakers. And secondly, ending sentences with prepositions is (and has always been) a perfectly fine way of expressing onseself.
That's final and said as a course moderator; there will be no further discussion on the subject of sentence-final prepositions here.
The belief that preposition and its object must stay together came from the 1600s when people thought Latin is the most correct language. Since Latin prepositions always stays with the object, they thought the same rule ought to apply in English. Nowadays we know that applying the grammar from one language to another is not the way to go.
