"I would like to learn not to look in the box."
Translation:Jeg vil gerne lære ikke at kigge i kassen.
16 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
With the ikke after lære doesn't that mean that they dont want to learn to look, rather than learning not to look? Would the ikke have to come before lære for it to have that meaning?
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I would also like to see the answer to this question! Logically it seems to me if ikke goes after lærne it means not learn, but the English sentence means is to learn to not look.
The word ikke here modifies at kigge, not lære. If you wanted to say "They don't want to learn to look", that would be De vil ikke gerne lære at kigge.
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I might be wrong about this one but could it possibly be the same trick as in "Jeg tror ikke at han kommer" rather than "Jeg tror at han ikke kommer"? A possible explanation would be that in Danish the main verb is the one that takes the negative form, rather than the secondary. Just my five cents though...
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That sounds like I would like to not learn to look - as in let's keep looking! I wrote - at kigge ikke
As I understood, "kigge" is very much prone to be used with "co-verbs" or however you would call them: "kigge ind/ud/ned/op", leading to Danish being sometimes redundant (I recall "kigge ud ad vinduet"). Why then isn't "kigge ind i kassen" allowed here?
In my answer I had "at" before lære and I am wondering why it is incorrect as it is also to something?
Sounds more like "I don't want to learn to look in the box", or "I want not to learn to look in the box", but certainly not "I want to learn not to look in the box". Are you supposed to always put "ikke" in the same place no matter which verb you want to negate? How do Danes understand each other with such a confusing grammar?
Copied from a comment above by PoutinePierre: The word ikke here modifies at kigge, not lære. If you wanted to say "They don't want to learn to look", that would be De vil ikke gerne lære at kigge.