13 Comments
Correct solution: "He has stood against the wall." Dette klinger dårlig i mine ører. Noen som har et bedre forslag?
It would be more natural to say "leaned against the wall" but I'm not certain if that is the exact translation.
"He has stood (or even "has leaned") against the wall", is a comment in search of a situation-I can't think of needing to say such a thing, and that's why it sounds so strange. On the other hand, "He has been standing/leaning against the wall" is something to note, hence something to say.
I think it's more common in English to rephrase it. Maybe "He is standing against the wall" i.e. he has positioned himself standing by the wall and is now standing there. "He has leaned against the wall" isn't necessarily a good translation. He can be standing against the wall without leaning against it. "Han har lent seg mot veggen" would be the "has leand" case.
On the contrary, "He has stood against the wall" is natural, at least in American English in a contraction such as "He's stood against the wall". The image/context I immediately imagine is a high school dance or something, where one friend says to another about their very awkward mutual friend (whom they both sort of watch over), "Hey, where did Danny go?" and the other replies, "I don't know! He's stood against the wall for so long that I didn't think he would go off and disappear if I stopped checking in!"
I know it's a very specific example, but most contexts we use language in are very specific.
It is exactly this example that I also imagined. In response to "Hey where did Danny go?" a more natural response would be : "He had stood against wall for so long.../He had been standing, that I didn't think he'd leave" would be most natural.
As far as "he has stood against the wall", it is still weird--unless there's a famous wall in the world that many tourists want to stand in front of. Then one could say, "Ah yes, he has traveled the world and he has stood against the wall."
I see what you're saying, and I think that you are definitely right in saying that the pluperfect form "had stood/had been standing" would be applicable in way more cases than the present perfect "has stood/has been standing". The difference, I think, would be that the former would be used in all the cases retelling the occasion of the dance after the fact, whereas the latter would be used in the (admittedly slim) span of time during the dance when the people at hand were experiencing the situation.
But yes--I would agree that the form you mention is far more versatile and likely to be heard. I would just assert that there are a slim number of scenarios where the given form is perfectly natural.
"he has positioned himself against the wall" kanskje? Høres bedre ut imo hvertfall :)
241
Can this really mean the continuous form, i.e. "he has been standing"? The reflexive "stille" sounds to me like the action of putting yourself against the wall, i.e. "He has stood himself against the wall" (with "stood" in the meaning of "placed").
That's accepted, but it seems the continuous version is the preferred translation. But shouldn't "He has been standing against the wall" be "Han har stått mot veggen"?
(purely based on a gut feeling, hence the question)
