"There is a cat at our house."
Translation:Det er en katt hos oss.
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what about this sentence allows for the absence of one of the norwegian 'our' variations?
I am curious as well. I just did the "possessive" skill course, and I was expecting the correct answer to that phrase to be "det er en katt i huset vårt".
I agree. The sentence seems particularly confusing. There is no "house" here and the direct translation seems to be "There is a cat at us". I was expecting "der er en katt hos huset vårt" or "der er en katt på huset vårt"
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OK, but that still doesn't give us the specific "house" as it's used in this sentence. I agree with tdelpierre and jlosi1 that this is a confusing sentence, especially coming so soon after the possessives.
I feel like the English sentence should be "There is a cat at our place" to differentiate between the literal, normal translation of "Det er en katt på huset vårt" and "Det er en katt hos oss" given that it's clear they want the latter answer as opposed to the former. It'd be completely acceptable and normal for Duo to ask you to translate "There is a cat at our house" as "Det er en katt på huset vårt."
*i huset vårt, unless you're talking about a cat running around on the roof of our house....
thanks. but then why does the translation include house? where is the word house coming from?
I looked this up a long time ago and what I ended up with was that the etymology of hos was hus, but hos is a preposition. So I figured it was one of those times where hos had more meaning than just "with" or "at" and in typical norwegian fashion, it was wrapped up in one word. I accepted that when I saw hos oss that it meant "with us " but in particular, "with us (at our house)"
Thanks! I understand it better now. Guess I'll have to acclimate myself a little.
What is the difference between "Det finnes" and "der et" in the concept of "there is/are?"
"Det finnes" and "Det er" are, for all intents and purposes, synonyms. They both mean "there is/are."
Oh ok, so if it tells me that one of them is wrong and the other is correct, should I report it?
No, as it could mean different things even though they are synonyms. In some cases "det finnes" would wound weird, and in other "det er" would sound weird. Hope this helped a bit
I'm only curious about why is "på" not accepted here as the translation of "at"?
If you would say "det er en katt PÅ huset vårt" you would literally say "there is a cat ON our house" "på" translates to "on" in this case. I hope this helped
No, it would not. "Det er en katt hos oss" without the "på" would be correct though.
OK, I was thrown because of the use of "our house" instead of "our place"! We need consistency :p
If you were talking about someone else's place would you just replace 'hos' with 'hjemme' and then deres/ hans/ hennes?
No, you would replace "oss" with the person's name or relation. "Det er en katt hos Per." (There's a cat at Per's place.) "Det er en katt hos naboen." (There's a cat at the neighbours' place)