"Det ligger en katt på puten min."
Translation:There's a cat on my pillow.
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Nope. Nope nope nope. I would burn it. I hate spiders. My friend is from Australia, and she once had to get a spider out of her shower with a plate and a pot because the thing was too big to put in a regular drinking glass.
How do you even get close to such a monster without burning the whole house down? You HAVE TO get high or drunk first, I would suggest!
I live in Australia and I've got a spider in my shower too. I didn't realise it was so common. I named him Edward and I talk to him when I'm in the shower.
This is legitimately the most useful sentence on duolingo for me. Det ligger en hund på puten min. Now I can complain about Loki in Norwegian!
Why isn't the cat the subject of the sentence? Wouldn't this be more natural: "En katt ligger på puten min"?
In this case, 'det' can be used as 'there'. As in, "There (points) lays a cat on my pillow".
1331
The present participle of the verb 'to lie' (as in 'to lie down') is lie, not lay (the same as in 'to tell an untruth'). It's the cause of a lot of confusion, unfortunately. It has become very common to use 'lay' instead, but it is wrong.
The two verbs are different in the past tense: "I lied about exercising while I lay on my bed". This is the past tense.
If you say the cat is laying on the bed it means they are laying something in the same way a chicken lays an egg, or a person lays the table etc.
If you want to indicate that the cat is resting on the bed, it is it lies or it is lying.
- 1811
"There lies a cat upon pillow mine" is actually quite perfect, albeit archaic, English word order. Actually it could still be said today poetically. I love how studying foreign languages teaches us more and more about the historical similarities between our languages!
This sounds like "There is a cat lying on my computer", which happens much more often in my house!
Is there really a reason in Norwegian why "A cat is lying there on my pillow" should be regarded as an unsatisfactory translation?
I suspect because the Norwegian didn't include "der" in the sentence.
'Lay' and 'lie' are two different verbs in English. 'Lay' (regular, transitive verb) indicates movement, as in putting something down. 'Lie' (irregular intransitive verb whose Past Simple form is, quite confusingly, 'lay' and Past Participle 'lain') describes the horizontal position of an object. Compare the following sentences: He laid (= put) the cat on my pillow. The cat often lies on my pillow.
- 1331
It adds to the confusion that 'to lie' can also mean to not tell the truth. So, in theory, "I lie on my bed" can mean two very different things and context is everything! They are different in other tenses though (eg, simple past: I lay versus I lied). It's all good fun :D
Exactly! I skipped that because I didn't want to get AmHoek even more confused. Gotta love 'em English verbs ;)