"Vi gikk tidlig, for onkel ville hjem."
Translation:We left early, because my uncle wanted to go home.
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'Hjem' implies movement towards home, so 'vil hjem' means 'to want to go home'.
Is "vil hjem" specifically about wanting to go home, or is it a general sense of wanting to be home? I ask because I translated this as "wanted to be home" and it was incorrect.
Vil hjem is speficially about wanting to go home, because hjem is used when you are going home, and hjemme is used when you are already at home.
In Norwegian it's quite common to omit the possessives when talking about family members, but in English it's seldom done other than for mum/dad/mother/father. Because of this, the most natural way of translating this sentence is with a "my" in English, which is implicit in the Norwegian sentence.
Having said that, we do allow omitting the possessive here - we just don't think it's the best translation.
Crikey Deliciae! I've just started Babbel norsk...and had to come back here again to cheer myself up! It's all a bit tutonic and regimented... and sometimes it's a battle to just move on ..because I've entered a space wrongly or (forgotten a COMMA!!) Thank goodness I started here with you...First lesson on Holidays expected me to know the words.. QUAY, FIREWOOD and FISHING PERMIT !Thats tough on a beginner. And I've no ideas where I am in the bigger order of things over there! Missing you all..hhh
Yes, since the sentence begins with "vi", we're accepting it as an answer. We'll not allow it in sentences where there is no such context though.
We tend to treat the infinitive mark as part of the infinitive ("å ville"), but aside from that they are identical.
I'd like to know this. I imagine it's simply due to the dreaded 'context'. :/
Why is this wrong? "We went early because uncle wanted to go home". How you defined it's "my" uncle?
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It's wrong because it's not correct English, and has different making than the Norwegian sentence. "We went early" didn't make sense on it's own. Unfortunately I myself don't know how to tell when gikk translates as "went" and when as "left" so I can't help you with that one.
As for the uncle, in Norwegian, when talking about relatives you often skip the definite suffix or the possessive. It's just like in English really. If everyone knew who the uncle is you could also say "We left early because uncle wanted to go home" in English. I don't know if it's an accepted translation, but it's correct English. In reverse, if in Norwegian someone is not specify what kind of uncle they're speaking of, then it's their uncle they're speaking of.
Onkelen min would also be correct here, depending on the context (which we don't have).
Imo your sentence was marked incorrect because you used "went" instead of "left", not because you skipped "my". I can't be 100% sure though.