Saturday, 26 February 2011

Shakespeare and Swedish

It seems to me that when you translate Swedish phrases into literal English, the word order makes them sound a little Shakespearean/ 'Ye Olde'. 

For example: 

"Hur mycket kostar det?" = How much costs this?
"Varifrån kommer du? = "Where from come you?"
"Hur kommer jag till staden" = "How come I to town?"

You just know that Stephen Fry could kick my arse at this language observation stuff. "Well, to start with..." and then he'd be off, ripping my knowledge-balls off and castrating my sense of whether my unsupported observations made any sense.

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