# Swedish:  Jag vet inte, om jag längtar till Italien då.



## Svenska960

Jag vet inte, om jag längtar till Italien då. A friend of mine said me an app's name that could allow me to see italian tv while I'm in other countries, and so I answered with this sentence.


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## MattiasNYC

My intuitive answer is that:

a) If you remove the comma it's very close to accurate, linguistically.
b) It doesn't look all that great within the context you provided.

If you could write in English what you wanted to say it would be easier to verify. Right now you're essentially saying "I don't know if I (would) long for Italy then".


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## Svenska960

But I have already written the context in English...


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## Svenska960

I'm in another country and a friend of mine said that I should watch italian tv, but I answered that i thought that this could have a negative effect on me becouse it could bring me to long for italy.


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## MattiasNYC

Ok, so the way you wrote it in Swedish it ends up sound a bit more "literal" than the way you just explained it in English. It's almost as if you were asked a question and answered it:

Question: "If you watched Italian TV, would you long for Italy then?"
Answer: "I don't know if I would long for Italy then."

So to my ears it would sound less idiomatic to phrase it that way, even in English (if you translated back into English what you wrote in Swedish). I think you should translate closer to the English you just used when explaining it; use the word "think" ("I thought that") instead of "know" ("veta" in Swedish). Try writing it again using "think", and keep in mind that "(to) think" can be translated to either "att tänka" (using your brain, i.e. thought) which is usually not what you want unless you use the phrase "Jag kan tänka mig" which translates roughly to "I can/could imagine", or "(I) think" which can be translated to "(Jag) tror"....


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## Svenska960

Jag tänker att det ska bringa mig att längtar till Italien. Is it right so?


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## AutumnOwl

Svenska960 said:


> Jag tänker att det ska bringa mig att längtar till Italien. Is it right so?





MattiasNYC said:


> Try writing it again using "think", and keep in mind that "(to) think" can be translated to either "att tänka" (using your brain, i.e. thought) which is usually not what you want unless you use the phrase "Jag kan tänka mig" which translates roughly to "I can/could imagine", or "(I) think" which can be translated to "(Jag) tror"....


Is it a thought or a belief that it will make you long for Italy? And in this case the English bring and the Swedish _bringa_ are "false friends". Look for synonyms to bring.


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## Svenska960

It's a thought. How would you translate it now?


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## MattiasNYC

So, rather than going back and forth more I'll just give you my thoughts on it:

I think the best verb to choose first of all is "tro" ("att tro"). I think we got a bit confused even when we're using the English words "think" and "thought", and to me it seems that you're looking for the word "think". So what you're saying is that _you "think", or "believe" _that *if *you watch TV *then *you will feel a certain way (and not so much that you have _*a*_ thought, which I tried to point out).

So, you should start with "Jag tror att"....  And since you're describing a possible future continue with "jag skulle längta till Italien då". I also think that many would simply omit the first part, and simply say "Jag skulle längta till Italien då", since the first part is obvious.

Let's see if the other Swedes agree on that.

PS. The other way to start the sentence would be "Jag kan tänka mig att", though it seems to me less usual in this context.


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## JelliBoan

I would add "bara" (="only") also. "Jag skulle bara längta till Italien då" or "Jag tror att jag bara skulle längta till Italien då". To me it sounds that something is missing in the sentence otherwise. A discourse particle? (Note that the placement of adverbs -in this case "bara"- is different in a main clause and in a subordinate!)


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## Delfinen

I agree with JelliBoan.


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