# Swedish: sit or take an exam



## dimhollow

*Here's a sentence from my Swedish course:
"Jag ska gå upp i en viktig tenta nu på torsdag."
I assume it means: "I'm sitting an important exam this coming Thursday."
So is "gå upp [i en tenta]" the usual way for Swedes to say "to sit/take [an exam]"?*


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## MattiasNYC

I thought it was "(att) *ta *en tentamen"...


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## dimhollow

MattiasNYC said:


> I thought it was "(att) *ta *en tentamen"...



I see. I understood that "tenta" was a contraction of "tentamen" in colloquial Swedish.
So  how should I understand this:
*"Jag ska gå upp i en viktig tenta nu på torsdag."*
maybe as:
"I'm going to *go to an exam*"? or "I'm going to *show up/arrive at an exam*"?


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## MattiasNYC

Not sure how to translate it. I mean, I would intuitively just assume it meant the same as "ta en". But I don't know how I'd translate it. I don't think I've ever seen or heard "upp in en" in this context.

Someone else should chime in.


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## dimhollow

MattiasNYC said:


> Not sure how to translate it. I mean, I would intuitively just assume it meant the same as "ta en". But I don't know how I'd translate it. I don't think I've ever seen or heard "upp in en" in this context.
> 
> Someone else should chime in.



"Je vais me présenter jeudi à un examen important." is the translation I've got here in French,
and "se présenter à un examen" means "to sit an exam". The author of this course is called William Fovet,
which doesn't sound very Swedish to my ears, so I guess he made a bit of a mistake there?


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## MattiasNYC

Yeah, for some reason it just doesn't sound idiomatic to me. I could maybe see "gå på tenta" which would be similar to "gå på bio" (go to the movies). But really someone else should chime in. It's been a good couple of decades since I studied back home.


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## MattiasNYC

Also, you can check web searches for hits:

"gå på tenta" - Bing 
"gå på tentamen" - Bing 
"ta en tentamen" - Bing 

In contrast:

"gå upp in en tentamen" - Bing 

yields zero hits as far as I can see..

Incidentally, "gå upp i" could I suppose be more literal if it refers to the actual location of where it's being held.... maybe?


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## dimhollow

Yeah, that's why I suggested other options:  "I'm going to go to an exam" or "I'm going to show up/arrive at an exam" both of which seem quite plausible.


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## serbianfan

I don't think you'd normally say in English 'I'm going to show up at an exam'. I would translate it as 'take/sit an exam' quite simply.

One may wonder why people who write language courses don't use the most common phrases and words  In fact, Dimhollow, if you find a number of examples of unusual Swedish in that course, I suggest you look for another course. It's difficult enough to learn another language without course writers wasting our time with strange expressions, either because they don't know Swedish properly or because they're showing off how much Swedish they think they do know!


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## Abbe

Gå upp i något usually mean to engross oneself in something. My initial understanding was that he is going to engross himself in studies as a preparation for the exam. The sentence is strange.
To take an exam I would have written jag ska skriva en tenta på torsdag or jag har en tenta på torsdag.


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## AutumnOwl

To me the _gå upp i en tenta/tentamen_ sounds like from something before 1968, while the old student examination still existed, and there were first a written part, and then an oral part in front of a censor, and there were a risk of failure.


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## bicontinental

AutumnOwl said:


> To me the _gå upp i en tenta/tentamen_ sounds like from something before 1968, while the old student examination still existed, and there were first a written part, and then an oral part in front of a censor, and there were a risk of failure.


In Danish you can say, _Jeg skal op i dansk på torsdag_ meaning I have a Danish exam on Thursday. _At skulle op i et fag (til eksamen_.)..do you have something similar in Swedish?


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## Den falska sköldpaddan

Yes, *bicontinental*, only we add *gå* before *upp*, as in "Jag ska gå upp i danska på torsdag". The sentence "Jag ska gå upp i en viktig tenta" is perfectly idiomatic, and it simply means "I will take an important examination", perhaps with a connotation that it is something of an ordeal. I was born in the fifties, and I have no problem whatever with this construction. It might be more or less unfamiliar to younger generations.

Let me adduce:
1> "Gå upp i examen", _SAOB_, s. v. *gå upp*, 1) Svenska Akademiens ordbok | SAOB
2> _Stora svensk-engelska ordboken_, 1988.
3> The following *recent* text from _the department of philosophy at Stockholm University_, where it says "Du anmäler intresse att gå upp på ett uppsamlingstillfälle genom att skicka ett mail till expeditionen".
Tentamen - Filosofiska institutionen

On top of this, if the context is clear, we can say simply "gå upp" with the same meaning. See _Ord för ord_, 1977, s. v. *gå upp* and *tentera*.


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## MattiasNYC

I don't recall it being a common phrase in the 80's / 90's when I was a student.


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## Kim3737

dimhollow said:


> *Here's a sentence from my Swedish course:
> "Jag ska gå upp i en viktig tenta nu på torsdag."
> I assume it means: "I'm sitting an important exam this coming Thursday."
> So is "gå upp [i en tenta]" the usual way for Swedes to say "to sit/take [an exam]"?*


Sounds really strange to me. I've never heard someone use that phrasing when talking about exams. Sit/take an exam = skriva en tenta


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