# Norwegian: ting eller sak?



## Elske_m

Hello

Can someone please explain to me whether there's any difference at all between *en ting *and *en sak*? Are they quite interchangeable?

I'm trying to use one of them in the context of a sentence like: 
You don't know about these little *things *if you only speak one language.


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## oskhen

Elske_m said:


> Hello
> 
> Can someone please explain to me whether there's any difference at all between *en ting *and *en sak*? Are they quite interchangeable?
> 
> I'm trying to use one of them in the context of a sentence like:
> You don't know about these little *things *if you only speak one language.


 
It's difficult. The English word "thing" could be translated as both "ting" and "sak", but I wouldn't say they are completely interchangeable. It depends a bit on context. "Sak" can also have other meanings (and so can "ting"). 

My advice is this: Translate the English word "thing" as "ting". I think that would very rarely be wrong.


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## Magb

One thing (heh heh) I could say is that _sak_ is rarely used when talking about physical objects. So if you want to say something like "what's that *thing* over there?", _ting_ would definitely be preferable to _sak_. _Sak_ is more often used in places where you'd use words like "case", "issue" or "matter" in English. As oshken said, if you're translating the English word "thing" into Norwegian then _ting_ is a pretty safe bet.

There's also a third word with a similar meaning: _greie_. That word is somewhat informal and tends a bit more towards a meaning like "thingy", but it's commonly used, especially when talking about physical "things".

In your example sentence you should definitely use _ting_. If you wanted to say "You don't know about these little *issues* [...]" instead you'd use _sak_.


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## Elske_m

Thank you both for your replies 

In my example sentence, the *things *it refers to are matters or (kind of) issues, rather than physical objects. Should I use *saker *then?


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## Magb

Not in my opinion, no, but I won't say it would be straight-up wrong to do so. Looking at my explanation again I think it's likely to cause more confusion than it clears up. Let me try again. While _sak_ is mostly used for abstract concepts, _ting_ is used for both abstract and concrete things. When used in the abstract, _ting_ is more likely to be used to describe some fairly small matter, while _sak_ would be used for more important matters, and is generally more formal. If you're in a company meeting and have a list of *issues* to discuss you'd probably describe them as _saker_ (or perhaps something else entirely, but definitely not _ting_). If you're talking to your mother and want to tell her that you have some (casual) *things* you'd like to talk about you'd describe them as _ting_. Using the word _ting_ in the first example wouldn't be incorrect, but too informal, and vice versa in the second example.

That's the best explanation I can come up with right now. Semantics is tough.


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## Elske_m

Magb said:


> Semantics is tough.


 
My thoughts exactly 

Thank you very much though, I definately understand it a lot better now.


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## dinji

And FYI if not completely on-topic: none of what has been said here would automatically be applicable to Swedish _ting_ or _sak_.

In Swedish, the word _ting_ has a much more confined use than in Norwegian, this word in Swedish is actually rather archaic and could in most contexts be replaced with _sak_ in regular style language.


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## Elske_m

dinji said:


> And FYI if not completely on-topic: none of what has been said here would automatically be applicable to Swedish _ting_ or _sak_.
> 
> In Swedish, the word _ting_ has a much more confined use than in Norwegian, this word in Swedish is actually rather archaic and could in most contexts be replaced with _sak_ in regular style language.


 
Duely noted


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## Mr.TechComm

dinji said:


> And FYI if not completely on-topic: none of what has been said here would automatically be applicable to Swedish _ting_ or _sak_.
> 
> *In Swedish, the word ting has a much more confined use* than in Norwegian, this word in Swedish is actually rather archaic and could in most contexts be replaced with _sak_ in regular style language.



True. I'm not a Swedish native speaker, but what I can say is that I have seen it in tingsrätt, which means district court. One of my teachers told me that an old meaning of *ting* is state, people (see the etymology of the word to double-check this, just in case I'm giving wrong information)



Magb said:


> (...) There's also a third word with a similar meaning: _greie_. That word is somewhat informal ...


 
In Swedish *grej* - also informal -

*Note: *hope it's ok to write some notes on the Swedish language in relation to the Norwegian words. When it comes to studying, it can help, e.g creating associations and mnemonics...


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## Magb

Mr.TechComm said:


> True. I'm not a Swedish native speaker, but what I can say is that I have seen it in tingsrätt, which means district court. One of my teachers told me that an old meaning of *ting* is state, people (see the etymology of the word to double-check this, just in case I'm giving wrong information)



I don't think it's ever meant "people", but "state" is pretty close. The original meaning of the Old Norse word _þing_ was "assembly" (like a parliament, court, etc.), and it was only later that it came to mean "object". The same word also existed in Old English, but there the "assembly" meaning fell out of use more than a thousand years ago, so now only the "object" meaning remains. Both the "assembly" meaning and the "object" meaning are still retained in all North Germanic languages except in Swedish, where, as our resident Swedes have remarked, the word isn't used much at all.

As another side note, In Norwegian and Danish the word _ting_ has masculine/common gender when used to mean "thing" and neuter gender when used to mean "assembly". The cognates in Icelandic and Faroese are always neuter, AFAIK.




Mr.TechComm said:


> *Note: *hope it's ok to write some notes on the Swedish language in relation to the Norwegian words. When it comes to studying, it can help, e.g creating associations and mnemonics...



My personal opinion is that learning some trivia about the history of a word is one of the best ways to remember the different meanings of that word. Seeing how a word is used differently in related languages can definitely be useful for learning.


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## dinji

Magb said:


> Both the "assembly" meaning and the "object" meaning are still retained in all North Germanic languages except in Swedish, where, as our resident Swedes have remarked, the word isn't used much at all.


The meaning 'object' still exists in Swedish, but its use is very limited, mainly to archaic or poetic texts. The word is always neuter, regardless of meaning. The meaning is well and alive also in the compounds "_ingenting_" 'nothing', "_någonting_" 'something'. Note also the derivative "_tingest_" (utr.) 'object'


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