Han går alltid med ett gevär i handen.

Something I struggle with (having mainly used DuoLingo up until now) is missing out of words. Why is “in his hand” not reflected in the English text, please?

If it’s obvious whose hand it is, why say it? :slight_smile:

This is actually a variation on the general pattern. Consider “borsta tänderna”, “tvätta händerna”, “putsa skorna”, etc.

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This is true…but, when you’re learning a new language, it can be confusing as to why something isn’t specifically mentioned. If you’re going so far as to say, in the Swedish, that it’s in his hand - then why would you not keep the English just as precise?

For example - some vocab sites say gevär can be a rifle or a type of pistol. Although I didn’t take it this way it could possibly be assumed that “gevär i handen” is a hand gun.

When there’s ambiguity it leave things open to potential (mis)interpretation.

I think the root of the issue is that this corpus is not curated; it only consists of random translations that were not always created with a view to be learning material.

Update: I only just now looked up the English sentence, which is “He always walks with a rifle”. I thought it said something about “in his hand”. I can agree that it’s a loose translation. I’m going to add “Han går alltid med ett gevär.”

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Understand - and thank you for being so helpful.

Hope you understand that I’m trying to contribute a little by clearing up ambiguity. Mostly - I can figure things out myself (by polling several websites and my Prismas Ordbok). But if it’s to be a valuable learning resource, then some rough edges need filing down.

I think we both know that I’ll be back! :wink:

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