English Translation
I picked Tom up at the station.
Are there cases when you would “hämta” but not “plocka upp”, or vice versa?
“Plocka upp” can have the implication of it being done casually: “Tom plockade upp en tjej från gatan.” “Hämta” is more of a planned action.
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Thank you!
How does the unplanned plocka upp work with “på stationen”? Isn’t picking someone up usually planned?
What about the following scenario? I’ll visit my family. My train arrives at 20:00 and I ask my dad if he can pick me up (hämta). Then I spontaneously take a different train (maybe because the original train was cancelled) and arrive five hours earlier than announced. My dad is still at work, thus can’t pick me up. I call my mom without a heads-up, “Can you pick me up, instead of Dad, at 15:00 (plocka)?”
Other example: Would you use plocka upp when, after work on my way home from the office, I brought (picked up) some Chinese food to-go because I remembered my fridge was empty and I was too hungry to first go shopping?
“Plocka upp” has the nuance of something done en passant, so to speak, so if I set out with the purpose of picking up Tom, I would use “hämta” in the first place.
“Jag skulle hämta Tom på stationen, men han hade redan börjat gå så jag plockade upp honom längs vägen.”
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It seems to me that the german equivalents - with the same nuances - would be:
hämta - (ab)holen
plocka upp - einsammeln
Does that check out?