WotD: swear

[muckefuck]

1. schwören
2. zweren
3. jurar
4. jurar
5. jurer
6. tyngu
7. mionnaigh
8. 맹세하다 (盟誓하다)
9. 發誓 fāshì

Example sentence: "I swear I didn't know it was loaded!"

1. Ich schwöre, ich hab nicht gewusst, dass es geladen war!
2. Ik zweer, ik wist niet dat het geladen was!
3. Te juro que no supe que estava cargada!
4. Et juro que no he sabut que estava cargada!
5. Moi, je te jure que j'ai su pas qu'il était chargé!
6. Ar fy llw, sa i'n gwybod fod e'n lawn!
7. Dar m'fhocal, ní fheadar go raibh sé lódáilte!

Comments

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

Ah, the wonders of the Imperfect tenses:

3.- Te juro que no sabía que estaba cargada.
4.- Et juro que no sabia que estava carregada
5.- Je te jure que je ne savais pas qu'elle etait chargé
ITA.- Ti giuro che non sapevo che era carricata.

Note the different spellings for almost identical pronounciations of "estava/estaba" and "sabia/sabía" - This is source of a gazillion spelling mistakes from students here, although both spellings make sense in their respective languages.

And as a conclusion, the use of imperfect past tenses in romanic languages is something I find hard to explain

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

In cases like this I've always used the imperfect for saber in Spanish, as I was taught that supe, etc., meant "found out" in cases like this, ne? Thus, the sample Spanish sentence would be interpreted closer to, "I swear that I didn't find out that it was loaded," right?

(I'll admit: I was a lazy high school Spanish student and, after being told that only the imperfect meant "knew", I didn't learn ANY of the preterit forms for YEARS.)

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

mmmmm
Supe makes no sense in the sentence. There's the added difficulty of the estar verb, I admit, but it's a state that happened before - states change, then it was imperfect. It's very hard to explain. If you want to use the perfect, it means something else:

-Te juro que no supe cómo cargarla (i didn't know the action, something didn't change)

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't think supe WOULD make sense, because using the perfect would imply that the action is done.

You can use supe in this manner? Wouldn't it be more natural to say, "Te juro que no sabía como cagarla"?

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

See, the difference was saying:
I swear that I didn't know how to charge the gun
I swear I didn't know how to load it.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Ah - my initial reaction was also that the French sounded weird and needed the imperfect; thanks for corroborating that.

(I wonder whether Da's sentence sounds to a native Romance speaker the way "I am not knowing it" from an Indian sounds to a native English speaker from the US or UK -- an unusual choice of TAM.)

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

Not exactly. We use up to 5 past tenses in common language (one of them is barely used). The usage is identical in Catalan and Spanish

Pretérito perfecto simple: Refers to an action in the past in a closed lapse of time
- I ate apples yesterday morning
- Comí manzanas ayer por la mañana

Pretérito perfecto compuesto: Refers to a finished action in a non-ended period of time or very recently
- I have eaten apples today
- He comido manzanas hoy.

Pretérito imperfecto: Refers to an action that was happening in the past or a state in the past:
- I used to eat apples, but now I eat pears
- Antes comía manzanas, ahora como peras

Also, an action, which ressembles the used of TAM:
- Comía una manzana cuando me llamaron por teléfono (check how we mixed the imperfect and the perfect)
- I was eating an apple when they called me.


Pretérito pluscuamperfecto: Refers to actions before another action happened with an imperfective aspect:
-I had eaten an apple when the real desert arrived.
-Me había comido una manzana cuando llegó el postre de verdad.

Pretérito perfecto compuesto or Pretérito anterior: Actions before another but with a perfect aspect, the action was finished before. This is the one you barely hear in spoken language:
-When I ate the apple, the real desert arrived.
-Cuando hube comido la manzana, llegó el postre de verdad

A mess!

[pne.livejournal.com]

Ich schwöre, ich hab nicht gewusst, dass es geladen war!

My initial reaction was, "... dass sie geladen war"; the most likely object being "Pistole" in my mind.

Other feminine options include "Waffe" and "Kanone". There's also "Gewehr" (neuter), I suppose, but that sentence seems like something more likely to apply to handguns than rifles. Or perhaps "das Ding"/"das Teil"?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

"Gewehr" was, in fact, what I had in mind (though note that I used feminine in the Spanish and Catalan examples to agree with pistola).

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Wow, 6 is unrecognizable in the sentence. Does everything mutate but the 'y'?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

No, this was just a case where using a form based on tyngu sounded less natural than using a different expression entirely. (See also #7.) That's the hazard of keeping the example sentence constant.