Anybody’s “man” – another personal pronoun Posted by Transparent Language on Sep 2, 2009 in Grammar
Since we were talking about personal pronouns the other day, and as I see, it has provoked some very interesting comments, I thought it would be a good idea to continue on the subject.
“What? There are even more pronouns in Swedish?” I hear you say.
Well, not that many more. Actually, just one more that I think I should mention on here. And depending on how you look at it, it may not even be a pronoun at all. Yes, I’m talking about “man”. Not just any man, but the one that is normally translated into English as “one”. Well, it’s translated as “one” if we want to go all formal, but normally, it becomes something like “you” or “they” or “we”, or simply “people” in English. In other words, this “man” thingie is used when we want to talk about people in general and nobody in particular.
And it looks like that:
- Man blir trött om man sover för mycket. – One gets tired if one sleeps too much. Or more like a normal person would say it: You get tired if you sleep too much. (Though personally, I disagree with this statement. What nonsense! I love to sleep!)
Here’s another example:
- I Sverige dricker man mycket kaffe. – They (people) drink a lot of coffee in Sweden. (Yeah, that’s for sure!)
And another:
- Man ser sjön från balkongen. – You (we) can see the lake from the balcony.
So that’s the easy part. The not so easy part could be the objective form of “man”, which is “en”. Like this:
- Ingen gillar en, om man skryter. – No one likes you if you boast.
But, if the object refers back to the subject, then the reflexive “sig” bit is used. Like this:
- Man frågar sig, varför det hände. – One asks oneself why it happened. Or more like a normal person would say it: You ask yourself why it happened.
I always try to abide by the K.I.S.S. principle when discussing grammar, because that’s what most people learning a foreign language need. But if you feel the need to elaborate on this very “personal” subject, the comments are all yours. Go wild! 🙂
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Comments:
David:
Maybe one should just add that the genitive of “man” isn’t “mans” but “ens”, and that “man”, as can be deduced from the post, also uses the “sin/sitt/sina” reflexive possessive pronouns in the same way as “han/hon/den/det/de”…
Ann:
I’ve noticed that people use “man” much more personally than the (formal) substitute “one”, or the informal “you” or “they”, even. It seems to me it’s often a way to say something without treading that delicate Swedish understanding of casting offense, which escapes me so I cannot come up with any examples.
Ölänning:
@Ann – Haha, that’s very true. Sentences can sound way more and less personally offensive if you use “man ” instead of say “I” or “we”. I’m Swedish so I can come up with an example. Here’s a few:
Man skulle kunna önska sig en lite högre lön = One could wish for a little bit higher salary (this sentence actually means “I want a higher salary, motherfucker!”. OK, that “motherfucker”-part is just my own personal interpretation…) .
Man skulle ha lättare att somna om man slapp höra en massa oljud hela natten _ One could fall asleep easier if one didn’t have to listen to a lot of noise all night (OK, maybe not the best example but what this sentence ACTUALLY means is “Stop making all that noise all night so I can sleep!”. Again if, one likes, one might put a discrete “motherfucker” at the end of the sentence…).
I believe the word “one” is actually used in the UK in the same way, i.e. to make a sentence more polite and avoid offending someone. Now, if you’re American (just guessing) this concept is, of course, completely unheard of. Not that I blame you, though…
Antonio:
I totally agree with you about the sleeping quote!!
Totally nonsense! The more I sleep the less tired I feel =)
Thank you very much for this website, it has been really useful in my odyssey trying to learn Swedish!
Phoenix Language School:
I totally agree with you about the sleeping quote…
nice examples. can you give some more examples.
n
thanks for this post