Breakdown of Vi sad og snakkede en god stund.
og
and
en
a / an (common)
vi
we
god
good
snakke
to talk
sidde
to sit
stunden
the while (a period of time)
Questions & Answers about Vi sad og snakkede en god stund.
Why does this sentence use sad og snakkede instead of a direct translation for "were talking"?
Danish doesn't have an exact match for the English continuous "-ing" form. To show that an action was ongoing, Danish often uses a verb of position or movement followed by og (and) plus the main action. Here, sad shows they were physically sitting while the ongoing talking happened.
Could I use a different verb instead of sad if we weren't sitting down?
Yes! The positional verb changes based on what you are actually doing physically. If you were standing, you would use stod og snakkede (stood and talked). If you were walking, you would use gik og snakkede.
What does the word stund mean here?
Stund simply means a while, a moment, or a period of time. While it is related to words for "hour" in other Germanic languages, in Danish it just refers to an undefined stretch of time.
Does en god stund imply that they had a nice time?
Not necessarily. In this phrase, god translates to "good" in the sense of "considerable" or "long." Just like the English phrase "a good while," it means they talked for quite a long time, regardless of whether the conversation was pleasant or serious.
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