| Summary: | The aim of this essay is to determine how the polysemantic verb få can be translated from Swedish to German. Frequently used verbs often have more than one meaning. That makes translating difficult, because there is no verb in German which covers all aspects of få. This essay examines the nuances in meaning of the verb få, following the research of Viberg (2002/2012) and Ureland (1973). The theory is followed by a quantitative and qualitative study of the use and translation of the verb få in a non-fiction text. The analysis is mainly based on Viberg’s (2002/2012) works, who identifies eight meanings of få. This essay examines the translation of the 43 examples of the verb få attested in the Swedish source text. It shows that there is no German verb which can cover all meanings of få, but that there are some that can be used to translate more than one meaning of the verb. But even those verbs are not fitting for every case of få, which suggests that the context is the main variable that determines a fitting translation. Even though it is possible to provide a pool of possible translations for all aspects of få, there are cases in which the translator will have to choose other words in order to express the meaning of få in an idiomatic way. This is especially important due to the fact that there are some aspects of få, i.e. the inchoative meaning, which, in German, cannot be expressed with verbs.
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