Icelandic: þurfa á … að halda

[gramster]

Is there a difference in meaning between "Ég þarf á hjálp frá þér að halda" and "Ég þarf á hjálp frá þér"?

This first sentence appears in Olly Richards' Short Stories in Icelandic for Beginners, (p. 214). John Murray Press. Kindle Edition.

My question here is really about the use of "að halda" as an idiom. What function does it serve? What meaning does it add? When is it used? It would be helpful to have additional examples.

Thanks!

 

[Segorian]

Is there a difference in meaning between "Ég þarf á hjálp frá þér að halda" and "Ég þarf á hjálp frá þér"?

The verb þurfa is only followed by the preposition á in the expression “þurfa á … að halda”. The latter sentence you quote should therefore be “Ég þarf hjálp frá þér”. With that modification, there is no difference in meaning between the two sentences.

I have no idea how the “á … að halda” idiom originated, but it tends to be used when þurfa is followed by a noun or a pronoun.

The following is a random sentence from the internet:

Ég held í alvöru að ég hafi sjaldan verið eins þreyttur og fór því snemma í rúmið um kvöldið, ég þurfti á svefninum að halda.

“Ég þurfti svefninn” would mean the same thing, but is something that nobody is likely to say or write. On the other hand, the expression with “að halda” can be perceived as slightly formal or stilted. In colloquial speech, people are more likely to say “ég þurfti að sofa”. Similarly, the sentence you quote — “Ég þarf á hjálp frá þér að halda” — sounds a bit unnatural. The idiomatic way so say this is “Þú þarft að hjálpa mér”.

The deeper context of this is that þurfa is much more commonly followed by another verb in the infinitive than by a noun or a pronoun. For example, a simple sentence like “I need this” would normally not be rendered as Ég þarf þetta. Instead, one would say something like Ég þarf að fá þetta (“I need to have/get this”) or Ég verð að fá þetta (“I must have/get this”) or, again, Ég þarf á þessu að halda.

And to illustrate that the expression isn’t always used formally, the following is a Fb comment responding to an offer for prenatal massage:

Já takk!! Ég er gengin 35 vikur og þarf svo innilega á nuddi að halda, er að drepast í öllum líkamanum

 

[gramster]

The verb þurfa is only followed by the preposition á in the expression “þurfa á … að halda”.

Thank you. I've updated the title of this thread to emphasize this.

Similarly, the sentence you quote — “Ég þarf á hjálp frá þér að halda” — sounds a bit unnatural.

And so it appears we have yet another example of how the source book (Olly Richards' Short Stories in Icelandic for Beginners) is something of a case study in the hazards of translation. Ugh!