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- Topic: German >
- "Das Mittagessen ist lecker."
20 Comments
Rather than the lunch tastes good, shouldn't this mean "the lunch is tasty"?
Is this how a German would say this? IE would a German say "das Mittagessen ist lecker" oder nur "Mittagessen ist lecker" I answered with "lunch tastes good" because I would never say "The lunch" in English.
I'm curious about the use of the word "lecker". In Afrikaans the word "lekker" has evolved to have a lot of meanings. Could mean "very", nice, tasty, "that's what you get" etc. Does the German lekker have any colloquial uses or does it only mean tasty?
In some (northern) dialects, it can be used like in Dutch or Afrikaans, but not in Standard German.
Mittagessen-lunch The German doesn't say the food for lunch tastes good. It says the lunch tastes good.
Once again, the article "the" will almost never be used before lunch at the beginning of a sentence in English. That is, unless you are talking about lunch at a particular place (i.e. The lunch at that restaurant is not good).
This one always tricks me. In norwegian dinner is "Middag", so mittagessen sounds like it should just be dinner aswell. But it is not.
That is great for the Norwegian or the German language. However as a university-educated English speaker, no one in English would ever put the article "the" before dinner in a sentence unless they are talking about lunch at a particular place (i.e. The lunch at (insert restaurant name) is horrible. So, the English translation (without the preceding article the) is correct.
Nowhere in my comment did i dispute the translation. I made a comment on the similarities of the german word "mittagessen" and the norwegian word "middag", and how they sound so much alike for a native norwegian speaker while not being the same thing. The german "mittagessen" is lunch, while the norwegian "middag" is dinner. As for you comment about the article, i am assuming you meant that should be a hint of what the translation should be? In norwegian there is no such thing as a "the" in front of Words. "the lunch" would be "lunsj-en" in norwegian. Funny how closley related the germanic languages are, yet we have completly given up on articles in front of words here (and also this discussion is probally better over at the norwegian course).
In many places in England the midday meal is dinner and evening meal is tea. 9Using the word lunch is not common. But that's not "standard English"
What is another word for "lecker"? Someone, when I was in Germany, told me "lecker" was not the best word, that it was from the south and that I'd sound odd using it in the north. Any comments?
