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- Topic: Hungarian >
- "I see few."
"I see few."
Translation:Én keveset látok.
14 Comments
Is the personal pronoun and the word order obligatory in this sentence? Can one not say "Látok keveset" ?
The pronoun isn't obligatory, but "látok keveset" is not natural. At most it could be "látok egy keveset", but that means "I see a few" / "I see a little".
The personal pronoun isn't obligatory. The sentence can go like this: "Keveset látok." But personally I prefer "Nem sokat látok." over "Keveset látok." because to me it sound weird. Of course, it usually depends on the context, but without one "Keveset látok" just sounds strange and not Hungarian like at all.
"Keveset látok" is a perfectly okay sentence in Hungarian. It can definitely mean 'I see [only] a few of sg. And people generally use it as well as an expression when referring to poor visibility.
It gives "néhány" as an alternate definition for few. Why doesn't it work?
883
Néhány - some - There are some people here, about six.
Kevés - few - There are few people here, about six. I expected twenty.
Not a stunning difference, but still important.
I understand. Perhaps someone could remove "néhány" as a suggested translation for "few" then, to minimize confusion? Thanks for your help.
- 883
Kevés means "few" or "little", in the sense that you see fewer objects or a smaller amount than you expected.
"Egy kicsi" means "a little" or "a bit". You can see something, but it's not much. You can say "Egy kicsit látok" if it's dark or you're near-sighted. Also "egy kicsi" is a noun here, so doesn't refer to anything specific that you can see, like people or milk. Just that you see something at all.
