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- "The man eats sandwiches."
"The man eats sandwiches."
Translation:Ο άντρας τρώει σάντουιτς.
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1593
Generally speaking the loan foreign words should not follow the foreign declension. For instance, σάντουιτς is a relatively new word to Greek, so it is wrong to write σαντουιτσιζ. A rule that is not followed though by many, it is wrong. Specially in English words. Some try to integrate the loan words to the Greek Grammar rules. It is not successful and not accepted by all. What is sure is that many loan word imported some decades or hundred years ago follow the Greek rules without any objection, as they are generally accepted. Language is an alive organization, so to violate a reform is not successful many times.
How true that is. It's a narrow path between what is accepted and what remains "borrowed". I admit I do like Κεκάκια sounds so homey.
Right, this is translated as, or rather, from: 'the man eats sandwiches'. But then, 'the girl is eating sandwiches' is translated as: Το κορίτσι τρώει *τα8 σάντουιτς. Why the 'ta/to' in the second case but not the first? Daithi.
It's rather similar to English. The man eats sandwiches is general. If we say The man eats the sandwiches." It's specific The ones he brought from home.
Right. But in both cases, the English form is 'sandwiches'-in-general, without a 'the'. The man and the girl are both eating sandwiches; but in the Grk translation, the girl has 'to σάντουιτς' and the man doesn.t
Perhaps the only way to clarify that the sandwiches are plural is to give the plural article τα.
We also have uses with and without the article in English. At a buffet for instance, "The man eats the sandwiches and the woman eats the salad" You could point to the particular sandwiches and salad.
Compared to, what do the man and woman usually have for lunch " The man has sandwiches and the woman has salad" Sandwiches and salad in this case are almost concepts rather than physical items, you can't point to them.
I believe Greek makes the same distinction
I think the difference lies in whether the English verb is given as "eats" or "is eating". The former biases a generic reading, so no article is needed in the tranlsation, whereas the latter forces a specific reading, so requires the "τα".
Actually, I can envision singular and plural "sandwich/sandwiches" with both simple present and present continuous and with or without the article. "Where's Harry?" "He's in the kitchen eating sandwiches." or "....the sandwiches you left for him."
But if it is both plural and singular - the same word - and there is no article in front of it in this example then why isn't it accepted as correct answer when I write down "sandwich" rather than "sandwiches". Why is singular form wrong if there is nothing to indicate that it should be plural???
Singular would be: "Ο άντρας τρώει ένα σάντουιτς. Just as in English we would say. "The man eats a sandwich."
