"Žofie has few spoons."

Translation: Žofie má málo lžic.

[JBHayven]

Couldn’t we say "Žofie má několik lžic"?

[JanLyko]

There is a difference in meaning between "Žofie má málo lžic" and "Žofie má několik lžic".

"Žofie má málo lžic" implies that she is nearly running out of spoons or that she has too few spoons for some purpose, while "Žofie má několik lžic" does not have such connotation.

(And no, there is no connection with "The Spoon Theory")

[paulk1011]

I don't understand... what is the connotation of "Žofie má několik lžic"?

[BoneheadBass]

Disclaimer: I am learning, too, so this is a GUESS...

I think that "několik" is (more or less) "several." If Žofie has several knives, the actual number of knives she has may or may be not be important.

With "málo," which is (more or less) "few," there's sort of a suggestion that she may not have enough knives -- say, for the eight people she will be hosting for dinner tomorrow.

So... if, for example, Žofie has six knives, she could have either "několik" or "málo," depending on the context.

[JohnBraga1]

Surely the answer is wrong - it should be lžíc not lžic???

[BoneheadBass]

Nope -- looks like the genitive plural is "lžic." (And I would have gotten it wrong had I been typing instead of using the word bank...)

https://cs.wiktionary.org/wiki/l%C5%BE%C3%ADce

[stan602994]

What about Zofie má pár lžic?