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- "我只喜欢吃咸的,不喜欢甜的。"
"我只喜欢吃咸的,不喜欢甜的。"
Translation:I only like salty food, I don't like sweet food.
64 Comments
199
"I only like to eat the salty one, I don't like the sweet one" Marked wrong as of 2019-04-28. Reported.
In previous exercises when things were adjective followed by "的" we have been taught to say the "adjective one"
1114
When talking about amounts of food it is never plural. When talking about kinds of food, it can be plural so this should be correct with food or foods.
548
Not true. "Food" is usually used as an uncountable noun; "foods", as a countable one. In this translation, either should be acceptable, as both make sense.
1270
" (of food) belonging to the category that is salty or spicy rather than sweet." ( https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/savoury).
387
Savoury foods don't have to be salty or spicy, just not sweet. Cheese, meat, mushrooms, and even tofu are most often savoury. Even if not salty or spicy. Cheesecake and douhua would not be. A dish like sweet and sour pork coukd still be described as savoury too.
It's not only Chinese speakers that describe foods as salty in English that native speakers never would. It's common among speakers of European languages too.
387
There is a teaching issue with leaning too far to the literal. The same happens with translating idiomatic pre-meal phrases from many languages into the barely used but popularly taught "enjoy your meal" and the popular until the 1980s in English teaching but barely used for half a century by natives "How do you do".
"Salty" in English means either the main flavour is intended to be salt, or that there is at least a bit too much salt. In many languages the same word covers pretty much any non-sweet flavour but in English the word meaning non-sweet is "savoury.
Basically except for things like bar snacks, "salty" has a negative connotation but "savoury" does not.
387
True but English requires some noun for an adjective to be used in this way. Other possiblities besides "food" are "things", "meals", "dishes", and "stuff".
387
Does it lead to same difference in nuance as in English "I like food" vs "I like eating food"?
By deduction, this person is from the Northeast of China. This is a fun one to guess location - Do you like salty food (Northeast) spicy food (Sichuan/Hunan, sweet food (Shanghai) or Sour food (Shanxi).
Be careful though - who likes stereotypes?
https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/chinese-food/food-flavors.htm
387
In English "salty", "savoury", and "sweet" are ajectives and adjectives generally require a noun except when referring to classes of people such as "the poor", "the sick", etc.
Chinese has different rules to English so the above does not apply but we still have to translate correct Chinese into correct English, so sometimes that requires adding a word.
387
"Food" is a mass noun and you can't use "one" for those. If you used "foods" you could put "ones" on the other side though.
387
Because you need to use some noun whether it's "food", "ones", "things", "dishes", "stuff", etc.