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- Topic: Czech >
- "Směl jsem říct jen málo."
22 Comments
This is not a topic in which I am too strong, and I am not completely sure about this particular sentence, but I can say that we generally distinguish:
little - málo (uncountable)
few - málo (countable)
a little, a bit - trochu (eventually něco málo?)
a few - několik
It gets more complicated with "něco málo" (somewhat?) and similar.
So "a little" may sound better here but the meaning may be slightly different.
12
To me, "I could only say little" means "I could only say the word 'little'", whereas "I could only say a little" means "I could only say a few words."
VladaFu, there was no Reply button for your answer. I would suggest, in the context you describe, that "There was little I could say" sounds most natural. But I don't know how well that works with the CZ original. If it doesn't work, then at least the translation shown above is a pretty direct translation.
212
I just read all the comments and I feel that "I could only say a little" is better than "I could only say little" which is very awkward in English unless it means that the person could only say the word "little".
Having just landed here again in a practice session, and after reviewing all of the comments currently posted (30 Jan 2019), I've added translations using "A little." Because I don't know if changing the "main" translation (shown at the top of the page) could create a problem for the reverse exercise, I've left the main one as-is.