"Směl jsem říct jen málo."
Translation:I could only say a little.
30 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
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.
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.
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.
1032
Please, is it really wrong/weird? "I was allowed to say only little."
Re-reported on 2021-11-12 , please see if this report is there. Thank You.
There's some confusion here; your report seems to be: "I was allowed to say just a little." That's probably acceptable, although it seems a little off as a translation of "jen málo" and I would like others' opinions before adding it.
On the other hand, "I was allowed to say only little." is not accepted and doesn't quite work. https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/41782-only-(a)-little-only-(a)-few
If you're interested in AmE-native opinions, mine is that "I was [allowed to/could] say JUST A little" and "I was [allowed to/could] say ONLY A little" are, on the EN side, much better than "I was [allowed to/could] say little." How suitable either is as a translation here, of course, depends on what the Czech sentence can support.
To me, "I was [allowed to/could] say little" would be fine if it were followed by something else: for example, "I was [allowed to/could] say little ABOUT... what I really thought / why I liked that book so much / the fact that Czech is a real 'medvěd' of a language to learn / etc. But as a standalone sentence, it really strikes my AmE ear as weird. Might be a good sentence to think about dropping in in new tree... :-(
Yup, okay, thank you. I'll add "just a little" then. "Only a little" is already accepted. Do you agree that "to say only little" is less acceptable than "to only say little"?
The problem here is that "málo" really corresponds more with "little", as in "not enough", rather than "a little", as in "a small amount". But then there's actual language use...
Hmm.
The problem for me is that both "I was allowed to say only little" and "I was allowed to only say little" are weird unless they are followed by something that adds more information, and we have no additional information here.
On their own, both "to say only little" and "to only say little" are cringe-worthy in a big way. But if you were offering piškoty only on the condition that I choose one or the other as being somewhat less cringe-worthy, I would choose "I was allowed to only say little" as the better one. Could I say why? Nope.
1032
Thank you both very much.
I'm sure I reported both:
I was allowed to say only little.
I was allowed to say just a little.
It was from Firefox on 2021-11-12 in the evening. And also a few months ago from Chrome.