15 Comments
''The apple is sweet'' is a wrong answer... because the hindi sentence has the word ''hotha''...
No. The copula is used in the habitual tense to tell facts. Apples are sweet. The apple is sweet would be, 'सेब मीठा है'
This sentence could mean "An apple is sweet" "Apples are sweet" or "The apple is sweet." "Apple is sweet" is ungrammatical and won't be guessed by a person from outside of the Indian subcontinent.
"Hotha" describes about the 'habitual' or 'usual' condition... if we say "Seb meeta hotha he" it'd mean that "all apples are (habitually/usually) sweet"...
Sorry I don't have a hindi keyboard. "seb meetha hai" would translate as "the apple is sweet", where you are talking about a 'the' particular apple. "Seb meetha hota hai" translates as "Apples are sweet" where you are describing the general taste of Apple fruit.
424
The apple is sweet. It doesn't necessarily mean that we are talking about ALL apples, All the time. It can mean that the apple (you gave me) is sweet. Or, The apple (that I am eating now) is sweet. I don't have to say THIS apple is sweet. I just say, 'The apple is sweet.'
- 495
Hota makes it a general statement - all apples are sweet rather than just this specific apple is sweet.
This is completely wrong, as (1) The word for taste, svad, doesn't appear in the Hindi (2) "Apple tastes sweet" is incorrect English.
