"मेरी चाय में कम चीनी है।"
Translation:There is less sugar in my tea.
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"There is too little sugar in my tea" would be more commonly said in English.
Yeah, this is definitely Hinglish, but you do hear Indians using 'less' like this quite often.
that's true but this could just as easily be a comparative. as in, "there is less sugar in my tea (than in my coffee)"
As you show with your parenthetical, the comparison can't be omitted (in Br/Am English).
It could also be "There is not (too) much sugar in my tea." "Too little" implies that the speaker would prefer more sugar, which is not necessarily the case.
"There is less sugar in my tea" is Indian English. "There is little sugar in my tea" is the correct form, but the more natural sentence is "There isn't enough sugar in my tea."
1362
It is Indian English. And does Hindi for English speakers mean Hindi for only Indian English speakers? I think they should accept responses that would be more natural in other versions of English, such as "there is not enough sugar in my tea."
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It is not possible to say there is less sugar in my tea.Less is a comparative...so,you can only compare it to something else.For example:there is less sugar in my tea than in yours.
The article 'a' is unnecessary. 'There is little sugar in my tea,' however, is correct.
Yet another strange/awkward English sentence; a better translation would be 'not enough sugar' or 'too little sugar'. I also see some people comment that it is "Indian English". The English taught in Indian schools isn't any different from British English. As in most non-native English speaking regions (and often in native English speaking ones for that matter), there are often errors in ways it is commonly used. But that doesn't mean that a language teaching program can be very careless and have an "anything goes" approach.
It can. चीन is 'China' so चीनी can mean 'Chinese' in addition to 'sugar'.
I would only use less if I was comparing. Ex: There is less sugar in my tea than I would like. Is this sentence necessarily negative? What would you say if you are happy with just a little sugar in your tea?
Can I understand "कम" as "not enough" in this context or would that be incorrect?
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Clearly, "less" used without a comparison is confusing to many English speakers... They should accept "not enough sugar" or "too little sugar".