"En kopp socker"
Translation:A cup of sugar
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As someone speaking english most of the time, what is it you hear first here...
When you talk about amounts, English uses a preposition ”a glass OF water”, ”a cup OF sugar”, but Swedish doesn’t, so it’s ”ett glas vatten” and ”en kopp socker”.
But you CAN say "en kopp med socker" if you want to. That is literally "a cup with sugar". It's not wrong to say that.
In lieu of Lundgren's response, it is the same way in German. English just needs a preposition here, like other Romance languages would.
778
Yep. I like to think of English as Germanic words with Romantic grammar... not totally accurate but it's certainly an interesting mix.
Actually, its more like German, Dutch, and French words mixed in as French and the Netherlands were so close to England and highly influenced the language in the early modern age.
Well I don't speak Dutch but German, English and French and I could easily read Harry Potter in Dutch...
Now, is "cup" in this case also a measurement? I don't imagine the Swedish language bothers to have a separate word for a measurement it doesn't use.
Yes, it can be used as both. Same thing in Finnish, Norwegian etc.. If you wanna use european measurements you can say for example en deciliter socker.
I don't think it sounds as natural as "A cup of sugar," but it doesn't seem wrong either. Probably, yes.
It's a "spoonful", how much do you need to take your medicine? :p
The original Swedish translation said med lite socker i botten - "with some sugar at the bottom [of the cup]", but a more recent translation is more faithful to the original.
I like the idea of not using the "of". Confusing and easy at the same time. En kafe kopp would be the same?
Who says it's a measurement? En kopp socker is a borderline cliché expression in Swedish, and besides, people translating recipes will need to know the translations.
Why focus on “borderline cliches”, when real Swedish is being missed out on. Trust me, english speaking people learning Swedish know what a cup is. What Duo failed to teach here is the measures commonly used in Sweden, that are actually needed to translate recipes.
Those will be coming in a future tree, although not early on.
You misunderstand. The phrase is not uncommon in Swedish. That's why it has turned into a cliché. It's teaching Swedish actively in use.
No, we'd mostly use
- kryddmått = "spice measure" = 1 ml
- tesked = teaspoon = 5 ml
- matsked = tablespoon = 15 ml
- deciliter = 100 ml
- liter = 1000 ml
