"It takes several seconds."

Translation: Det tar flera sekunder.

[TheBigE1980]

I have studied Swedish for almost two years. I have NEVER seen "många" mean "several;" I have only seen "många" to mean "many" and "flera" to mean "several." Is there a native speaker who can clear this up for me?

[Arnauti]

I agree with you, several is "flera" or "några", not "many". I've removed the hint "många" from "several" so it should disappear from sentences. As for usage, there will probably be contexts where it is appropriate to translate "många" into "several" or vice versa anyway. A good site to look at real translations is this http://sv.bab.la/lexikon/engelsk-svensk/several This site gives actual translations, not all of them are correct, but they are worth having a look at.

[TheBigE1980]

Thank you, Arnauti. The question I had was the type where you are given three options and choose every correct answer. I had to pick the Swedish translations. I chose "flera sekunder" for "several seconds" but not "många sekunder" and it was marked wrong...that was where my confusion occurred.

[Arnauti]

Ah, I see! It's a bit of a problem because the same sentences are used both ways, and flera means both several and many but several isn't many … I've reviewed it again and I think it looks right now, but it's easy to mess these up. Write in the forums again if you find similar problems.

[Haesselmaas]

I wrote "Det varar flera sekunder". Isn't that another correct translation, or did I misunderstand the English phrase?