"Jag läser en tidning medan han lagar mat."
Translation:I am reading a newspaper while he is cooking.
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I think of "lagar mat" as "fix food" (or even "make food", which is pretty colloquial (American) English. So I might translate this sentence as "I read the newspaper while he fixes food." (maybe more usual: while he fixes dinner"). Using "cooks" for "lagar mat" makes me ask, is there a difference in Swedish between "to cook" used transitively, and used intransitively? Is th construction different between "he is cooking" and "the porridge is cooking"?
'make food' is usually an accepted translation for laga mat throughout the course, but 'fix food' has an exact translation in fixa mat which is used pretty widely. (even more widely if you use the colloquial word käk for 'food', too). You should try to think of laga mat as 'cook'. :)
The porridge is not 'cooking' in Swedish. If things boil, they kokar, so you can say medan gröten kokar 'while the porridge is cooking' [i.e. boiling], but for food that isn't exactly "boiling" we can either use the passive lagas or tillagas, or some more specific expression. E.g. steken är i ugnen 'the roast is in the oven'.