"Lo zucchero migliora la torta."
Translation:The sugar improves the cake.
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but it's not accepted late June 15 - I am reporting - if "LO zucchero" can mean Sugar generically I see no reason why "LA torta" cannot mean cake generically..
I think the Italian sentence can be translated as "Sugar improves the cake," or "Sugar improves cake," but they have different meanings in English. My mother made a nice fruit cake but she saw a fruit cake in a shop window that was similar except that the baker had sprinkled sugar on it before putting it in the oven. She did that and it improved her cake. "Sugar improves cake" means sugar improves all cakes and it doesn't.
During the Second World War, carrots were not rationed, but sugar was. The Ministry of Food published recipes for cakes that had grated carrot instead of sugar. They were not great cakes but not having a birthday cake was worse.
Surely, sugar improves the cake (making it better) rather than bettering the cake (being better than it)?
migliora derives from the word meglio=better but in english the best translation for migliora (the comparative) is improve
There's actually a pseudo-cognate, 'ameliorate', which shares the Latin root. But yes, it just means to improve.
I think you may be thinking of 'besting' rather than 'bettering'. Bettering and improving are effectively synonyms, though used in different contexts.
The correct pronunciation of "torta" is "tórta" (acute accent), not "tòrta" (grave accent).
"Migliora," by the way, is a cognate with "ameliorate." (Both words mean [basically] to improve.)
