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- "There is not enough food."
"There is not enough food."
Translation:Maten räcker inte.
97 Comments
47
Sure, it could also mean that. But in most contexts we would interpret this as the amount of food is insufficient rather than that we need something more than food.
English can express this in a number of ways, e.g. "there isn't enough food", "the food does not suffice", "we don't have enough food", etc.
As you can see, whether to use the definite or indefinite depends on the phrase used. Swedish works the same way - we'd use the definite and indefinite in the same expressions here. :)
No, but it's close. Firstly, we're talking about whether or not there is actually enough food existing, so you should use "finns". Secondly, when constructing it like that with "nog" preceding the noun it modifies, you need to say "nog med mat". However, "nog" can also come after the noun, in which case it's just "mat nog".
Hope that helps.
What's a literal translation of räcker? 'to exist in sufficient quantity'?
No, räcka can mean to extend as in giving a hand or passing an item, etc., but it doesn't work here since it is transitive.
- 352
I like to use the corresponding deck of cards on TinyCards in this situation--I figure it's made by the same company so they should match...(though they don't always!)
The TinyCards definition of "att räcka" is "to be enough".
- 203
You do not have a subject. If you put "maten" before the verb, it becomes a subject. "mat" after "inte" is the object of the sentence. The verb "räcka" means "to be enough", "to suffice".
The verb cannot start the sentence, so räcker inte mat is not a valid word order.
I don't think, because the verb should be in second position. It sounds not correct.
That would mean "A lot of food is not enough", but there are several other reasons it doesn't work at all:
- mat is a mass noun so you need mycket
- mången is the singular en-word noun, so it's matched with tillräcklig without the t
- mången is largely archaic and should not be used, nor taught here
It's because you're trying to fit an adverb in there, like English does with "enough". But Swedish uses a verb instead, so maten räcker inte literally translates to "the food suffices not". And, as you can see, that follows the same grammar.
I do not understand the word order of this sentence. I began my attempt at translating it with Det finns inte but the accepted translation is nothing like that. Help!
I genuinely didn't, the app chose not to load any of these discussions >:( Thank you for pointing it out, it makes more sense now!
Yes, that is a very annoying and very common bug in the app, I'm afraid. :(
Just idiomatics, really - Swedish requires the med here but there's no real reason.
It reads just like its English counterpart "it suffices not food" would.
You can't have both finns and räcker at the same time - that'd be like saying "there exists suffices not food".
Could this also be translated as 'Det finns inte räcka mat' or because I'm using 'finns' does that mean i can't use the verb 'räcka' here but an adjective?
The latter - using both verbs would be like saying "there exists not suffices food" in English, so to speak.
Thanks! For some reason when I did this exercise earlier none of the comments that I can see (AND which answer all my questions) were visible - sorry for unintentionally wasting your time :-( .
- 153
Native speaker is saying that this sentence is wrong. The correct translation is "Det finns inte tillräckligt med mat."
That is, presumably, also accepted. The given sentence maten räcker inte is perfectly standard Swedish, though. It's a very common phrasing, and it corresponds very well to the given English translation.
I tried this, but it was marked wrong: "Det är inte tillräckligt med mat." Can a native speaker help me understand what is wrong with this sentence?
Tack!
Roughly speaking, finns is about permanence and often is closer to "exists" than to just "is". So in this case, with food being very perishable, det är inte tillräckligt med mat would mean "that's not enough food" rather than "there is not enough food".
Tack! Sorry for posing a question that was previously asked. Mysteriously, there were no forum entries for this exercise when I came here to ask my question.
No problem at all. It's a very annoying bug, one from which many suffer.
- 1075
Is there no more literal (as in "more literal", not "no more") translation from English (got "There is not enough food" -> "Maten räcker inte")? Comparing with German, I think there are some different nuances between the literal-to-english translations "Es gibt nicht genug Essen", "Es ist nicht genug Essen da" and the literal-to swedish "Das Essen reicht nicht". Like the difference between an active and a passive wording. The "es gibt" variant could also very well be referring to the whole world (in context or course), while the other two can only apply to a more specific situation. There is a literal (active) variant in English with "suffice" for "räcker", but at least to me that's a different meaning referring more to the quality of the food. Enough ranting :), how can I say that in Swedish without the food "actively" räckering?
Det finns inte tillräckligt med mat is the most direct one. The "translate into Swedish" exercises are generated automatically for the default answer in the "translate into English" exercise - so since the original Swedish is maten räcker inte, that is used.
It's like the German "Das Essen reicht nicht aus". So räcker inte = reicht nicht aus. Good to remember
räcka means "suffice", so that reads like "there exists the food suffices not".
Please see the other comments - that question has been answered several times in this thread.
Is "det finns inte tillräcklig mat" wrong? Kan någon förklara mig snälla?
