"Jag behöver en ren handduk."
Translation:I need a clean towel.
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That would be en renhandduk though. Fun thing about Swedish, you can create compound nouns for almost anything.
I assume that en handduk is for wiping one's hands. What would a bigger towel be called?
If you want to talk about a towel for hands you would actually say Handhandduk...
It’s actually also usually handduk. The ones you bring with you to the beach to lie on can also be badlakan.
Yes. Because it’s almost as big as a bed sheet, but you use it for bathing.
The largest towels are known here (UK) as 'bath sheets' - not that it's used much outside towel shops, but that is the name for them.
They are also labeled as "bath sheets" in the US, and they are roughly 9 inches (23cm) longer and slightly wider than a normal bath towel, but most people would still refer to them as "bath towels" or simply "towels". I've never heard someone refer to or ask for a "bath sheet", you would talk about a "big" or "large" towel instead.
They are also the same size as a beach towel, but beach towels are usually distinctly different in design and often have a coarser texture. There are even larger beach towels, both longer and double width.
"bordsduk" -> tablecloth "handduk" -> "hand cloth" -> towel "halsduk" -> "neck cloth" -> scarf "badlakan" ->"bath sheet" -> bath towel "lakan" -> bedsheet
I have to assume that the "duk" in handduk and halsduk come from the same root? And halsduk means "neck towel" while handduke means "hand towel" or something along those lines?
Google translates "duk" to cloth. Google Translate is a bit of a crapshoot though.
It is cloth. Without specifying further, it means a tablecloth. The same word in English exists as duck, a tightly woven linen cloth.
In English duck (cloth) is pronounced just like the animal. In Swedish, duk is pronounced like English duke.
@SN92 We don't pronounce it with a J sound in Canada. I'll have to keep my ear out for how other countries say it.
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Yeah, I know, I was meaning Anglophone North America rather than the United States of America :)
I'd say that there's no 'j' sound in British 'Duke' (at least not in formal English). It would be 'd-y-ook', not 'j-ook'.
It sounds in the Swedish duk like it's pronounced 'd-uh-k' (so the vowel is shorter and slightly more closed than 'oo')?
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Well, not outside America since "duke" would be pronounced with an initial J sound, in Britain for example, but Swedish "duk" has a D sound.
No it means hand towel. I think a tea towel is specifically for drying dishes and for use in the kitchen. A hand towel is a small towel you usually find the bathroom. A tea towel is a 'kökshandduk'.
Ok, towel I get. How would you translate the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy though?
google translates näs-duk to mean isthmus-cloth, and isthmus is something totally different.. is google wrong in this case?
Haha, that's hilarious. The Swedish word for "isthmus" is indeed näs, but this example is näsa (nose) + duk (cloth) = handkerchief, so Google really screwed up here. :)
I'm guessing it's because you put näs-duk rather than näsduk.
