49 Comments
1239
I would prefer to use "tartan" instead of "kaka", because in Spanish "caca" means poo. And it's really weird talk about how "kaka" tastes good.
- 952
There's an old Swedish verb kacka which nowadays I think is mainly used in the saying kacka i eget bo which literally means 'defecate in one's own nest', (think about a bird pooping in its own nest). It means speaking ill of one's own things.
In Brazil we have the exact same saying, but it means something different. We say it when things are going well but then someone messes it up unecessarily. This is very very colloquial, though.
- 1239
So, "caca" means poo in Spanish, French and Italian...all of them are Latin languages. I guess that we can blame the ancient Rome for this.
Also in German, Russian and possibly other languages, so Rome is not to blame
- 1239
OK. so caca/kaka means poo in several European languages.
I guess that we can blame the indoeuropeans for that!
Hungarian is not Indoeuropean, though, so it must either be a loanword or an interesting coincidence!
kaka is hungarian for poo as well. and also fika, another pleasant word for the swedish, means booger.
- 232
"Caca" is pretty widely understood in the US, but I don't think all English-speaking Americans would know it.
Why is it "gott" instead of "god" since tartan is an "en" noun? Shouldn't it be "Smaker tartan god?"
- 287
Because in English you need an adjective and not an adverb, e.g. "sweet, salty, bad, horrid". Although "good" here is actually ungrammatical in my idiolect/dialect of English ("nice" would be much better to me) but it is grammatical for a lot of English speakers so using that is fine.
Could "Is the cake tasty?" not also being accepted? I know it's a little wider translation but it sounds better in my opinion.
Can one use the noun "tart" and what about kaka as a direct translation of cake
Tart is not a Swedish word, but in the corresponding dish is just called paj (same word as pie). In many cases, you could translate cake as kaka. A tårta is a quite specific type of cake, and there is actually an article from a Swedish language magazine that discusses the disinction. In short, a tårta
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has several layers and filling
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some type of decoration
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has not been baked as a whole
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is made for more festive occasions
I hope that clears it up!
- 232
Sometimes a particularly fancy cake is called a "torte" in American English, even if it isn't technically a cake made with ground almonds instead of wheat flour.
- 232
It's actually borrowed from French in both English and German. Some people erroneously think "torte" means simply a large fruit tart. Sometimes in the US, a "Schwarzwald Kirschtorte" is rendered in German, but more often it's anglicized to Black Forest cherry cake, with "torte" as a variation.
- 811
In British English we go for full linguistic confusion on that particular cake and add a French word - it's known here as a 'Black Forest gâteau'. Very big in the 80s!
In our country, a torta is usually some sort of omelette. The main ingredient can either be a flattened eggplant or ground pork. But then in some regions in the country, torta is a pastry/small cake.
Coincidentally, I just ate one for lunch (the omelette torta, I mean) :P
Ah but, 'tårtan är en lögn'. Is that how 'the cake is a lie' would translate?
- 952
Either that (32 hits on google) or kakan är en lögn (23 hits). Expressions of this kind tend to get more sound-based translations since everyone who uses them knows what the original is anyway. So memes and the like can have Swedish translations that are actually incorrect but that's part of the fun.
(if anyone wonders about the origin & meaning of this expression, see: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/the_cake_is_a_lie)
I read all the comments and still I do not know: Does "tårta" mean "Torte" in German, i.e. several layers of cake, cream and stuff? The counterpart to this would be "Kuchen" ("kaka"?) which comes out of the oven in its final form, at most you put icing on it.
Both, actually, in some senses. German makes the distinction largely based on how the cake is produced, but Swedish doesn't. We use mostly shape and size.
So a tårta is larger and usually round, possibly layered, but doesn't have to be. A Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte is definitely a tårta, for instance. A kaka, on the other hand, is typically smaller - mostly really small, like Spekulatius.
There's some middle ground where it's hard to really tell which is which - a smaller Lebkuchen might be a kaka but perhaps a large one is a little of both. We actually had a discussion yesterday at a birthday party over whether a kladdkaka (very common Swedish pastry, it's like a mudcake) that was served was more of a kaka or more of a tårta. :)
Hope that helps!
- 174
But Spekulatius is just a christmass cookie. So you use kaka also for cookies? In the case of Lebkuchen the reference is mainly to the art of how it's made. But a lebkuchen is neither a cookie or a cake, it's Lebkuchen.
Yes, kaka is for cookies as well, though we use kex for them, too. Hence why I used Spekulatius as an example.
In the case of Lebkuchen the reference is mainly to the art of how it's made. But a lebkuchen is neither a cookie or a cake, it's Lebkuchen.
I mean, yes, that was my point? :)
