- Forum >
- Topic: Swedish >
- "Vi behöver mer tyg."
12 Comments
what about 'textile'? it seems, it wasn't accepted when I answered from mobile
Is there a rule for when one uses "[noun]+till" vs "mer+[noun]" when one is talking about adding more things? i.e "salt till" vs. "mer salt".
1493
Hm, you can only use till in the combination en (or similar) … till, which means you cannot use it with uncountable nouns. So if you want more salt, you need to say mer salt. Or like en tesked salt till 'one more teaspoon of salt', where the salt is still uncountable, but the teaspoon of course is countable.
- 1366
Can someone discuss the difference between 'tyg' and 'duk', please? The English 'fabric' seems to translate directly to 'tyg', but 'cloth' would cover both 'tyg' and 'duk'...
If I got that correctly, tyg stands for the material and duk is used for the item. Thus, tyg=textile and duk=a piece of fabric.
Looking at the Svenskordbok app and running it through Google translate, that seems to be about right except duk is more specific than en bit tyg and has specific types of pieces listed; a decorative cloth for table or chest, oilcloth, an art canvas, a projection screen. Mods?
duk and tyg seem to come from the same Germanic root, cognate with German Tuch and related to English word for a type of plain tightly woven fabric, duck.
A duk on its own, without context, will be presumed to mean a tablecloth. In practice, though it does mean "cloth", it's only really used in compounds - like tavelduk = canvas, handduk = towel, etc.
'She who dies with the most fabric wins!' This was one of my mother-in-law's favorite sayings and her justification for buying more. So in Swedish, Hon som dör med det mest tygna vinner! ..my guess.
