So many milk!

[pne]

Amy, this morning, after pouring lots of milk for herself: "Mummy put so much Frosties in my bowl".

Ah, she put so many Frosties in your bowl?

"Yes. That's what I had to pour in so many milk."

Yes, so much milk for all those Frosties.

...I wonder whether she thinks I'm doing this (or the English language is doing this) on purpose, just to confuse her :)

It doesn't help that German uses the same adjectives for count and mass nouns (so viele Frosties; so viel Milch). I wonder when she'll get the hang of it

Also in recent loan translations: "The ground was so slippery, and Pandamus slipped out." (= slipped and fell; presumably influenced by "ausrutschen" with its "aus-" prefix).

Comments

[mummimamma.livejournal.com]

My students seem to have the same problem with much (mye) and many (mange), and since they are all European-languaged, one would guess that one can eaily transfer from one language to the other - but no.

Actually come to thing about I'd say "mye Frosties" in Norwegian, I'd think about it as a heap, not individual Frosties (or cornflakes or groats or whatever).

Languages are hard!