How would one translate the following sentence into Spanish?
I made some hot chocolate for the kids.
My attempt is:
Preparé chocolate caliente para los niños.
But I am unable to figure out something for the "some" there. I can't use poco because that would mean "a little". Can't even use unos because...shouldn't unos be used with countable nouns?
What about,
He preparado algo de chocolate caliente para los niños.
Consider the use like in
Queda algo de queso, por si te quieres preparar un bocadillo There is still some cheese left, in case you want to prepare yourself a sandwich
Doesn't necessarily need to mean "a little", but could have that inflection, so is really similar to "a little" but without conveying scarcity that much.
Todavía queda algo de nieve en las calles There is still some snow in the streets
As others have said, you can use algo de chocolate which would be the most natural sounding, but if you really want to use poco, you can using the same structure. Note the difference in usages of poco as adjective or as noun1:
1. If I recall correctly from talking with a friend, in Mexico they're known for using poco a bit differently than the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, but I can't remember the exact differences.
The literally translation will be:
Preparé algo de(some) chocolate caliente para los niños.
You can read this link: http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/some, algo means some when referring to a quantity of a thing.
You can also use un:
Preparé un chocolate caliente para los niños.
You don't need to use "some" in English or Spanish. In the English original, "some" is a bonus word. The sentence is semantically identical when it is omitted:
I made hot chocolate for the kids.
is the same as
I made some hot chocolate for the kids.
No one would think that you made none or all of the hot chocolate if you omit the "some".
In Spanish, you can omit "some":
Preparé chocolate para los niños.
is the equivalent of
I made some hot chocolate for the kids.
You don't really need caliente since the candy form of chocolate would be a dulce of one kind or another.
Caution: when you use algo in Spanish, it can have another meaning that does not appear to be intended here.
In the sentence Había algo de nieve en la calle., the term algo suggests a final remnant of small quantity, a scant presence or hint. That's definitely not what I understood you meant by "I made some hot chocolate for the kids."
Preparé algo de comida y fui a dormir would translate as "I made myself something to eat and went to sleep." The algo suggests that whatever you made, it wasn't substantial and that you were in a hurry to get to sleep.
your translation is perfect
I made some hot chocolate for the kids.
hice un poco de chocolate caliente para los niños.
Hice chocolate para los niños.
In Spanish, chocolate is not only the candy, but the hot beverage (hot is implied in this sense). You normally would not make the candy, you would buy it. But if you made the beverage, it is supposed to be a hot infusion of chocolate in water.
In this case, preparar means more steps than just hacer. It is the same as in English you said I prepared some chocolate for the kids instead of I made...
Relating to the algo de, You would say hice chocolate, an indeterminate, unmeasurable quantity of chocolate. If it is good English to say I made some chocolate, it would be one of those nuances that differentiate both languages. That is maybe why in English I would say I made chocolate, being a native Spanish speaker.
