[FretDancer]

Some new questions:

I have decided to ask some phonetic questions now, since this will help me with my pronunciation and my understanding of the written form of the language when reading it.

1. This question involves й. As I understand, this letter is considered a vocal, and its sound kind of depends on the letter that follows it? Not sure. I also have heard that this letter can also alter the sounds (soft vs strong) or something like that. Can anyone explain this special letter a bit more?
2. I see many words contain the letter combinations ль. Since I am trying to understand sounds, I am curious what is the role of ь here. I know this softens the preceding consonant (something I don't really understand yet, but will get to this later).
   
   Let's compare ль and л. How do these two differ in sound? This what I would like to understand.
   
   I feel that if I can understand this, I will be able to understand how ь works with other consonants as well....
   

[CaptainCrazy]

(10-05-2014 08:51 AM)Northern Wrote:  

(10-05-2014 04:13 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

A new question:

If дорого means “expensive” and is an adjective, why doesn’t it end with the common adjective endings for each gender and noun? At the same time, how does it differ with дорогой (which does have the ending).

Дорого might be an adverb. You probably meant дорогой.
You know that there are three genders in Russian - masculine, feminine and neutral.
Это дорого! - neutral gender

Keep in mind that there is another word spelt similarly -
дорога - road; and in a phrase like "by road" it will be "дорогой"

Native Russian here. Дорого can also have a meaning of 'valuable'.

Это мне дорого - This is valuable to me.

'Дорогой' depending on context can mean 'expensive' or 'darling' (or 'valuable' as in you value them).

I bolded the stress.

Дорогой means 'by road' as Northern said.

[CaptainCrazy]

(10-07-2014 12:31 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

Ok new question, but this one is more like three questions in one:

- I know смотреть is the infinitive form of the verb "to look". And I know "Посмотри!" is like saying "look!", so it is somehow related to the verb and you can clearly see it in both words. However, what does the по part means? (Посмотри). Is it some form that indicates Imperative?

- How does Посмотри differ from Смотри? (in usage)

- The conjugation of смотреть for 2nd person is смотришь and I cannot find any conjugation that matches Смотри, so where does this word falls into?

You puzzled me, the native speaker, with this question, lol.

The difference is tricky (if any) and probably a few examples will help.

'Смотри' is literally 'look' but it comes from 'смотреть'. 'Посмотри' also comes from 'посмотреть'.

I would argue that 'смотреть' is not about a complete action of looking or watching and 'посмотреть' is kinda like about the action of watching or looking that is complete.

Examples:

Пойду посмотрю кино. I am going to watch a move.
Пойду смотреть кино. I am going to watch a move.

The same translation and I have no freaking idea how to tell the difference in English. The matter of fact is, you will be understood in Russian either way and no one will give fuck.

Посмотри в окно, там красиво. Look out of the windows, there's a nice view.
Смотри, там парочка целуется. Look over there. There's a couple kissing.

Смотри мне в глаза. "Look me in the eyes" that sounds very authoritarian, even rude. You won't say it to a chick unless it's "look me in the eyes, bitch'.

Посмотри мне в глаза. "Look me in the eyes" that sounds neutral or even seductive depending on the tone of voice.

The conjugation that matches Смотри is ... drum roll ... смотришь. It's another form of the same word.

[CaptainCrazy]

(10-10-2014 12:05 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

Some new questions:

I have decided to ask some phonetic questions now, since this will help me with my pronunciation and my understanding of the written form of the language when reading it.

1. This question involves й. As I understand, this letter is considered a vocal, and its sound kind of depends on the letter that follows it? Not sure. I also have heard that this letter can also alter the sounds (soft vs strong) or something like that. Can anyone explain this special letter a bit more?
2. I see many words contain the letter combinations ль. Since I am trying to understand sounds, I am curious what is the role of ь here. I know this softens the preceding consonant (something I don't really understand yet, but will get to this later).
   
   Let's compare ль and л. How do these two differ in sound? This what I would like to understand.
   
   I feel that if I can understand this, I will be able to understand how ь works with other consonants as well....
   

PM me and I can tell you the difference on Skype. ль doesn't exist in English so it's hard to explain. ь usually softens the letter that comes before it. For example, л is like 'L' in English. Now, try to pronounce 'L' but curl a tongue up and touch an upper of your mouth cavity closer to your teeth when you do (am I making sense?). You should get ль this way.

й is a short и. The difference is somewhat like 'bitch' and 'beach' which many Russians pronounce the same and it sounds usually like 'bitch', lol.

[CaptainCrazy]

I guess your next question will be about this ъ? lol

Or the difference between ш and щ?

BTW, щ sounds like soft ш but different from soft ш with ь - шь.

Have fun, mate.

[FretDancer]

CaptainCrazy thanks for your input, PM sent. I can differ ш and щ as both sounds also exist in Chinese, similar but not the same in most cases.

No, I can understand ъ well, and I am aware it is very rare. My question is about ь. I am aware that it softens the preceding consonant. I am still not entirely sure what this means. According to this image (attached), consonants both vocals and consonants have hard and soft sounds.

I can understand this more or less. According to this image, the soft sound of б is п, and so on with the other consonants that appear on the image.

But what about the letters that do not appear there? I see many words that have a consonant that does not appear in that image and the consonant is right before a ь. How do I know what is the soft sound for this letter then?

Some examples:

- раньше
- рубль
- декабрь

So this is probably one of the aspects that is troubling the most to understand.

[Virtus]

"Soft sign" is a slavic palatization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization

this guy explains it damn funny

[CaptainCrazy]

(10-13-2014 06:20 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

CaptainCrazy thanks for your input, PM sent. I can differ ш and щ as both sounds also exist in Chinese, similar but not the same in most cases.

No, I can understand ъ well, and I am aware it is very rare. My question is about ь. I am aware that it softens the preceding consonant. I am still not entirely sure what this means. According to this image (attached), consonants both vocals and consonants have hard and soft sounds.

I can understand this more or less. According to this image, the soft sound of б is п, and so on with the other consonants that appear on the image.

But what about the letters that do not appear there? I see many words that have a consonant that does not appear in that image and the consonant is right before a ь. How do I know what is the soft sound for this letter then?

Some examples:

- раньше
- рубль
- декабрь

So this is probably one of the aspects that is troubling the most to understand.

You are mixing two different "softenings" here.

б is п is one and using ь is another.

BTW, if you simply pronounce words with ь like ь is not there, people should still understand you. You will just sound weird.

[FretDancer]

Yes, it seems that the image and stuff I asked/talked about on the previous posts has actually nothing to do with soft sign....

I am starting to get the hang of the soft sign but I wouldn't say I understand it 100% yet.

New Question:

What is какую used for? I know какой, какая, какое, and какие are used for Masculine, Feminine, Neutral, and Plural, respectively. So where does that leave какую…?

[FretDancer]

Quick 2nd question:

In this video:

Listen to when he says something like кажда сейчас around the 1:25 minute mark.

I had learned before that каждый means "each", as in каждый день (each day).

So why does the ending for the word each change? Is this some kind of case in action here?

All I know is that день is masculine, what about сейчас? I know what сейчас means, but what I don't know is how it makes the previous word change.

[CaptainCrazy]

(10-18-2014 02:43 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

Yes, it seems that the image and stuff I asked/talked about on the previous posts has actually nothing to do with soft sign....

I am starting to get the hang of the soft sign but I wouldn't say I understand it 100% yet.

New Question:

What is какую used for? I know какой, какая, какое, and какие are used for Masculine, Feminine, Neutral, and Plural, respectively. So where does that leave какую…?

какую is a form of какая.

какую <noun> is used when the <verb> or action is not applied to <noun>. I think this from is called "accusative".

В какую бы дырку свой хрен засунуть? Which hole to stick my dick into?

какая is used without action, as a description. I think it is called "nominative".

Какая дырка самая широкая? Which hole is the widest?

какой (yes, it is written as masculine but is also one form of the feminine form) form is also used. Don't know how this from is called.

Какой бы дыркой не воспользовался, все они хороши. Whichever hole you'd use, they are all good.

[CaptainCrazy]

(10-18-2014 03:17 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

Quick 2nd question:

In this video:

Listen to when he says something like кажда сейчас around the 1:25 minute mark.

I had learned before that каждый means "each", as in каждый день (each day).

So why does the ending for the word each change? Is this some kind of case in action here?

All I know is that день is masculine, what about сейчас? I know what сейчас means, but what I don't know is how it makes the previous word change.

Ignore this guy if you are a beginner. He's like creative poet and talks shit that doesn't make sense, lol. Actually it does but in bullshit poetic way.

[FretDancer]

^ Maybe so, but let us not digress. I am not much interested in what he is saying but on how and why the grammar works and changes as it does the way I stated it in my question.

[rover]

(10-18-2014 03:17 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

Listen to when he says something like кажда сейчас around the 1:25 minute mark.

I had learned before that каждый means "each", as in каждый день (each day).

So why does the ending for the word each change? Is this some kind of case in action here?

All I know is that день is masculine, what about сейчас? I know what сейчас means, but what I don't know is how it makes the previous word change.

He says "... в каждом now, в каждом сейчас...". He uses the adverb "сейчас" (now) as a noun of neutral gender, and "каждый" is an adjective with a hard stem. The case is prepositional and therefore the ending of "каждый" is "-ом": "каждом": http://www.russianforeveryone.com/Rufe/L...nit7_1.htm.

[Road_Less_Taken]

Fret seeing how much you've learned in a month is impressive! I`ve just started taking up Russian today thanks to this thread.

Cryllic alphabet here I come.

[CaptainCrazy]

(10-19-2014 09:57 AM)rover Wrote:  

He says "... в каждом now, в каждом сейчас...". He uses the adverb "сейчас" (now) as a noun of neutral gender, and "каждый" is an adjective with a hard stem. The case is prepositional and therefore the ending of "каждый" is "-ом": "каждом": http://www.russianforeveryone.com/Rufe/L...nit7_1.htm.

Yep, he mixed the English "now" into the sentence (to create more confusion for FretDancer, lol).

[FretDancer]

(10-19-2014 09:57 AM)rover Wrote:  

(10-18-2014 03:17 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

Listen to when he says something like кажда сейчас around the 1:25 minute mark.

I had learned before that каждый means "each", as in каждый день (each day).

So why does the ending for the word each change? Is this some kind of case in action here?

All I know is that день is masculine, what about сейчас? I know what сейчас means, but what I don't know is how it makes the previous word change.

He says "... в каждом now, в каждом сейчас...". He uses the adverb "сейчас" (now) as a noun of neutral gender, and "каждый" is an adjective with a hard stem. The case is prepositional and therefore the ending of "каждый" is "-ом": "каждом": http://www.russianforeveryone.com/Rufe/L...nit7_1.htm.

Thanks for this explanation, and thank you for the link!

(10-19-2014 05:27 PM)Road_Less_Taken Wrote:  

Fret seeing how much you've learned in a month is impressive! I`ve just started taking up Russian today thanks to this thread.

Cryllic alphabet here I come.

Thank you, I hope this thread serves as inspiration to many others as well. You guys just wait and a few months from now things will start to get interesting

давай!

(10-19-2014 08:48 PM)CaptainCrazy Wrote:  

(10-19-2014 09:57 AM)rover Wrote:  

He says "... в каждом now, в каждом сейчас...". He uses the adverb "сейчас" (now) as a noun of neutral gender, and "каждый" is an adjective with a hard stem. The case is prepositional and therefore the ending of "каждый" is "-ом": "каждом": http://www.russianforeveryone.com/Rufe/L...nit7_1.htm.

Yep, he mixed the English "now" into the sentence (to create more confusion for FretDancer, lol).

Yes I noticed he used the English word "now" before. And that he was using сейчас as a noun. However the part that interested me most was in the word каждый.

[FretDancer]

Hello Gentlemen.

Two new questions:

1. In the sentence "как твои дела на работе?", what is the function of твои? As far as I know, твои is a possessive form for Plural nouns, for example: твои деньги (your money). But работе is a Feminine noun (but Locativus case in this case), so why is твои used?
2. In the sentence "ещё купил первую русскую книгу, она называется <Some name>". As I understand, называется in this sentence is working as something like "it's called/it's named", like in меня зовут. So why is зовут not used here?
3. Is Ещё also used like "Also"?
   

[Virtus]

1. твои refers to дела not работа. Literal translation is "how are your (business)cases at work. But your sentence is weird. "как твои дела?" is most often used for people asking how are you. to add "na rabote" sounds as if you want to ask how someone's stuff is going but you don't feel comfortable asking outside of a work situation.. which is weird. you can ask "как работа?" if you want to ask about work. but that is also a rather non interesting topic for most anyone

2) зовут is used for animate objects. because it comes from звать (as in 'come hither'). which means the subject of the sentence can respond by coming over. называть/назвать - to name

3) yup

(10-23-2014 01:55 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

Hello Gentlemen.

Two new questions:

1. In the sentence "как твои дела на работе?", what is the function of твои? As far as I know, твои is a possessive form for Plural nouns, for example: твои деньги (your money). But работе is a Feminine noun (but Locativus case in this case), so why is твои used?
2. In the sentence "ещё купил первую русскую книгу, она называется <Some name>". As I understand, называется in this sentence is working as something like "it's called/it's named", like in меня зовут. So why is зовут not used here?
3. Is Ещё also used like "Also"?
   

[FretDancer]

@calihunter:

Thanks for your answers. This would be not the first time someone tells me that some sentences are weird, I guess the website contains also contextual errors/problems? It's ok though.

I am now moving on to Future Tense of verbs. Seems really simple, luckily. So here is a very simple question:

- Is Future Tense in Russian just/only быть (conjugated) + Infinitive Verb?

If this is the case then I could say I can now conjugate almost any verb in all tenses. Slowly improving!

давай!


EDIT:

1. Why is было used in the sentence "вчера было воскресенье, а сегодня понедельник"? Is it because Sunday is considered Neutral? I know grammatically it would fit, because of the ending.

Is that to say that every day of the week can also be masculine, female or neutral and the past tense of the verb быть would have to be used like this?:

- ... был понедельник
- ... был вторник
- ... была среда
- ... был четверг
- ... была пятница
- ... была суббота
- ... было воскресенье

I feel that having a Neutral day of the week kind of weird, but maybe that is just me?

2. In the sentence "а вечером я буду слушать в клубе джазовый концерт", is the word джазовый used as an adjective here? I know it means jazz/jazzy... Just want to confirm.

[Northern]

(10-29-2014 06:53 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

EDIT:

1. Why is было used in the sentence "вчера было воскресенье, а сегодня понедельник"? Is it because Sunday is considered Neutral? I know grammatically it would fit, because of the ending.
Yes

Is that to say that every day of the week can also be masculine, female or neutral and the past tense of the verb быть would have to be used like this?:

- ... был понедельник
- ... был вторник
- ... была среда
- ... был четверг
- ... была пятница
- ... была суббота
- ... было воскресенье
Yes
But in the future tense there is no difference:
Будет понедельник, будет вторник, будет среда, будет четверг, будет пятница, будет суббота, будет воскресенье


I feel that having a Neutral day of the week kind of weird, but maybe that is just me?

2. In the sentence "а вечером я буду слушать в клубе джазовый концерт", is the word джазовый used as an adjective here? I know it means jazz/jazzy... Just want to confirm.

Yes, it is used as an adjective because it is an adjective.

[Virtus]

(10-29-2014 06:53 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

- ... был понедельник (male)
- ... был вторник (male)
- ... была среда (female)
- ... был четверг (male)
- ... была пятница (female)
- ... была суббота (female)
- ... было воскресенье (neuter)

[FretDancer]

Thanks.

Some new questions:

1. What isn't в used when using Locativus of дом (дома)?
Example: я дома.

2. What is the difference between Если and когда?

[CaptainCrazy]

(11-04-2014 02:30 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

Thanks.

Some new questions:

1. What isn't в used when using Locativus of дом (дома)?
Example: я дома.

2. What is the difference between Если and когда?

1. No generic rule here I can think of.

Я дома - I am at home
Я на работе - I am at work
Я в ночном клубе - I am at the night club

Irregular verbs in English don't make much sense too.

2. Completely different words.

Если - if
Когда - when

How did you manage to confuse them?

[FretDancer]

In the sentence Если ты болел, ты был в поликлинике? I automatically thought of it as "when".

Even google translate seems to give list "when" as one of the definitions or something.

Anyways, new question:

Does для [Person] mean something like "according to [person]"? Could this be used to express someone's opinion?

For example: для он, этот [Something] очень....