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prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4852 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish
| Message 49 of 646 16 May 2012 at 10:39pm | IP Logged |
Quote:
@prz_: Great feeling, isn't it!? ;) |
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Yes, amazing...
Thank God I'm a Slav and I don't have to understand Slavic numbers :)
(but don't worry, during the holidays I'm gonna have my 4th attempt to German declension. Then you can laugh ;) )
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 50 of 646 16 May 2012 at 11:15pm | IP Logged |
prz_ wrote:
Thank God I'm a Slav and I don't have to understand Slavic numbers :)
(but don't worry, during the holidays I'm gonna have my 4th attempt to German declension. Then you can laugh ;) ) |
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Oh, the numbers are the least I'm worried about. Every time I open my grammar book on a random page I get nightmares from what I see - and it's only a concise grammar! I think Russian is really way worse than Icelandic.
But good luck with German! I have never met a foreigner who could decline absolutely correctly, especially adjectives. I think it's because German declension endings are so similar: -er or -en or -em. And then there is strong declension and weak declension and even mixed declension... I'm glad I don't have to learn that! :)
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| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4852 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish
| Message 51 of 646 16 May 2012 at 11:29pm | IP Logged |
Haha, you see? I think completely opposite (or maybe I'm underrating Russian?).
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 52 of 646 17 May 2012 at 11:18pm | IP Logged |
THURSDAY, 17 MAY 2012
Today was Ascension Day, a national bank holiday in Germany, so I should have had enough time for studying. Unfortunately, the gas heating of my flat had a defect, so I had to call the plumber. Of course, he could not repair it today, but has to return tomorrow. In the meantime, he has simply turned the heating off, so I don't have warm water at the moment. I am really looking forward to showering tomorrow morning!
But once the plumber was gone, I could dedicate myself entirely to studying Russian. I listened to the dialogues, re-read them, repeated the vocabulary, and did the exercises of lesson 5. I did quite well. Then, I learned the rules for forming the instrumental case. They don't seem too complicated, but once more, the orthography is somewhat tricky.
The main endings are -ом/-ем for masculine and neuter nouns and -ой/-ей for feminine nouns. Only the feminine nouns on -ь end in -ю. However, if the endings -ем and -ей are stressed, they become -ём and -ёй. One can keep that in mind, too. But now it comes: After ж, ц, ч, ш, and щ, the ending is always -ом/-ой if stressed, otherwise it is -ем/-ей. Quite a lot to process and digest. I will need some time to internalise these rules.
My favourite part of today's studies was a translation exercise, which I present you here. I have translated the two following dialogues from German into Russian:
- Это мои дети. У меня есть сын и дочь. Здесь они в отпуске на Волге.
- Сколько им лет?
- Сыну семь лет, а дочери три года. У вас тоже есть дети?
- Да, конечно. У меня есть дочь, но нет сына. Дочь уже замужем. У неё есть сын, ему один год. Я ей иногда помогаю.
- These are my children. I have a son and a daughter. Here, they are on holiday at the (river) Volga.
- How old are they?
- My son is seven years old, and my daughter is three. Do you have children, too?
- Yes, of course. I have a daughter, but no son. My daughter is already married. She has a son, he is one year old. I sometimes help her.
- Завтра я иду к Максиму на день рождения.
- Я тоже иду к нему завтра. У тебя уже есть подарок?
- Нет, ещё нет. У меня нет времени.
- Я знаю, что Максим любит слушать музыку. Надо купить ему диск.
- Я не знаю, что. У него уже всё есть.
- Тогда давай подарим ему два билета в театр. В субботу в театре Фёдора Волкова премьера.
- Отлично.
- Tomorrow, I will go to Maxim on (his) birthday.
- I will also go to him tomorrow. Do you already have a present?
- No, not yet. I do not have any time.
- I know that Maxim loves listening to music. We have to buy him a CD.
- I do not know what. He already has everything.
- Then let us give him two theatre tickets. On Saturday, there is a premiere at the "Fyodor Volkov" theatre.
- Excellent.
@ prz_: You've got me there! ;)
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| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4852 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish
| Message 53 of 646 18 May 2012 at 12:25am | IP Logged |
Well, there are prons and cons of that. With my intuitive approach maybe I understand a lot, but, on the other hand, standing face to face with Russian, I would probably speak Bulgussian.
Don't worry. German and Icelandic are waiting for me (well, German more).
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| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4700 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 54 of 646 18 May 2012 at 8:21pm | IP Logged |
I asked about the amount of lessons because if there's only 18, you're going through them like crazy :)
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 55 of 646 18 May 2012 at 9:00pm | IP Logged |
tarvos wrote:
I asked about the amount of lessons because if there's only 18, you're going through them like crazy :) |
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Don't worry! I'll slow down as the grammar becomes more complex. I am always fast in the beginning, but that's mainly because I only aim to understand at first. It's a little bit like the passive wave in Assimil. I am not worrying about being able to speak at the moment. That comes later.
Edited by Josquin on 18 May 2012 at 9:20pm
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| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5049 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian*
| Message 56 of 646 18 May 2012 at 9:03pm | IP Logged |
Josquin wrote:
WEDNESDAY, 16 MAY 2012
Counting in Russian is not as easy as in other languages either. After 2 (два/две), 3
(три), and 4 (четыре) the counted noun has to be in the genitive singular - and not in
the nominative plural as one might suppose. This also applies to the compound numbers
22, 23, 24 and 32, 33, 34. On the other hand, after 21 (двадцать один) and 31 (тридцать
один) the noun is always in the nominative singular - because of the один in the
end position. After all other numbers, the counted noun stands in the genitive plural
(which I don't know yet, so I officially cannot count Russian nouns).
This is relatively easy to understand, but I think I need time to be able to apply it
correctly. In all languages that I have studied up to now, you can simply add the
number to a noun in the nominative plural, even in Icelandic - which has declinable
numerals and seperate forms for each gender for the numbers from 1 to 4. I imagine that
the genitive after Russian numerals has a partitive function: 23 книги = '23 of the
book'. So, I understand the concept, but it will nevertheless take time to get used to
it.
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Many languages use singular with nouns because it is obvios how many objects one means.
In old Russian один, два, три, четыре were adjectives which agreed with nouns in case
and the first two gender (like modern один). два took dual, три, четыре - pl.
All the other were nouns which required gen. pl. (like modern тысяча). But when dual
fell, its forms of masculine forms were rethought to be gen. sing., and this spread to
three and four and to all genders as well. All the numerals started agree in case with
their nouns in cases other than nom. and acc.
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