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"Go" in Russian meaning "There is" | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6491 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 1 of 6 23 March 2015 at 1:22pm | IP Logged |
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There is one "bad" trend in language use that I think is not a "bad" language, but a
trend that's only going to enroot. And I've not seen a written description of this. In a clothes shop you'd ask: "Do you have this (shirt) model in other colors?" (У вас есть эта модель (рубашки) других цветов?) Salespeople often answer: "They come in white, red and green." (Они идут белые, красные и зелёные.) The verb идут (go/come/walk) in this place can be translated as "come". I heard that for years and thought it means "they arrive to our shop" from the warehouse/supplier. Later I noticed this word is used much wider. А на той улице дома идут все зелёные. (colloquial) And in that street, the houses go green, all of them. ...и дальше, за углом, идёт кафе. Then, beyond the corner goes a café. In both sentences "идёт" (goes) does not mean any motion (or transformation, which is specific to English). In English you'd just say Then, beyond the corner, there's a café. Which actually means "exist" but the verb "exist" is too long in most languages, and is too heavy in meaning. So languages invented a short and less formal constructs: "there is" in English, Spanish "hay/habia", Italian "esserci", Portuguese "tem". Native Russian speakers took what maybe was used in some areas and was close in meaning, but it's already spreads across other areas. First I wanted to rebell: "Where the hell do the buildings/cafe go?!" But when I noticed this analogy, I changed my mind. I often hear philologists protest against "spoiling" the language, but this is already widespread and is a trend. Edited by Siberiano on 23 March 2015 at 3:45pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4637 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 2 of 6 23 March 2015 at 2:37pm | IP Logged |
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Siberiano, thanks for an interesting post. This is the kind of thing you don't really learn from books or courses. Do you think this developement could be explained from the fact that Russian uses идти in expressions like идет фиьлм, идет дожд etc. I mean the film or the rain don't really go in a literal sense, and in English I would translate those with "There is a film on" and "It is raining".
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| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6491 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 3 of 6 23 March 2015 at 3:43pm | IP Logged |
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Well, in English you can say "time goes by", so it's similar to film or rain, at least
for me. But in general, yes, this verb has many meanings very loosely related to moving, and they seem to be transforming to occupy this niche. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4770 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 4 of 6 23 March 2015 at 7:59pm | IP Logged |
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I personally don't find this usage unusual. Somewhat colloquial, maybe, but definitely not nonsensical. I suppose it's just a different paradigm of movement: it's perfectly intuitive to think of a walking person as a moving object and the houses on the street as stationary ones, but if the person is defined as the origin of the coordinate system then it's the houses moving in relation to them. Of course most people don't think in terms of coordinate systems in their everyday life, but it's not exactly counterintuitive for it to feel that as you walk down the street the houses are moving past you, or that the café gets closer to you as you walk towards it. This sort of reminds me of the Quechua-Aymara conceptual metaphor for the passage of time, except with actual physical movement in space rather than metaphorical movement of/through time.
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| Richard Burton Newbie Spain Joined 4330 days ago 34 posts - 64 votes Speaks: Ancient Greek* | Message 5 of 6 28 April 2015 at 11:25am | IP Logged |
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It may be that the items in a (mentally conceptualized as a) succession mentally/metaphorically move in front of your mind's eye, it doesnt matter they are static in reality. If a shop assistant calls out the colors of each piece of clothing, any time she does they enter your mind's eye, "idut" in it. Same in the succession of buildings. Language is often some sort of mental playing.
Edited by Richard Burton on 28 April 2015 at 3:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 6 of 6 28 April 2015 at 1:02pm | IP Logged |
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This reminds me a bit of German. For example, you could say:
"Hinter der Ecke kommt das Café." "Behind the corner, there comes the café." Of course, the café isn't coming to you, but you are going towards the café. Nevertheless, there is some sort of motion implied. Very interesting, I never thought about that. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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