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Свой vs. мой/твой/его/её/наш/ваш/их | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6142 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 1 of 6 02 February 2011 at 1:57am | IP Logged |
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I've been having trouble understanding when to use свой as opposed to мой/твой/его/её/наш/ваш/их in Russian. For example, in the following sentences:
Я пишу письмо своему другу. Она пишет письмо своей подруге. Он идёт к своему отцу. Что вы даёте вашему брату? Я даю моему брату книгу. I was under the impression that свой is used similarly to the Swedish sin to describe a relation to the same person/thing who is the subject of the sentence, like in the first three sentences. But the last two sentences destroy this theory by using ваш and мой despite meeting that requirement. Is this simply a matter of personal preference, or is there some hidden rule that I'm failing to see? Would it be correct and natural to rewrite the sentences like this? Я пишу письмо моему другу. Она пишет письмо её подруге. Он идёт к его отцу. Что вы даёте своему брату? Я даю своему брату книгу. Thank you very much! Большое спасибо! Edited by ellasevia on 02 February 2011 at 2:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5320 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 2 of 6 02 February 2011 at 8:32am | IP Logged |
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The use of свой (=one's own) can be tricky because this pronoun doesn't exist in English. AFAIK, you only need to use it with third person objects to avoid ambiguity.
она берёт свою сумку = she takes her (own) bag она берёт её сумку = she takes her bag (=the bag of some other unnamed female) This is nicely explained in: «Свой человек»: Unraveling a Possessive Pronoun Edited by Doitsujin on 02 February 2011 at 8:33am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| karabatov Diglot Newbie Russian Federation semanticvictory.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5068 days ago 15 posts - 37 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Japanese, French | Message 3 of 6 02 February 2011 at 12:23pm | IP Logged |
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Doitsujin nailed it perfectly: «свой» is used to avoid ambiguity in the same sentence when talking about
someone's possessions. «Я беру мой дневник» sounds silly, because that's double use of “me”. It's better to say «Я беру свой дневник». «Свой» is also used when one wants to express general possessiveness, like «свой человек» above, or, to elaborate on the previous example: «каждый берет свой дневник», “everyone picks up (his) own diary”. This phrase can be applied to any number of people of either gender, which is sometimes useful. So, the rule of thumb would be: «свой» is used for disambiguation, while you can explicitly use «мой», «ваш», etc. to emphasize whose thing it is. In conversational speech such constructions are not used often, because it's generally understood whose things are lying around :) It's more like: — Дневник берешь? — Чей? — Свой. (Твой would be correct as well) — Да, конечно. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 6 03 February 2011 at 1:06am | IP Logged |
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So, «свой» is used reflexively as well as for disambiguation. Is it totally interchangeable with мой etc.?
While we have the reflexive pronoun in Swedish, it can't be a subject. A common learner's mistake in Swedish is to overuse "sin", e.g. "Sin bil är blå." which, although not grammatically identical, still sounds as strange as a declined possessive attribute in German: "Ihres Auto ist blau." (Doitsjun - I hope I've made up an ungrammatical sentence) or "Hers car is blue". Borrowing your example, karabatov - are both these correct? Моя сестра берет свой дневник. (This one matches Swedish usage perfectly.) Своя сестра берет свой дневник. (How about this? Note «своя» as the subject.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| karabatov Diglot Newbie Russian Federation semanticvictory.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5068 days ago 15 posts - 37 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Japanese, French | Message 5 of 6 03 February 2011 at 10:20am | IP Logged |
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Моя сестра берет свой дневник. — Correct.
Своя сестра берет свой дневник. — Incorrect. «Своя сестра» literally means “sister of herself”, if used in such a sentence. Though you can say «Своя сестра, а не чужая, берет свой дневник» — we make clear that the sister is “one's own, not someone else's”. A construction with «свой» can be used as a subject only in generalizations, i.e. not speaking about particular people or things, for example: «Свой дом милее чужого», “One's own home is dearer than someone else's”. Hmm, what else... Oh, there's one more important thing to know, which is: «свой» must be replaced with «его», «ее», etc. when there are several actors in the sentence and the use of «свой» is ambiguous. For example: «Профессор попросил ассистента прочитать свой реферат». It isn't clear whose report we're talking about. It may be both professor's and assistant's. In this case there are several rules to be observed: 1. If the subject is a personal pronoun (я, мы, ты, вы), and the object is a noun, we use (его, её, их) to express possession to the object: Я встретил друга в своей комнате. (unclear whose room it is) –> Я встретил друга в его комнате. 2. The pronouns (его, её, их) can also be used when subject and object are nouns or pronouns of different gender: Сергей встретил сестру в своей комнате. –> Сергей встретил сестру в её комнате. Note that if subject and object are the same gender and are both singular or plural, the usage of «его» or «их» would still keep the sentence ambiguous. In this case there's the third rule. 3. If subject and object are of the same gender and number, sentence structure should be altered to avoid ambiguity. Профессор попросил ассистента прочитать свой реферат –> a) Профессор попросил ассистента, чтобы тот прочитал свой (ассистента) реферат. In this case «свой» clearly refers to the assistant: тот [ассистент] прочитал свой реферат. We split the sentence in two. b) Реферат профессора, по его просьбе, был прочитан ассистентом. We avoid the use of «свой» altogether and use passive case instead. Sometimes it really can get tricky :) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| FrostBlast Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5099 days ago 168 posts - 254 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Icelandic | Message 6 of 6 14 April 2011 at 11:01pm | IP Logged |
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So if I understood correctly, of these two sentences
1- Мы часто будем ездить к своим друзьям в разные страны. 2- Мы часто будем ездить к нашим друзьям в разные страны. the first would be 100% grammatically correct while the second one would be heard in colloquial speech somewhat frequently, easily understood but not exactly 100% grammatically correct? And that's all the difference there is? Edited by FrostBlast on 14 April 2011 at 11:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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