Russian discussion group.

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languagepotato
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby languagepotato » 2020-09-12, 16:02

my anki deck translates:
Я пойду прямо сейчас. I'll go right now

does it mean I'll go at this exact moment or I'm about to go to the right, or can it mean both depending on context?
native: (ar-MA) (nl)
very comfortable: (en-US)
somewhat comfortable: (de) (es) (af)
forgetting: (fr) (ar-arb)
touristy level: (ro) (sv)(ber)(pl)
someday hopefully: (ja) (sq) (cs) (tr) and many others

Linguaphile
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby Linguaphile » 2020-09-12, 16:53

languagepotato wrote:my anki deck translates:
Я пойду прямо сейчас. I'll go right now

does it mean I'll go at this exact moment or I'm about to go to the right, or can it mean both depending on context?

It is not the direction "right" (as in right/left). It means I'll go right away (= I'll go straight away), I'll go at this moment in time. Nothing about turning to the right.

Я = I
пойду = will go; am going
прямо сейчас = straight away, right now

AlanF_US
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby AlanF_US » 2020-12-24, 15:02

I often find говорить equated with "speak" and сказать equated with "say". But if I am correct, this is misleading. I believe that the (primary? only?) difference between говорить and сказать is that the former is an imperfective verb and the latter is a perfective verb. By contrast, there is no such aspectual difference between "speak" and "say", but they differ in terms of whether they specify the conveying of information. "Speak" is generally intransitive and refers to the act of producing words, rather than conveying information:

Did you speak with her? (intransitive)
I never speak when I'm in a group. (intransitive)

though there are two main exceptions where it is transitive:

I speak Hungarian. (or any other language; here "speak" is grammatically transitive, but focuses more on utterance than conveying information)
You speak the truth. (rather rare/literary; note that here it does refer to the exchange of information, but similarly focuses more on utterance than on conveying information)

By contrast, "say" is always transitive (except in the fixed expression "You don't say") and always is about conveying information:

I didn't say anything.

The verb "tell" is generally not mentioned in these discussions, but I think it should be. Grammatically speaking, "tell" can be transitive or intransitive, but semantically, it's always about conveying information, whether or not that information appears in the sentence:

I told my mother immediately. (intransitive, but refers to a particular piece of information)
I would never tell him something like that. (transitive)

In Russian, I think that говорить and сказать can both emphasize either the act of uttering words or the act of conveying information. Is this right?

GreenGrass
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby GreenGrass » 2022-01-31, 10:23

AlanF_US wrote:I often find говорить equated with "speak" and сказать equated with "say". But if I am correct, this is misleading. I believe that the (primary? only?) difference between говорить and сказать is that the former is an imperfective verb and the latter is a perfective verb. By contrast, there is no such aspectual difference between "speak" and "say", but they differ in terms of whether they specify the conveying of information. "Speak" is generally intransitive and refers to the act of producing words, rather than conveying information:

Did you speak with her? (intransitive)
I never speak when I'm in a group. (intransitive)

though there are two main exceptions where it is transitive:

I speak Hungarian. (or any other language; here "speak" is grammatically transitive, but focuses more on utterance than conveying information)
You speak the truth. (rather rare/literary; note that here it does refer to the exchange of information, but similarly focuses more on utterance than on conveying information)

By contrast, "say" is always transitive (except in the fixed expression "You don't say") and always is about conveying information:

I didn't say anything.

The verb "tell" is generally not mentioned in these discussions, but I think it should be. Grammatically speaking, "tell" can be transitive or intransitive, but semantically, it's always about conveying information, whether or not that information appears in the sentence:

I told my mother immediately. (intransitive, but refers to a particular piece of information)
I would never tell him something like that. (transitive)

In Russian, I think that говорить and сказать can both emphasize either the act of uttering words or the act of conveying information. Is this right?


I agree with you. СКАЗать has the same root with расСКАЗ (story or tale), ГОВОРить has the same root with разГОВОР (talk or conversation), so when you say говорить you focus on the act of saying but when you say сказать you focus on the information.

It's not a rule, but it can help to understand the semantics.

AlanF_US
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby AlanF_US » 2022-02-18, 15:16

Thanks a lot, @GreenGrass.

A new question: Theoretically, and in practice, can the prefix наи- be attached to any comparative adjective in order to produce a superlative?

больший -> больший
интересный -> наиинтересный

And how does this compare to the superlative formed by adding -ейший, -айший, or the one formed by using самый? Do the various forms of superlative all have the same meaning?


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