Russian discussion group.

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langmon
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby langmon » 2019-01-09, 8:47

Fruchtenstein wrote:
SomehowGeekyPolyglot wrote:How do you say this in Russian?

"The waterfall still is flowing"

'still flowing' sounds a bit strange, as if the waterfall goes on and off regularly :)

Yes it is sort of uncommon ;). But this simply was one of my Grammar Decoding Questions (asked some others in other subforums as well).

I would say 'Водопад еще существует' (still exists), but the literal translation of your sentence is 'Водопад еще течет'


Водопад: waterfall
еще: still
существует -> существовать: to exist

These are just some notes.

"Mixing red and green results in brown" [could be not the most eloquent way to say it in English, but still...]

'Смесь красного и зеленого дает коричневый' or 'Смешивая красный и зеленый, мы получим коричневый'.


Смесь: mix, mixture
красного: red
зеленого: green
дает -> давать: to give / produce / provide
коричневый: brown

Смешивая -> смешивать: to mix
мы: we
получим: a particular verb form of "to get", if I am not mistaken; looks like the future to me

"Can you also write Cyrillic by hand?"

'Ты можешь писать кириллицей от руки?' Since we usually speak about ability to write in a certain language, not a certain script, a more natural way would be to ask if the person can write in Russian (Ukrainian, Bulgarian, etc): 'Ты можешь писать по-русски от руки?'


Ты: you
Is this used for both of informal and formal speech?

можешь -> мочь: to be able to.
писать: to write
кириллицей: Cyrillic
от: a particle (or something like that) meaning by / through / ...
руки: hands [and arms]
от руки́: like "handwritten" in English. A set phrase (= a fixed phrase).
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby Fruchtenstein » 2019-01-09, 9:15

SomehowGeekyPolyglot wrote:
"Mixing red and green results in brown" [could be not the most eloquent way to say it in English, but still...]

'Смесь красного и зеленого дает коричневый' or 'Смешивая красный и зеленый, мы получим коричневый'.


Смесь: mix, mixture
красного: red
зеленого: green
дает -> давать: to give / produce / provide
коричневый: brown

Смешивая -> смешивать: to mix
мы: we
получим: a particular verb form of "to get", if I am not mistaken; looks like the future to me


Yes. Present tense is also possible: 'Смешивая красный и зеленый, мы получаем коричневый'.

There's also an almost direct translation of your phrase with the gerund translated as Russian verbal noun: 'Смешивание красного и зеленого дает коричневый'.

"Can you also write Cyrillic by hand?"

'Ты можешь писать кириллицей от руки?' Since we usually speak about ability to write in a certain language, not a certain script, a more natural way would be to ask if the person can write in Russian (Ukrainian, Bulgarian, etc): 'Ты можешь писать по-русски от руки?'


Ты: you
Is this used for both of informal and formal speech?

No, this is informal. Formal would be 'Вы можете писать кириллицей от руки?'.
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby langmon » 2019-01-09, 9:20

Fruchtenstein wrote:
Ты: you
Is this used for both of informal and formal speech?

No, this is informal. Formal would be 'Вы можете писать кириллицей от руки?'.

So you do make that distinction, just like French and German. Спасибо. Right now there aren't any more questions left :). Continuing to expose myself to more Russian, because you really got lots and lots of words...
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby Fruchtenstein » 2019-01-09, 9:29

SomehowGeekyPolyglot wrote:So you do make that distinction, just like French and German.

Russian polite singular form 'Вы' shares one more common feature with German 'Sie': it is capitalized, unlike French 'vous'.
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby Antea » 2019-08-05, 10:08

Does somebody know the difference between:

- Я смотрел and
- Я досмотрел

When to employ one or the other? :hmm:

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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby Fruchtenstein » 2019-08-05, 11:54

@Antea, the latter is more like 'I finished watching'. Like, you were doing something for a long time and finally finished doing it. Prefix 'до-' is rather common in such situations:
Доделать
Добежать (до чего-то)
Доесть
Договорить
Дописать
and so on.
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby Antea » 2019-08-05, 12:03

Спасибо большое :D

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adjectives ending in -ний

Postby AlanF_US » 2019-11-16, 20:50

Привет всем!

I would like to know which adjectives end in -ний. I know that they're less common than adjectives ending in -ый, and that one such adjective is синий. The problem is that I can't find a list of other such adjectives, or even a general idea of how common they are. One tool that would help would be a backward word index (https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/backward-index-mystery)for Russian. However, I haven't been able to find any.

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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby Fruchtenstein » 2019-11-16, 21:02

AlanF, this link may be of interest to you: http://www.seznaika.ru/russkiy/olimpiad ... 7-11-56-26
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby AlanF_US » 2019-11-19, 4:03

Thank you very much, Fruchtenstein!

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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby AlanF_US » 2019-11-23, 22:19

I just came across a good list in a Russian textbook called "Russian Grammar in Illustrations". Adding my own headings to their list, the authors categorize the adjectives ending in -ний as follows:

(a) relating to time:

SEASON:
зимний
весенний
летний
осценний

PART OF DAY:
утренний
вечерний

DAY:
вчерашний
сегодняшний
завтранний

HOLIDAY:
новогодний

(b) relating to place:

POSITION:
передний
задний

RELATIVE POSITION:
крайний
ближний
дальний

RELATIVE HEIGHT:
нижний
средний
верхний

INSIDE/OUTSIDE:
внешний
внутренний

здешний

(c) miscellaneous:

односторонний
замужний
домашний
соседний
искренний
лишний
посторонний
синий

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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby AlanF_US » 2020-05-16, 16:21

In English, when you're talking about arrangements for elderly people, you can make a distinction between the following:

"independent living" (where residents can move around on their own, and can take care of everyday activities like feeding themselves, but might eat at least some meals together in a common dining room)
"assisted living" (where residents need some help with everyday activities, but not all)
"nursing home" (where residents need help with most basic activities)

These are more specific than the older expression "old folks' home", which is also more colloquial.

I know that there's a Russian expression "дом престарелых". Does it cover all of these? Are there more specific terms as well? I realize that residences designed for housing multiple elderly people from unrelated families may not be (or may not have always been) as common in Russian-speaking countries.

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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby Fruchtenstein » 2020-05-19, 14:34

Hi, Alan. Yes, this type of housing is well known in Russia, in the Ukraine, Belarus and other nearby countries and it is known as "дом престарелых". But these facilities are not really popular, not only because of low quality of life there, but rather because sending your relatives there instead of taking care of them at home is considered extremely selfish. Perhaps, for this reason they are not differentiated by levels of independence.
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby AlanF_US » 2020-05-30, 0:32

I see. Thank you, Fruchtenstein.

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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby AlanF_US » 2020-07-11, 13:44

In a book translated into English, written by a native Polish speaker, I found this sentence, written exactly as follows (in Latin characters):

Ustami ditati glagolet istina

and translated as "The truth comes out of the mouths of babes". I know that it's a revised version of Psalms 8:2. My question is: is this correct (if possibly archaic) Russian? If not, how should it be changed? Please feel free to write it in Cyrillic characters.

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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby linguoboy » 2020-07-11, 14:57

All the Russian Bible translations I consulted had “Из уст младенцев и грудных детей” (iz ust mladencev i grudnyh detej) for this passage, but I couldn’t find any pre-reform versions. Perhaps the version in your work is really Ild Church Slavonic? (I’m a bit suspicious of the plural “ustami”, because the original text has a singular “mouth” and that’s what I found in all the versions I looked at.)
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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby Linguaphile » 2020-07-11, 18:06

AlanF_US wrote:In a book translated into English, written by a native Polish speaker, I found this sentence, written exactly as follows (in Latin characters):

Ustami ditati glagolet istina

and translated as "The truth comes out of the mouths of babes". I know that it's a revised version of Psalms 8:2. My question is: is this correct (if possibly archaic) Russian? If not, how should it be changed? Please feel free to write it in Cyrillic characters.


linguoboy wrote:All the Russian Bible translations I consulted had “Из уст младенцев и грудных детей” (iz ust mladencev i grudnyh detej) for this passage, but I couldn’t find any pre-reform versions. Perhaps the version in your work is really Ild Church Slavonic? (I’m a bit suspicious of the plural “ustami”, because the original text has a singular “mouth” and that’s what I found in all the versions I looked at.)

It is just a saying, not a direct quote from the Bible.
Устами дитяти глаголет истина. (Ustami ditati glagolet istina)
A (more common) variation is Устами младенцев глаголет истина. (Ustami mladentsev glagolet istina)
Through the mouths(устами) of children(дитяти)/babies(младенцев) speaks(глаголет) the truth(истина).
Yes, they are both correct Russian, used as a proverb or saying in modern language.

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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby AlanF_US » 2020-07-18, 23:40

Thanks, Linguaphile and linguoboy!

> Устами дитяти глаголет истина.

I think there were several things that were confusing me:

(1) the transcription of дитяти as "ditati" rather than "dityati" (though I'm not saying that "dityati" is the only correct way to do it)

(2) глаголет doesn't look like a third-person singular present indicative form to me. The Wiktionary page for глаголить shows it as глаголит rather than глаголет.

(3) free word order; it didn't occur to me that the meaning was something like "truth speaks via the mouths of babes".

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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby Linguaphile » 2020-07-19, 0:04

AlanF_US wrote:(1) the transcription of дитяти as "ditati" rather than "dityati"

I agree with you. I would have used dityati or ditjati as well.

AlanF_US wrote:(2) глаголет doesn't look like a third-person singular present indicative form to me. The Wiktionary page for глаголить shows it as глаголит rather than глаголет.

It's a different verb: глаголать. There is no English Wiktionary page for it, but the link will take you to the Russian Wiktionary page.

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Re: Russian discussion group.

Postby voron » 2020-07-20, 9:44

linguoboy wrote:I’m a bit suspicious of the plural “ustami”, because the original text has a singular “mouth” and that’s what I found in all the versions I looked at.

Уста is plurale tantum. (This word is obsolete in modern Russian, having been replaced with рот, but it is still used in other Slavic languages: Polish usta, Serbian usta).


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