Thread: Entering Cyrillic Characters

Hey all,

I'm a big fan of Russian, as well as others, but Russian present the pecurliar obstacle of requiring a non-Latin character entry.

Q: How are Cyrillic characters entered into the forum?

My initial thought is to have the language installed and use the Windows Language Bar to do quickie swaps.

Heck, while I'm at it, let me ask this:

Is the genative case still used in negated sentences such as, 'Ya nye chitayu etovo knigi.'? It seems it varies depending on whom I consult.

Thanks,

Я не читаю эту книгу
Винительный падеж - кого?что?

I think I found it.

Спасибо.

Paxan:

You are right that it is in the Accusative case, and that is the way I learned it. However, the vast majority or Russian books seem to indicate that the Acc case is used only in the 'affirmative,' whereas the Gen case must be used if the sentence is negated:

Я читаю мою книгу, а я не читаю моего газеты.

If the Genative case is not used for the declension of the direct object in a negated sentence, I'm throwing all my Russian books away that say so.

Thanks!

Well firstly "я читаю мою книгу,а я не читаю моей газеты"
Concernig the rule about negative sentences........i need to doublecheck that

Originally Posted by Paxan

Well firstly "я читаю мою книгу,а я не читаю моей газеты"
Concernig the rule about negative sentences........i need to doublecheck that

моей -- right.

If you find that whole bit about negation and Genatives, that would be great! It looks like the *older* books are the ones that say that; the newer ones (post-1980) don't make a big deal of it.

Maybe it's just something that's being lost over time, like english 'whom'. 'thou', and 'hither'.

Thanks for checking, tho.

Is "whom" really that lost as "thou" and "hither"?

I've just asked my friend on icq to make a negation out of "Я читаю эту книгу" He's written: "Я не читаю эту книгу"

Originally Posted by Paxan

Is "whom" really that lost as "thou" and "hither"?

Not quite 'as' lost, but it is now generally only found in formal and semi-formal speech and certain written correspondence. The 'general population', to include the well educated often do not use it casually. They will say, 'Who do you see?' instead of 'Whom do you see?'

I, however, try because the use of 'who' can be confusing if used where whom should be. ("who saw who do what to who?" Confusing for many non-native speakers)

Additionally, the structure of common American English is changing and 'whom' is quickly losing its favor:

"This is the man for whom the letter is written."

becomes

"This is the man who the letter is for." (note the final preposition)

or

"This is the man the letter is for." ('who' is completely expunged)

As with most changes, it's all about economy of effort: the lazier version wins over time.

HITHER is long gone and has been for almost 100 years, along with its counterparts (the words still in common use are in parentheses):

[whither, (where), whence]
[hither, (here, hence)]
[thither, (there), thence]


THOU and its variations are used only in religious contexts now.

About the ICQ chat results -- I'll have to look more into that as well to find out what the 'popular' version is and what the 'academic' version is.

Thanks for checking.

Ну насколько я понял, по правилам нужно использовать родительный падеж..."Я не ем ветчины" "Я не читаю книг"...I think people use it in both ways simply making mistakes using винительный падеж

I found this:

Some verbs that normally take an Accusative object require that the object be in the Genitive, when the action is negated.
— ТІ вќдишь на столљ рємки (Acc.)? "Do you see the (small) wine glasses?"
— Гдљ рємки? Ї не вќжу на столљ рємок (Gen.). "Where are the wine glasses? I don't see wine glasses on the table."
Often, one can use either Genitive or Accusative with negated verbs that otherwise take Accusative:
Ї не љм лџк (Acc.). I don't eat onions.
Ї не љм лџка (Gen.). (Same meaning.)
http://russian.dmll.cornell.edu/grammar ... 1_78_i.htm

There is something wrong with the encoding on that site. I don't know why it came out in what looks like Ukranian alphabet when I posted it here. I swear it was in Russian when I found it......I swear!!

Just click on the link.

Originally Posted by DDT

I swear it was in Russian when I found it......I swear!!

Sure it was...lol

Appreciate the input guys!

You'll be hearing a lot more form me, no doubt.

Originally Posted by Paxan

Ну насколько я понял, по правилам нужно использовать родительный падеж..."Я не ем ветчины" "Я не читаю книг"...I think people use it in both ways simply making mistakes using винительный падеж

Хммм.... Personally I prefer "Я не ем ветчину" I don't remember the rule, but I don't think this is a real mistake.... If it is then only linguists may notice it...

Originally Posted by MikeM

If it is then only linguists may notice it...

+ us

Gave it another thought:

Я не читаю газеты may have nothing to do with Gen. case. It might be Acc. plural and then means I don't read newspapers at all.

Originally Posted by crux_online

...
If the Genative case is not used for the declension of the direct object in a negated sentence, I'm throwing all my Russian books away that say so.

Thanks!

I think you can leave your books on the shelf.
According to 'a comprehensive Russian grammar' book both cases can be used. It also says there are situations where one case or the other is preferable.

Originally Posted by MikeM

Gave it another thought:

Я не читаю газеты may have nothing to do with Gen. case. It might be Acc. plural and then means I don't read newspapers at all.

You see, that's what I think when I read 'Я не читаю газеты', but this rule about Genative in a negated direct object makes it that much more ambiguous. To remove the abiguity, I like to insert some adjective to modify the noun in question.

Russian, being so heavily inflected, drastically changes meaning depending on the case. In the sentence above, the traslations 'I read no newspapers', 'I don't read (the) newspaper' are both correct. This is a very subtle difference, but becomes very important. If the Genatve D.O. rule applies, making both translations correct, then context will be extremely important.

Frankly, I'm curious whether the Genative D.O. is even alive and well anymore. As mentioned before, It seems that I only see this rule in older Russian grammar books.

Originally Posted by crux_online

...("who saw who do what to who?" Confusing for many non-native speakers)

Who saw who did what to who?

Originally Posted by kwatts59

Originally Posted by crux_online

...("who saw who do what to who?" Confusing for many non-native speakers)

Who saw who did what to who?

Yes, all the 'who' s are in the Nominative case, which is a grammatical impossibility for this sentence. In this situation, the 'who's are Nominative, Accusative, and Dative, respectively. Though in English only Nominative is WHO, all other cases are WHOM.

Besides, I saw it, I'm just not telling.

When you use the genitive instead of the accusative for an object, the word "any" or "some" is implied. So for these negative phrases you have two possibilities

I do not read the book
I do not read any book.

Russian does not use the words "the" or the word "any". Instead, the first sentence uses the accusative and the second used the genitive. A good Russian grammar will tell you that the genitive is usually or often used with a negative but not always. Same as the instrumental with the verb to be. There are shades of meaning.

Remember, it is not possible to translate a word exactly from one language to another and therefore, it is not possible to translate a sentence exactly from one language to another.

If you want to understand Russian grammar, you need to read about it in Russian. Go to a good bookshop in Russia and look for books like "Kak pravilno govorit'". These books will be in the section for high school and university Russian, i.e. the Russian equivalent of the high school and university English section of our bookshops.