Thread: The good life

In English, if asked how I am, I might say, "Life's good" or "Life's not treating me too bad".

In Russian can I answer in this way to "Как дела?" or "Как Вы живёте?" by saying, "Жизнь меня хорошая"? - Or anything like this that makes sense in Russian

Does a transaltion of - "Life's not treating me too bad" - work in Russian? If so, what is it Thanks....

Well, this doesn't actually answer your question, but people often ask как жизнь? in Russia.

Thanks waxwing.

So someone asks, "как жизнь" and I want to say, "My life is good". Do I say, (1) "Жизнь меня хорошая" or (2) "Жизнь меня хорошо" because (1) хорошая is an adjective modifying жизнь or because хорошо is an adverb modifying a missing 'is' - or some other thing - sorry to be thick !!!

First of all, "Жизнь меня хорошая" does not make sense till you change the pronoun "меня" to "моя" (жизнь is a feminine noun and the pronoun must agree with it in gender).

Second, "Жизнь меня хорошо" is not quiet correct also. I don't like the use of the adverb "xорошо". You could say something like "У меня жизнь [идёт] хорошо" (gramatically correct but sounds wierd)

Actually, if you want to convey that you are feeling good then you could say something like "Жизнь прекрасна" in reply to "How are you?" but that's not common. In Russian, we simply do not say something like that when greeting. "Xорошо" would suffice in most cases. Saying anything beyond that to a phrase with an expected reply might sound strange. Here are some examples:

Q1: Как дела?
Q2: Как жизнь?
Q3: Как она? (familiar, "она" meaning "life")

A: Хорошо.

Thanks MasterAdmin for explaining that. I have thought about greetings for a while now. Maybe I can return the favour by showing a mistake you made. You said

Second, "Жизнь меня хорошо" is not quiet correct also

but you can

большое Вам спасибо MasterAdmin - appreciated.

[quote=Kamion]Thanks MasterAdmin for explaining that. I have thought about greetings for a while now. Maybe I can return the favour by showing a mistake you made. You said

Second, "Жизнь меня хорошо" is not quiet correct also

but you can

Kamion - "Secondly, 'Жизнь меня хорошо' is also not quiet correct" seems to work okay for me, but is it grammatically correct ?

Well, I

The problem with Жизнь меня хорошо is that you are using an adverb to describe a noun. Usually an adjective is required for that purpose. This is true in both Russian and English.
However in Russian, constructions with a pronoun in the dative + an adverb are very common. For example, мне трудно. Perhaps the confusion stems from the fact that no verb 'be' is used in the present tense. In the past tense, it becomes мне трудно было which is more logical, grammatically speaking.

It seems like adverbs are generally more important/common in Russian than in English, but my Russian isn't good enough to say anything for sure.

By a curious coincidence, Kamion has just made exactly that kind of mistake in his English :
"it sounded very wrongly" should be 'it sounded very wrong' - an adjective, rather than an adverb is needed there. This is the classic 'predicative' usage of adjectives.
On the other hand, Kamion's point about either/also is correct.

[quote]Thanks MasterAdmin for explaining that. I have thought about greetings for a while now. Maybe I can return the favour by showing a mistake you made. You said

Second, "Жизнь меня хорошо" is not quiet correct also

but you can

Майк

Here's a bit humorous version of a greeting:
-Как жизнь?
-Жизнь просто бьет ключом....иногда правда по голове

By a curious coincidence, Kamion has just made exactly that kind of mistake in his English :
"it sounded very wrongly" should be 'it sounded very wrong' - an adjective, rather than an adverb is needed there. This is the classic 'predicative' usage of adjectives.

I do have to disagree here. "Wrongly" in my sentence is an adverb, that is its position in the sentence, so why shouldn

Now when I think about it I realize that verbs like sound, smell and taste are exceptions, the adverb "becomes" an adjective so Waxwing is quite right here. You say "it smells bad" not "badly".
I just looked at the fact that wrong was "controlled" by a verb..