Thread: Кто-то другая?

And another easy one!

If I want to say "someone else" referring to a woman.. Does it then change from "кто-то другой" to"кто-то другая"?

For example: "I wanted to go to the Ladies' but someone else was in there."(assuming it's a woman!!!) or "She really liked John, but she found out that he was also seeing someone else" (another woman...)

No, it doesn't, the pronouns "кто", "кто-то", "кто-нибудь" etc are always masculine (I mean the grammar gender). Even when they refer to women. BTW they often refer to people whose gender we don't know.

I think in the second sentence "другая" would be used. Just "другая", without "кто-то" or something like this. Or just "кто-то" (everyone would think this "кто-то" is a girl/woman))).

P. S. There should be no space before "?" in Russian.

Well, it's actually tricky. Usually you do, but not with "кто-то"... As I understand the "logic" here, "кто-то" means somebody absolutely unknown, gender included, even when it really doesn't. (like in "Ага, "кто-то" съел все конфеты. Я даже знаю кто это!" )

If you need to be more specific, "какой-то" ("какая-то", "какое-то", "какие-то") and noun is used (Мимо меня прошла какая-то женщина, а на дальней стороне улицы какие-то электрики чинили фонарь...) It's not commonly used in the situation you described, though. (Unless you're, say, questioned by airport security and want to be as specific as possible. )

And yes, no spaces before "?" or "!". The only common punctuation mark that requires space before it is em-dash.

Hm ok.... It sounds like one of those things that you have to learn by reading and listening and that are hard to "understand" and learn like normal vocabulary and straight forward grammatical rules.

Originally Posted by ac220

Well, it's actually tricky. Usually you do, but not with "кто-то"... As I understand the "logic" here, "кто-то" means somebody absolutely unknown, gender included, even when it really doesn't.

Don't complicate things. If John is not a gay, it's absolutely clear that "кто-то" is female. We easily can say "кто-то другой" about a woman.

We can also say, for instance:
- Кто тебе это сказал? Маша? (Who told you that? Masha?)
- Нет, мне это сказал другой человек. (No, another person told me.) <-- and you can say this even when it was definitely a female who told you that.

Originally Posted by Оля

and you can say this even when you definitely know it was a female who told you that.

Which was exactly my point. (As in the example about sweets "somebody" has eaten.) Sorry for being unclear.