Thread: У моего знакомого большой дом.

Why is this sentence not мой знакомый есть большой дом?

"мой знакомый есть большой дом?"
In this case "есть" is "is".
"My freiend is big houst" is incorrect of course.
Obviously you mean "имеет" (to have):
"Мой знакомый имеет большой дом" is ok.
In russian "У X есть Y" can be translated as "X has Y" in some cases + "is" can be omitted. Grammatical cases mean a lot. Literally this pattern can be translated more directly as "There IS Y (somewhere) belonging X". "is->есть", "belonging->у". This is why you see "есть(is)" in this sort of russian phrases.

Everything is confusing to me. Pimsleur program taught that мой знакомый is my friend, есть is has and большой is big and дом is house. Next, when it asked how to say "my friend has a big house" I figured it was мой знакомый есть большой дом. I am unaware of the word имеет. Is that infinitive of есть?

When they said the way you say it is у моего знакомого большой дом nothing made sense.

есть is perplexing, too, with it being that sometimes you don't say it and sometimes you do. У меня есть вино but У меня нет вина. Why not у меня есть нет вина?

To be sure I understand:

Right:
Мой знакомый имеет большой дом
У моего знакомого большой дом

Wrong:
мой знакомый есть большой дом

Originally Posted by ironfist

To be sure I understand:

Right:
Мой знакомый имеет большой дом
У моего знакомого большой дом

Wrong:
мой знакомый есть большой дом

It is because есть is an affirmative state of being (=is), and doesn't inherently indicate possession. The wrong sentence you listed literally means "my friend is big house".

The preposition у is used to mark the possessor. Recall that есть (=is) and нет (=is no[t]) in this context are opposites; there can only be one.

If у A(gen.) есть B, you can sometimes omit есть to reduce emphasis on the possession itself. But if у A(gen.) нет B(gen.), нет cannot be omitted.

У моего знакомого большой дом = (Lit.) At/by my friend (—) big house.

Hello! You can say " У моего знакомого есть большой дом" = "My friend has a big house". If you say " У моего знакомого большой дом" it means "My friend's house is big".

Originally Posted by ironfist

To be sure I understand:

Right:
Мой знакомый имеет большой дом
У моего знакомого большой дом

Wrong:
мой знакомый есть большой дом

If I were you I would avoid using "Мой знакомый имеет большой дом"
It would sound like a marker of native English speaker or a speaker that is influenced by English. This form is very common among Russians that have been living for years abroad.


У моего знакомого есть большой дом. should be used instead.

I found shelesta's point valid as well.

Originally Posted by ironfist

Why is this sentence not мой знакомый есть большой дом?

Мой знакомый есть большой дом as a sentence is using english grammar logic and Russian words. No doubt you are aware that the russian grammar system is very different to the english grammar system. This is why the senstence does not work. To understand the example senstence clearly, -у моего знакомого большой дом- большой дом is infinitive form as nothing is happening to them. However the friend or familier is becoming a possesor of something. Literally “у моего знакомого” means “by my friend” as in, “next to my friend” or in a more understandable engish “my friend has”

Now, in Russian when we use у (to mean by...) the noun and adjectives that follows it must be in a genetive case (we all own genes, right?:0) so мой in the genitive form becomes моего and знакомый becomes знакомого.

We dont have to use есть unless you want to apply some sort of significance to the statement, but that depends on the context. Imagine you were meeting old friends at a school reunion and there were rumours that one of them had a huge house, then when you see the mansion on the hill you can cast aside your doubts as you regale the occasion to your russian friends the next day “вай!! У моего знакомого есть большой дом”

The presence/absence of есть in "у кого-то есть что-то" can be ungrammatical sometimes:

У меня простуда — I've got a cold — not *У меня есть простуда; since a cold (and other states and conditions) is not something you actually "have" in the strict sense.

У меня есть деньги — I have (some) money. — not *У меня деньги.

Originally Posted by shelesta

Hello! You can say " У моего знакомого есть большой дом" = "My friend has a big house". If you say " У моего знакомого большой дом" it means "My friend's house is big".

If you compare these 2 variants,

У моего знакомого есть большой дом - i am suggesting that in some contexts the meaning could be 'he has a big house, and the fact that he owns (most likely he is the owner if phrased this way) a BIG house is important and specified here, while he may have another small house as well'
У моего знакомого большой дом - agree that it means 'the house of my friend is big'

Originally Posted by philippiq

If I were you I would avoid using "Мой знакомый имеет большой дом"
It would sound like a marker of native English speaker or a speaker that is influenced by English.

That would be a classic calque (loan translation). To a Russian speaker's ear it sounds as officialese, something like 'he has a big house in possession' - even more official.
Мой знакомый имеет большой дом - could be used in official contexts, or ironically.