Thread: Alternative spellings of 19?

Hi
It may be that my learning material has an error in it, but are there two alternative spellings of NINETEEN?

I have come across both

Двятнадцать
Девятнадцать

Which is right?

Both produce huge numbers of hits on Google so I can't work out which is right and I have no reliable Russian dictionary.

Hope you can help!

Двятнадцать is a typo. Only девятнадцать is correct.

Thanks Olja

Originally Posted by Johanna

Двятнадцать
Девятнадцать

Which is right?

Both produce huge numbers of hits on Google

In my google it the wrong one produced exactly 9 hits.

so I can't work out which is right and I have no reliable Russian dictionary.

abbyyonline or wiktionary may help.

Lord almighty vox05, give a girl a break!
I was at work, ok?

Do you always repeat peoples google searches to check if they did it correctly?

It takes a native speaker 5 seconds to give a definite answer, whereas it would have taken me at least 5 minutes to find a good dictionary online and then locate the correct spot and check that there wasn't a duplicate entry for the other spelling.

There is a give and take for this kind of thing online - if I come across easy, silly questions about my native langauges I answer them, just like the helpful guy did here.

Thanks for tip about the dictionary though.

I always wonder why are western people so sensitive?

Johanna, I am sure that vox05 didn't mean to offend or hurt you at all. His sentence about google was just a remark. By the way, I think if I weren't so busy as I am now, probably I also would try to check if one can find huge numbers of "двятнадцать" on Google. Why not?

Originally Posted by Оля

I always wonder why are western people so sensitive? ...

This kind of blatant generalization is never a good thing.

Originally Posted by vox05

In my google it the wrong one produced exactly 9 hits.

Спасибо за комментарий (кроме шуток).

Originally Posted by Johanna

just like the helpful guy did here

Оля is not a guy, she is a girl. Оля is a short form of the feminine name Ольга, which has Old Norse roots (it comes from the name Helga). We even had a ruler Ольга (after her husband's death she ruled Kievan Rus as regent for their son, Svyatoslav).
As far as I remember, the man on Оля's avatar is her favourite actor.

More good dictionaries:
http://lingvo.yandex.ru/en
or
http://slovari.yandex.ru/ (when I typed the wrong one here, there were no questions, the site corrected it itself)

http://gramota.ru/ (the words in this dictionary are accented)

http://masterrussian.net/mforum/view...207359#p207359

P. S. Please correct my mistakes.

Originally Posted by Lampada

This kind of blatant generalization is never a good thing.

No, Lampada, it's not a generalization, it's an observation, and you know it perfectly well since you are an old forum member and could see a lot of examples.
Then again, I didn't mean anything offensive with my observation, as you obviously have thought. You are too sensitive, too.

Originally Posted by Оля

Originally Posted by Lampada

This kind of blatant generalization is never a good thing.

... as you obviously have thought. You are too sensitive, too.

So, it's not only westerners who are too sensitive.

Originally Posted by Lampada

Originally Posted by Оля

Originally Posted by Lampada

This kind of blatant generalization is never a good thing.

... as you obviously have thought. You are too sensitive, too.

So, it's not only westerners who are too sensitive.

But don't you live in the USA? Aren't they "the west"? :P

yes Olja was right, I overreacted a bit... I should not have responded to the post at all.
Sorry I didn't realise that you are a woman! I didn't know about the nickname for Olga!

Do you count Sweden as the West? That's where I'm from --- I am just working in England temporarily. We don't mainly see ourselves as "Westerners" ('cause we are Northerners, lol!) and most regular people don't share some of the views of the Western countries.

I also agree that Russians have a rumour as being very thick-skinned and not easily scared or offended. At least in Scandinavia the rumour is that a Russians (mainly guys, I suppose) have "devil-may-care" attitude. The most extreme and dangerous games in Sweden are called "Russian" this-or-that (seriously dangerous jumps, playing with fire and some other risky stunts) There are plenty of stories circulating about the extreme conditions in the Russian army and how some people practically live on vodka and porridge...

Probably not the truth, but it sounds crazy & cool...
So I guess the reverse might be true --- a few Russians view Western people as a bit lame or over-sensitive ..

Personally I don't think there is a problem with having some MILD prejudice as long as people realise that there are always exceptions to the rule, and that "plurality" is a good thing. So I was not offended..

============= REGARDING "NINETEEN" ============
It's not so crazy to think that there could be two spellings! Russian is extremely complicated..
There could have been a new and an old spelling, for instance, or perhaps a spelling that was used in some parts of the Russian speaking world, but not others....

Originally Posted by Johanna

It's not so crazy to think that there could be two spellings!

Nobody says it's crazy.

Originally Posted by Johanna

There could have been a new and an old spelling

The numeral 18 has two. Now "восемнадцать" is used, but we still come across an obsolete one, "осьмнадцать," very rarely though. And this see creater:

is called осьминóг in Russian (because of the old form of the numeral "восемь," which didn't contain the letter "в" either).

The cartoon "Осьминожки":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5HKVyLqnkc

P. S. Please correct my mistakes.

Originally Posted by Johanna

Do you count Sweden as the West? That's where I'm from --- I am just working in England temporarily. We don't mainly see ourselves as "Westerners" ('cause we are Northerners, lol!) and most regular people don't share some of the views of the Western countries.

Well... you are in the west with respect to Russia. So you are Westerners for us
And second, Sweden is a part of Europe, and we count Europe as the West. For us, even Poland is the West.

It's not so crazy to think that there could be two spellings! Russian is extremely complicated..
There could have been a new and an old spelling, for instance, or perhaps a spelling that was used in some parts of the Russian speaking world, but not others....

You know, there is some good news about Russian language which really makes it easier than English: Russian is quite a uniform language, and such things as "a spelling that was used in some parts of the Russian speaking world, but not others" sound just strange. Even impossible. And please don't believe articles which will tell you about Russian "dialects" and so on. Believe me, all Russia speaks more or less (and much more "more" than "less") uniform language. We have discussed that here, on this forum, many times.

[quote=Оля]

Originally Posted by Lampada

Originally Posted by "Оля":2jhcgs5x

... as you obviously have thought. You are too sensitive, too.

So, it's not only westerners who are too sensitive.

But don't you live in the USA? Aren't they "the west"? :P[/quote:2jhcgs5x]Олечка, да, в Чикаго. Всё равно я против обобщений такого плана.

Originally Posted by Lampada

Всё равно я против обобщений такого плана.

Ну хорошо, давай я по-русски тоже повторю : "это не обобщение, а наблюдение".

Olja, thanks for explaining the situation with accents in Russia.
I had been wondering about this...

I am a bit curious about Russian as a second language in ex USSR countries. But I'll post a separate thread about that some other time...