Thread: case for родиться

Sasha gave birth to a girl.

Which sentence is correct?
У Саши родилась девочка. OR
У Саши родилась девочке.

Would "gave birth to" require a dative case for "a girl"?

Strictly speaking, a direct translation would be Саша родила девочку (девочка is in Accusative case, Саша is a subject and девочка is an object).

But if you change the sentence like this -- У Саши родилась девочка.
Девочка would be a subject and thus -- in Nominative case.

Большое спасибо, Ramil. Это очень ясно.

You can remember this 'rule of thumb'. Almost all sentences have the subject. And the subject is always in Nominative case. Thus, "у Саши" can't be it because it has a preposition (genetive case). The only other noun is девочка.

Thanks for the tip. Yes, I will remember that. Only problem is that the subject is not always easy to identify (for me anyway). But how you explained it is very logical and useful.

Саша родила девочку.
Coming back to the sentence above, can I say
Саша родила девочке. - Sasha gave birth to a girl. Would the word girl be a direct or indirect object?

Sorry to ask this silly question. Just that I am having a little problem getting over the dative case. It's always a problem when one studies without a teacher.

Originally Posted by tohca

Саша родила девочку.
Coming back to the sentence above, can I say
Саша родила девочке. - Sasha gave birth to a girl. Would the word girl be a direct or indirect object?

If you want to translate "Sasha gave birth to a girl" literally, it should be something like: "Саша дала рождение девочке." (рождение - direct object, девочке - indirect object.) It is correct grammatically in Russian, but uncommon and the sense is ambiguous.

The literal translation of "Саша родила девочку" is "Sasha procreated a girl". "девочку" is in accusative, it is direct object.

One can say "Саша родила мужу девочку": "Sasha procreated a girl for the husband". "девочку" (accusative) - direct object; "мужу" (dative) - indirect object.

So, when you say "Саша родила девочке" it is "Sasha procreated for a girl", which is incomplete. One should ask, what exactly did she procreated for a girl.

In Russian direct object is usually in accusative. All cases but Acc. and Nom. are indirect cases.

Thanks it-ogo! My understanding of cases is getting better and better, although I still need to ask some silly questions . Russian is definitely difficult, but can also be so interesting.

It's almost like studying maths and logic. You can arrive at the "aha" (lit. and so that's how it works) moments when things (puzzles) become clear. And I've been getting many of these "aha" moments.

If you say, Саша родила девочке, you'll be asked кого? (whom?) and probably 'why she's willing to give a child to that girl and doesn't she want to leave the baby for herself instead?'