Thread: Dva voprosa

Hey everyone, I have two really quick questions.

1) I saw Brat (first part), and they seem to add -to to every other word. What's the significance of that? Is that like an alternative for "the" (though unlikely to be so)?

2) The stupider one: What is the pronoun for a plural neutrer (or masc/fem inanimatve) accusative? Is it 'ix' or 'oni'? Becuase as far as I'm concerned, 'ix' (also being the possessive, genitive and accusative plural of "oni) is for animate objects.

v moix knigax est neskol'ko russkix rasskazov, no ya (ix ili oni?) vsyo eschyo ne prochital (ili chital?).

Thanks!

Perhaps the Russian learners can help you more with -то particle than native speakers can do; for me, it drives some extra emphasis to the word.

Ты всё понял-то? You did understand everything?
Ты-то всё понял? Did you understand everything?
Мне-то всё понятно. As for me, I understand everything.
Что понятно-то? What exactly to understand?

One particle per sentence is okay, more (-то)s will be considered low-educated speech

plural accusative = их, your sentence is correct

прочитал, читал are both possible in your example, they will mean different things:
ещё не читал - didn't start to read them yet
ещё не прочитал - haven't read them yet

Hm. I remember that from that movie too. They used a lot of things i'd never heard before. Like when he meets the german guy he says "Как тебя звать". I remember that kinda threw me off. But if you say "как тебя звать\ как тебя звать-то" I think i was told its a way to refer to the person as uhm. Not really inferior to you, but diminutive.

For example, your on a secret mafia mission to bag a baddie whos hiding in the attic of an orhpanage and stealing candy from the kids. You would go up to a kid and say "эй привет, как тебя звать-то?" when you needed some info from him. Its like "Hey buddy, what's your name?"

Im not really good at explaining things either

Originally Posted by Indra

it drives some extra emphasis to the word.

After loud strong emphasis a speaker wants to relax and make a some sort of pause so he saуs a quiet -то.

Ты-то понимаешь? (Именно ты, а не они)
Ты понимаешь-то? (Именно понимаешь, а не пропускаешь мимо ушей)