Thread: First of many very small questions.

Hi friends and sorry to bother you with what is a very small question. I am translating a song, and in a wonderful display of reflexive irony that song uses the word "song" several times. So - "песня" and "песню" - what I'm reading is telling me they arew interchangeable, but I don't want to be fooled by an autobot translator... can anyone tell me, is this right? Is there any "real" difference between these two terms or is it just a different way of pronouncing the same word? And again, sorry for asking a very small little question. =)

It's the same word, but in different cases. "Песня" and "песню" (as well as "песней", "песне", etc.) all mean 'a song', but they are NOT interchangable. If you have a textbook, you should read the chapter about cases, because they are what Russian has to replace a strict word order in English. Cases show you who did what and to whom, etc.

For example, Кот увидел птицу = Cat saw a bird. If you change a word order in Russian phrase in any way possible the meaning would not change, because the case of the word "птица" (with у on end) shows us that it was a bird who was seen, regardless of the word order.

Examples with the word song:
Это хорошая песня - This is a good song.
Я пою песню - I sing a song

Oh man! I should *totally* have known that! For some reason I was not thinking about the word the same... I think because I was picturing it as an inanimate thing.... thanks gr and sorry for my moment of stupidity... man that should have been obvious to me