Thread: Genitive or prepositional?

If I wanna tell someone "You're dancing in my head"

Ты танцу́ешь в моём мозге?

Problem is I don't know if мозг is in genitive or prepositional (those are the two likely options IMO), because genitive is possession and we have моём.... on the other hand we have prepositional "в" as well. So what do I pick?

I think prepositional, right?

According to normal rules it should be Prepositional, but native speaker most probably would say "в мозгу" (last syllable is stressed). It is so called Locative case which in Russian exists only for several words like снег, лес, нос, кон, бег...


But "мозг" sounds too physiological. "You're dancing in my head" - what does that mean exactly? "You are in my memory/mind?"

The preposition в can only be used with the locative and accusative cases, not the genitive. Since there's no connotation of motion from one place to another, you would use locative. I am not sure, but I think it would be в мозгу. (Мозг is one of those monosyllabic words that take an у ending instead of a e in the locative case.)

However, perhaps it not so clear cut as that. I think if you are referring to inside the brain (мозг means brain) you would say в мозге, if you are referring to your consciousness/awareness (ум), you would say в мозгу (though since there's a different and more appropriate word for "mind" anyway, you might want to use that instead). Hopefully a native speaker can clarify this for both of us.

(That being said, I'm not sure if I've ever heard such a phrase as yours in Russian as such, and it might be worth asking a native speaker if they can offer up a more appropriate and Russian выражение (expression).)

Yea, I meant it to be something out of a love poem... like you're always in my mind...and dancing is a beautiful activity so that's what you do in my head. It's a bit allegorical yes, but I'd like to think it makes sense !

I'll go with prepositional unless it's one of the words that has exceptions.

Well, technically you can translate this word-by-word. It would sound like "Ты танцуешь у меня в голове" or like you have translated this "Ты танцуешь у меня в мозге(у)". The former is more literal, btw.
But it seldom works in this way. I mean, it's not the right way to translate such metaphorical sentences word-by-word. It might be understood if you say "Ты танцуешь у меня в голове", but Russians don't say that.
Normally we can say "Ты не выходишь у меня из головы", "Ты засел у меня в голове, как... (here goes comparison)" or just "Я постоянно думаю о тебе". The first two are also used in metaphorical way, but in Russian one.

I like "Ты не выходишь у меня из головы"..think I better use that.

Why do I always overcomplicate things? Thanks!

Yeah, there’s definitely not enough space for thoughts to dance in Russian brains but they still can toss and turn there (крутиться/вертеться/ в мозгу).

Крутится в мозгу - Фразеологический словарь русского литературного языка бесплатно | Словари слов русского языка онлайн – Bravica (Бравика)

In translating:
I took her to a coffee shop on our second date

Я взяла её в кафе на нашем втором свидании.

свидании in prepositional due to the на, like we agreed upon here.

How come I was corrected to свидание which is nominative and accusative?


Also, how come it's

иди на улицу (accusative)

and not

иди на улице (prepositional)

?

That cases are both possible but have a different sense.

на + accusative = to, towards
на + prepositional = on, at, during

Я пригласил её в кафе на нашем втором свидании. - Prepositional.

I invited her to the coffee shop during our second date. (I.e. for the third date.)


Я пригласил её в кафе на наше второе свидание. - Accusative.

I invited her to the coffee shop for our second date.


иди на улицу (accusative)

go to the street

иди на улице (prepositional)

go at the street

That cases are both possible but have a different sense.

на + accusative = to, towards
на + prepositional = on, at, during

This alone perfectly explains a lot of my confusion.

Я пригласил её в кафе на нашем втором свидании. - Prepositional.

I invited her to the coffee shop during our second date. (I.e. for the third date.)


Я пригласил её в кафе на наше второе свидание. - Accusative.

I invited her to the coffee shop for our second date.

That perfectly explains it well. So is my corrected phrase is impossible in this case:


Я взяла её в кафе на нашем втором свидание. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense since it uses both accusative and prepositional.

Moreover, I'm compelled to ask why did you change the word взял to пригласил? It wouldn't be correct translation since the original phrase says "took" not "invited".

Я пригласил её в кафе на нашем втором свидании.
This is perhaps the most common/acceptable way to say it in Russian, though technically not an accurate translation. А more straightforward translation would be: "На втором свидании я сводил её в кафе", not "взял её", because if you say "взял" that would rather mean that you were going to the coffee shop anyway and just took her with you, which is not quite what happens when you have a date and invite your date somewhere.