Thread: Help with Russian?

Yeah, Russian follows the same logic as German, where the case system maintains throughout and across sentences and speakers. Meaning the reply is going to need the same case as the well-wish.
The reply will match the necessary cases of a prior sentence, even if it omitted them.

Удачи (тебе)!--
-- И тебе (удачи)!

Whereas if the first person used the nominative, the reply would be nominative as well,

Будь ты аккуратно!--
-- Ты тоже (будь аккуратно)!

When it comes to phrases of well wishing and "impersonal statements", it's common to lack a nominative-subject. If there is a verb in the sentence, then there is a subject in the nominative (perhaps hidden) somewhere; however if a sentence doesnt have a specific verb then a nominative noun isn't quite necessary.
"хорошего дня ты" - ты has no logical, or syntactic link in this sentence so it makes little to no sense.

Originally Posted by ashleigh

Ah ok, I understand now.

So if someone said "Удачи" and I wanted to say "You too", I understand it's "И тебе". Would "тебе тоже" also make sense, or when speaking Russian is "и тебе" more common?

There's hardly any difference between those responses. You can even say "и тебе тоже", no problem there

Originally Posted by xXHoax

Будь ты аккуратно!--
-- Ты тоже (будь аккуратно)!

What's this? You explained the concept very well there, but this one kind of stands out. No one would say it like that. I suppose you wanted to say: "be careful?". If so, then it should be "Береги себя!" or "Будь осторожен" depending on the context. The former is more suited for a very caring way of saying "goodbye", the latter is what you'd say to someone who's going to do something dangerous.

Аккуратный took a stange turn in Russian, it's more about being neat (as in handwriting) or about someone who usually does things in a "neat, clean" way (like аккуратный хозяин), sometimes about a thing that's kept in such way. (аккуратная комната).

But I can guess why аккуратный can be sometimes translated as careful. Example: someone just stepped on your toes, literally. A very possible response to that can be "аккуратнее!", like be more mindful of yourself or very well be careful! Also, remember that scene from "The Fifth Element" where Bruce Willis lights up his last match to bring fire to the last elemental stone? I suppose in English the people around him would yel something like "Easy! Easy!". In Russian that can be "Аккуратнее! Аккуратнее! or Аккуратно! Аккуратно!"

Oh yeah absolutely, sorry. I had to come up with a command and I couldn't think of anything. I had heard "Аккуратно!" on its own and I ran with it, but now that you point it out "Будь осторожен" sounds way better. Oops!