Thread: Lesson 13 questions

Originally Posted by Doomer

Because "Ты туда летал?" can be translated as "Have you flown there?"
First of all it doesn't have the word "plane" and second the question presumes that it is unknown if the person ever flown "there", however original question specifically implies that person been, in fact, in the place but it is unclear what transportation has been used - "Did you go there by plane?"

I think you misunderstand what Zorro meant. Zorro wrote: "Did you go there by plane?"--is this Ты там летал?
I hope we both agree that the use of "там" is definitely incorrect, it should be "туда".

However, you think that the question was about the means of transportation. I do not think so. As you see, there is no word for "plane" (самолёт) in the translation proposed by Zorro. And I do not think it is because Zorro does not know how to say "самолёт" in Russian. I see another reason for that:

Zorro just meant the question "Did you go there?". However, the foreigners are taught the following way: the translation of the verb "to go" into Russian depends on the means of transportation used. They learn: "to go by foot" - "идти/ходить", "to go by car (or any other ground transportation)" - "ехать/ездить", "to go by plane" - "лететь/летать". So, Zorro specified "by plane" not because it was a part of the question, but just in order to make it clear which verb should be used: "Did you go there? (by plane)" - "Ты туда летал?"

That's how I understand the question.

However, dependimg on the context, other translations are possible:
- Ты туда летал? (if a whole round trip is in focus)
- Ты туда летел? (if a one-way trip in its process is in focus)
- Ты туда полетел? (if the decision to go is in focus)
and some other possibilities as well.

That's why I wrote the context is required.

Originally Posted by Doomer

Because "Ты туда летал?" can be translated as "Have you flown there?"

Agree. And I guess that is what the question was about.

Originally Posted by Doomer

second the question presumes that it is unknown if the person ever flown "there"

Yes. It is how I understand it.

Originally Posted by Doomer

however original question specifically implies that person been, in fact, in the place but it is unclear what transportation has been used

It is not clear from the original question. But the translation proposed by Zorro gives a clue: there's no word for "plane", so it's not the logical center of the question, it's just to define the verb choice for "to go".

Let's Zorro judge Maybe my interpretation is wrong, in fact?