Can someone in the know please tell me why russian dont use articles before nouns as we do in english? a/an the etc an help appreciated as im doing it in my tefl coursework.
Martin
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Can someone in the know please tell me why russian dont use articles before nouns as we do in english? a/an the etc an help appreciated as im doing it in my tefl coursework.
Martin
Because communists banned articles. Seriously though, there can be no answer to your "why" question other than "because". That's how languages work. Different languages use different devices.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scotland to Russia
PS Why do you put your articles before nouns and not after as in Scandinavian languages and some older rural dialects of Russian?
Then how are the indefinite article "a" and the definite article "the" conveyed in Russian? I dont see a difference between the two in Russian
What do you mean? :oQuote:
Originally Posted by VendingMachine
He means probably the particle "то" e.g. "слона-то я и не приметил", "возьми ведро-то да принеси воды-то".Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
Why do we need to convey them in English?Quote:
Originally Posted by Scotland to Russia
Can you give us an example of a sentence where the inclusion of articles is necessary?
its like saying, why doesn't english have gender distinctions like in spanish - just because. if there was an answer it would be: because the languages are of a different group and evolved in different ways.
For example: [i]a black cow and [i]the black cow. is there a Russian translation for both of these or just one translation which is the same?
Russians figure "articles" (although there is no need for the concept) by context. You can determine whether it is a specific object or not simply by context. There is no need for articles!
If you say:
возьми бутылку из холодильника
It can be translated as:
Get a bottle from the fridge / OR / Get the bottle from the fridge.
Depending enitrely on context!
Think, in English, when would you say "get the bottle from the fridge"? Right, when the you have a bottle in mind and it is in context.
(now techincally it could also be "a" fridge, but that's less likely, unless there are many fridges around. Again, CONTEXT)
Саша, у меня есть одна бутылка пива и три бочки вина в холодильнике. возьми бутылку.
Sasha, I have one bottle of beer and three barrels of wine in the fridge. Take the bottle. (Here the Russian knows it is THE bottle, he just doesn't need an article to say it!)
So to answer your question. A black cow/ The black cow will simply be - Черная корова! It's so simple, it's easy!
thats the kind of explanation I was looking for, cheers vinster
I would say that Russians are more specific in saying things. "Go buy a broad!" may look like "Иди, купи какой-нибудь хлеб!". "Bring me please the bottle" is translated "Принеси, пожалуйста, бутылку, которую мы не допили вчера и оставили под столом". So, no need for articles. Not saying that in some rare sentences we do have indefinite articles (sort of it).
Better to say: "Принеси вчерашнюю бутылку" or "Принеси ту бутылку."Quote:
Originally Posted by Tu-160
And I can't even figure out why it was necessary to use articles in English. If I said "black cow" - you too could figure out "a cow" or "the cow" from the context.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie
Does articles are SO important for understanding in English that no one could do without them?
Just say "Купи хлеба!", that's okQuote:
Originally Posted by Tu-160
BTW, the articles is also needed in English just to show that it is a noun, not a verb or an adjective. In russian you can simply determine parts of speech by its endings.
Ого, какой большой холодильник! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie
I think "купи хлеба (g.c.)" means "buy a bread", and "купи хлеб (a.c.)" means "buy the bread".Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ
[quote=Оля]I think "купи хлеба (g.c.)" means "buy a bread", and "купи хлеб (a.c.)" means "buy the bread".[/quote:1qxsu8lu]Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ
[quote=Оля]I think "купи хлеба (g.c.)" means "buy a broad", and "купи хлеб (a.c.)" means "buy the broad".[/quote:jsih3ogf]Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ
"buy a broad" means something else :lol: :lol: :lol:
Я с немецким перепутала :oops:
По-немецки хлеб - das Brot. :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Оля
Видимо, ты с каким-то другим языком перепутала :)
Я знаю, как по-немецки "хлеб". Я имела в виду, что буква О в английском хлебе взялась как раз от знания немецкого.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
Word order is often the device we use where English would use articles. Compare:
На столе книга. There's a book on the table.
Книга на столе. The book is on the table.
Word order is only one of such devices. Like I said before, English and Russian are different languages.
Not exactly. The article in question is -от/-та/-ът (человек-от, вода-та, etc.), a bit like in Bulgarian. There are some dialects in the North of Russia where they make this destinction - in those dialects "человек" and "человек-от" mean different things and you can't really use these forms interchangeably. Your example with -то falls into the sphere of colloquial usage, it is a form which has some traces of the dialect in question but in this form it wouldn't be a mistake to drop -то, so -то can't really be viewed as a proper article in this case.Quote:
Originally Posted by Guin
Ну я, собссна, немножко поюморничал. Конечно, никто обычно так не говорит (хотя, заметь, что незадолго до этого говорящий что-то пил…).Quote:
Originally Posted by Guin
Вот спасибо-то! А то бы до конца жизни изъяснялся заковыристыми предложениями и не подозревал о существовании в русском языке более простых путей речесамовыражения. Хотя, если серьёзно, то я бы такой оборот употребил, чтобы избежать встречного вопроса «А какой бы ты хотел?». Так что лень влияет не только на придумывание ников для форума…Ж)Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ
Да, чуть не забыл!......... А, ну хотя ладно, нафиг…
[quote=Оля]I think "купи хлеба (g.c.)" means "buy a bread", and "купи хлеб (a.c.)" means "buy the bread".[/quote:xj2ytln7]Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ
Немножко неудачный примерчик. Ладно, заменим «хлеб», на, скажем, «модем».
Ну, на такое я пока не готов…Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuvak
Quote:
Originally Posted by Оля
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
Вообще-то я первый сделал эту ошибку. Вот и вся причина. Причём был на 100% уверен в том, что пишу.Quote:
Originally Posted by Оля
[quote=Tu-160]Немножко неудачный примерчик. Ладно, заменим «хлеб», на, скажем, «модем».[/quote:1zjv2noi]Quote:
Originally Posted by "Оля":1zjv2noi
Чем это он неудачный? А "купи модема" - удачный? :o
[quote=Оля]I think "купи хлеба (g.c.)" means "buy a bread", and "купи хлеб (a.c.)" means "buy the bread".[/quote:394phpud]Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ
You can't really say "buy a bread." You're thinking of "buy some bread." (With something that is by nature divided into parts, such as a suitcase, you would use the indefinite article.)
[quote=Оля][quote="Tu-160":w6txfl1y]Немножко неудачный примерчик. Ладно, заменим «хлеб», на, скажем, «модем».[/quote:w6txfl1y]Quote:
Originally Posted by "Оля":w6txfl1y
Чем это он неудачный? А "купи модема" - удачный? :o[/quote:w6txfl1y]
Ну, в смысле, мой вышевышеприведённый примерчик неудачен. Тем, что две равновеликие падежные формы слова «хлеб» допускают slighly различные толкования смысла предложения.
sometimes the use of gen. in such cases means 'some'. so, купи хлеба = buy some bread. хочешь чаю? want some tea? its called partive, there's some old threads about it somewhere
Или, "buy a loaf of bread"