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Okay, i tried to say "You can't think of a single russian joke?" and this is what I said:
не знаешь одну русскую шутку?
But I was corrected, and apparently the right way to say this is:
не знаешь ни одной русской шутки?
My question is, it seems like одной и русской are in the prepositional, but шутки is in just plural (or accusative plural). Why is this? I thought adjectives always had to agree in case, but it doesn't seem like that here. What am I missing? Thanks,
tdk
In this context ни takes the genitive:
-ой is the (hard) female adjectival endings for Genitive, Dative, Instrumental, and Prepositional.
не знаешь ни одной русской шутки?
одной - genitive of одна
русской - genitive of русская
шутки - genitive of шутка
thanks for the quick reply, it makes sense now!
What's the particle ни doing there?
If there is a не infront of the verb, you have to use ни when saying 'not'. IE:
Я не купил машины - I didn't buy a car
я не кпуил ни одной машины - I didn't buy not one car
я не купил ни машины, ни автобуса - I didn't buy a car or a bus
It has a particular meaning and is essential to the question, I think:
Не знаешь ни одной русской шутки?
You don't know a single Russian joke?
Without ни, the question would probably have to be something like this:
Не знаешь никаких русских шуток?
You don't know any Russian jokes?
possible n00b question..but why wouldn't the verb be думаешь?
думать = to think
знать = to know
Не думаешь ни одной русской шутки?
You are not thinking of a single russian joke?
think of = думать о (о + prep. case)Quote:
Originally Posted by kwatts59
Не думаешь ни об одной русской шутке?
"think of something" could also mean "to remember something"
думать о шутке sounds weird
Yes, net surfer is right.Quote:
Originally Posted by net surfer
So in this context the sentence "You can't think of a single russian joke?" should be translated into Russian as "Не можешь (or не можете) вспомнить ни одной русской шутки?"