Thread: Reflexive / себя

Reflexivpronom / reflexive pronoun

почему всегда сказать себя? why use себя in all cases?

я чувствую себя плохо
она чувствует себя плохо

my instinct would have been to say:

я чувствую меня плохо / ich fuehle mich (myself) schlecht / je me sens mal
она чувствует себя плохо / sie fuehlt sich (herself) schlecht / elle se sent mal

Why do you think it's called reflexive?

Because it refers back to the subject

Look at this example:

Он решает свои проблемы
Он решает его проблемы

These two have different meanings:

The first one uses a reflexive pronoun so it autamtically means that:

He solves his own problem - Not somebody else's!

The second one uses a possesive pronoun and in that case it doesn't refer back to the subject like a reflexive pronoun does. So it means:

He solves some other man's problems.

Examine these two carefully and your question will just answer itself

It is not instinct, it is a habit. Your question is phylosophic: "Why languages are different?"

Pure reflexive normally doesn't make any ambiguities when building phrases, so it is good enough. Replace in English words like myself, yourself, himself by just self and you'll get the same. -self always refer to the subject, and so parts my-, your-, him- in fact add no information (they are tautologies) and can be skipped.

Originally Posted by eisenherz

я чувствую меня плохо / ich fuehle mich (myself) schlecht / je me sens mal
она чувствует себя плохо / sie fuehlt sich (herself) schlecht / elle se sent mal

Because "себя" is not like German "sich" or like French "se".
"Себя" always refers to the subject of the sentence:

Я знаю себя хорошо. - I know myself well.
Ты знаешь себя хорошо. - You know yourself well.
Он знает себя хорошо. - He knows himself well.
Она знает себя хорошо. - She knows herself well.
Мы знаем себя хорошо. - We know ourselves well.
Вы знаете себя хорошо. - You know yourselves well.
Они знают себя хорошо. - They know themselves well.

eisenherz,

Es ist nur eine Regel. Hier gibt es keine eindeutige Erklärung. Man muss einfach "себя" verwenden.

It's about the subject. Kinda.

DU fühlst DICH schlecht. - (ты) чувствуешь себя плохо
DU erzählst über DICH. - (ты) рассказываешь о себе

It's easier if you learn the concept of СВОЙ/МОЙ etc. first (as has been highlighted by iCake above)- СЕБЯ then becomes obvious. Right, it's about expressing possessions, but in some way, it's related to the concept of how to express things that are related to the main person/subject.

It's interesting because my instinct when speaking French is to say "Je se sens bien", but it's wrong.

Originally Posted by John_Douglas

It's interesting because my instinct when speaking French is to say "Je se sens bien", but it's wrong.

Which makes it opposite to what Eisenherz wrote
What actually matters is what language you learned first, I think.

But people who learned multiple languages stop surprising and learn to accept each grammar as it is.

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

But people who learned multiple languages stop surprising and learn to accept each grammar as it is.

I didn't learn multiple languages, the only second language for me is English and I still learn it. But the first thing I understood is that you do well not to compare your native language with the language you try to learn (it's especially crucial not to do that with words, because almost every word in any language has a lot of uses and the translated word has its own different uses in the language it belongs to ), because it's pointless and more than that it's harmful, because that causes you to make constant mistakes or to come up with "lame" expressions as a result that you first think in your native language, then you render the thought into your second language. So one doesn't need to be a genius to infer that this attitude is a dead end.

всем спасибо за ответ
i get the point... one just has to learn the rules / language on its own...
(but having said that, i do think a good grasp of latin languages or germans helps tremendously with understanding the cases and structure in general most of the time)