Thread: Valda - разные вопросы по глаголам

My friend gave me a Russian exercise to translate from English
"Dogs don't bite without barking first."

I translated it as:
"Соба́ки не куса́ют без ла́ять пре́жде"

She corrected me to:
Соба́ки не куса́ются без пре́жде ла́я

I was wondering what's the difference between ла́ять, and ла́я...I knew ла́ять is the non-inflected form, but I only found out today that "ла́я" is the "present/future tense gerund"

i.e.


See where it says "present/future tense gerund" in the middle? That was what she corrected me to.

So that leads me to further questions. If I wanna say "Need to look first, then buy," I really should say:
На́до пре́жде смотря́, потом купя́
As opposed to
"На́до пре́жде смотре́ть, потом купи́ть"


Problem is that not all verbs have this "present/future tense gerund".... Like the word поня́ть. So in the case of this word I just leave it as "поня́ть"?

На́до пре́жде поня́ть, потом пиша́

The same with the word "пить". No ""present/future tense gerund" either:

Э́то ва́жное пить во́ду.

The word "кушать" however does have a "present/future tense gerund"... It is "ку́шая"...so in this case, I just write "ку́шая"? :

Э́то ва́жное ку́шая хоро́шую пищу

Would appreciate feedback...thank you

There is a verb "лаять", to bark and a noun "лай", a bark.
Собаки не кусают до/прежде лая. = Dogs don't bite before a bark. (лай in Genitive is лая)

But anyway, I don't like that phrase. I'd say something like: "Собаки сперва лают, потом кусают." or "Собаки не кусают до того, как облают."

What you have found is called "деепричастие", adverbial participle. It is not like English gerund, more like an adverb. It is more complicated to use but if you like...

Лая is (also) an adverbial participle of the imperfective verb лаять and can be translated as "during the process of barking". For your purpose you need perfective AP like "полаяв" (verb "полаять"), which is "after some barking".

So, "Собаки кусают только сначала полаяв" will do.

"Need to look first, then buy," - Покупать нужно, сначала посмотрев. "посмотрев" is an AP of "посмотреть"

APs in Russian are rarely used in speech, they are normally for the literary style.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

But anyway, I don't like that phrase. I'd say something like: "Собаки сперва лают, потом кусают."

Would it be possible to use "лаются" and "кусаются" in this context to emphasize that you're talking about a general tendency? As in Собака кусает меня за руку ("The dog is biting my hand") vs. Осторожно, эта собака кусается ("Beware, this dog has a habit of biting").

Originally Posted by it-ogo

What you have found is called "деепричастие", adverbial participle. It is not like English gerund, more like an adverb.

For some reason, though, LOTS of English-language textbooks refer to the деепричастие as a "gerund" -- even though, as you say, the деепричастие is adverbial in nature, while the "gerund" is a noun in both English and Latin.

(Hmmm, from Googling, I find that in some Romance languages like French and Spanish, the Latin gerund eventually lost its noun-ish nature and developed an adverbial function. So presumably the influence of French explains why "gerund" is used for the деепричастие.)

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Would it be possible to use "лаются" and "кусаются" in this context to emphasize that you're talking about a general tendency? As in Собака кусает меня за руку ("The dog is biting my hand") vs. Осторожно, эта собака кусается ("Beware, this dog has a habit of biting").

Кусаются is OK here, but лаются is not. You can make reflexive only of transitive verbs, i.e. verbs that can have direct objects. In Russian direct objects are those in Accusative. You can not say лаять кого-то (and then лаять себя = лаяться), correct is лаять на кого-то.

There is another colloquial\vernacular meaning of лаять (to abuse). In this sense it is transitive verb and so лаяться means "to abuse each other" = to quarrel or "to abuse as a general tendency" in vernacular.

Need to be careful with the 'present form', with the __йти verbs, it is usually past. => придя, выйдя и. т. д. => having arrived, having gone out, or, after having arrived, gone out... Not as 'while arriving' 'while leaving'.

Originally Posted by Seraph

Need to be careful with the 'present form', with the __йти verbs, it is usually past. => придя, выйдя и. т. д. => having arrived, having gone out, or, after having arrived, gone out... Not as 'while arriving' 'while leaving'.

Well, perfective verbs in Russian have not present form at all. And I believe their adverbial participles as well. There are corresponding imperfective verbs with their participles: приходя, выходя...

That is what I thought, since it does not seem logical to be 'while (perfective)' for the 'while' to have logical meaning it needs to be imperfect. But I just didn't say that.

Originally Posted by Valda

The word "кушать" however does have a "present/future tense gerund"... It is "ку́шая"...so in this case, I just write "ку́шая"? :

Э́то ва́жное ку́шая хоро́шую пищу

Would appreciate feedback...thank you

Valda, see my comment above about the difference between an English gerund (which is inherently a noun) and the so-called Russian "gerund" (which is inherently an adverb).

I can understand that you're trying to say "Eating good food is important." In this sentence, eating is a noun/gerund, and one could paraphrase the sentence as "The eating of good food is important." But you could also paraphrase it as "To eat good food is important," or "It's important to eat good food," using an infinitive instead of a gerund. And in Russian, it sounds much better if you use the infinitive in this context. I would possibly translate the sentence as:

Важно питаться хорошей едой. (It's important to feed on good food.)

As far as I know, кушать хорошую еду/пищу would also be possible, but питаться + instrumental ("to feed upon, to nourish oneself with") better emphasizes that you're making a general statement about nutrition.

The so-called "gerund" кушая could be used in a sentence like:

Она каталась на велосипеде по парку, кушая мороженное. ("She was riding a bike around the park, eating ice cream.")

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

......................
And in Russian, it sounds much better if you use the infinitive in this context. I would possibly translate the sentence as:

Важно питаться хорошей едой. (It's important to feed on good food.)

As far as I know, кушать хорошую еду/пищу would also be possible, but питаться + instrumental ("to feed upon, to nourish oneself with") better emphasizes that you're making a general statement about nutrition.
......................

I can't explain the grammar rules, but I would say a bit differently:

Большое значение имеет правильное питание.
Важно хорошо питаться.

I guess I once again overcomplicated affairs, since it was just the difference between a verb and a noun Thanks for the clarification!