Thread: Джинзы

How do you count them? I never got a satisfactory answer from my teacher, which is understandable as she hasn't been to Russia in at least a decade. But it's been bugging me for quite a while. Could someone explain?

Declining loaned words sometimes can present a problem even for a native speaker. But Russian grammar hasn't changed cosiderably in the last ten years, so don't worry.

First, table of cases:
Nom. - джинсы
Gen. - джинсов (some people can use an incorrect form "джинс")
Dat. - джинсам
Acc. - джинсы
Instr. - джинсами
Prep. - джинсах

And now some rules:
1.
The word "джинсы" is always in plural, that means that in Nominative case it should be used with the collective numerals ("собирательные числительные"), i.e. двое, трое, четверо, etc., and in oblique cases "ordinary" numerals ("количественные числительные") are used: "о трех джинсах" (not "о троих джинсах").

In real life many people break this rule, because as I said loaned words are sometimes tricky and in combination with Russian grammar they can cause a confusion. So people go for the form, they consider to be "more natural", disregarding the rule.

2.
Also "джинсы", along with some other garments (trousers, socks, etc.) can be counted in pairs, i.e. "одна пара джинсов, две пары джинсов, ... пять пар джинсов", etc. (the same as in English, I think).
And imho "у меня пять пар джинсов" sounds better than "у меня пятеро джинсов".

Originally Posted by Duke Atreides

How do you count them? I never got a satisfactory answer from my teacher, which is understandable as she hasn't been to Russia in at least a decade. But it's been bugging me for quite a while. Could someone explain?

How do you count jeans in English?

You don't say "I have two jeans", you say "I have two pairs of Jeans"

As gromozeka said, it's the same in Russian.

Originally Posted by TATY

You don't say "I have two jeans", you say "I have two pairs of Jeans"

As gromozeka said, it's the same in Russian.

In Russian, in colloquial speech you can hear very often "У меня двое джинсов", "У меня трое джинсов". Even if it is worse than "у меня две/три пары...". But people really speak like that.

That's an embarrassing mistake to make in a topic title. When I said my teacher hadn't been to Russia in at least a decade, I meant that her Russian was getting rusty.

Anyways, thanks for the help.

Originally Posted by Оля

Originally Posted by TATY

You don't say "I have two jeans", you say "I have two pairs of Jeans"

As gromozeka said, it's the same in Russian.

In Russian, in colloquial speech you can hear very often "У меня двое джинсов", "У меня трое джинсов". Even if it is worse than "у меня две/три пары...". But people really speak like that.

I know about that rule of "pair", especially in its English usage, but frankly speaking I never like that stupid "pair" It sounds to me illogical.

If I say "a pair of shirts" (пара рубашек in Russian), everybody will understand I speak about 2 separate things: one shirt and another shirt.
However, "a pair of trousers" (пара брюк) in my understanding should have the same meaning: two separate things, say: I bought a pair of trousers for two children.

In Russian, I'd better say: "пять штук брюк". In English, I don't know, but probably something like: "five pieces of trousers" or just "five trousers" (why not?). "Pair" is "Two".

Uncultural, you are. ,

Originally Posted by Rtyom

Uncultural, you are. ,

Why? I just explain it contradicts my language taste.
Do you like when someone says "плОтит"? It is grammatically ignorant, isn't it?
"Пять пар брюк" in sense of "5 trousers" is mathematically ignorant as well. "Пять пар брюк" is "10 trousers": 5x2=10.

You consider language as mathemtaics. That's, well, news to me!
I might say that "плотит" is an out-of-place example of illiteracy. It indeed is, but contains some kind of another flavour.

Let's get down to the point. The word "брюки" is pluralia tantum in its essence, this means that you can't decline "брюки" as the noun in the singular. "Пара" just helps you to make it singular when you need to differentiate the number of jeans when it is more than one pair of them at your sight. "Пара" is no better than "штука" since mean practically the same, with the former being semantically accented on two parts of the thing which make it complete as one. And please don't try to press lack of logic on me because I have the picture of linguistic abstraction, and it deals more than with just logic that you, math-driven minds, have a common practice to apply to anything around. No formulae are really that good for languages. They have their inner logic, things in themselves. "Пять брюк", from this point of view, feels inconsistent. You may bring to light something like "пять носков"/"пять пар носков", which is also the lame argument since they don't make one thing altogether, however risky you might be in your desire to merge them into one concept.

Regarding the whole "Pair of" controversy, a "pant" archaically referred to one leg of the "pair of pants."

джинсы, три штука

I was surprised when I bought a "two-pant suit" and ended up with four pants (two pair of them).

=:^)