Thread: это или этот?

Originally Posted by Seraph

When you say/write simple phrase, just the direct indicitave, "this (item)" this car, this house, this girl, this boy, this toy, then use the declining этот.

When you are saying something with "is" in English, "what is this?" "this is a(n)/my/his/her ..." then use non-declining form, это. "Это моя собака." "Что это такой?" etc.

1)then why the sentence << Этот дом новый >> is correct? I don't completely get it...


2) what do you guys think about this rule I found?

"Use the indeclinable это to translate English phrases starting with 'This is', 'These are'.
Use the demonstrative pronoun этот (эта, это, эти) to translate such word combinations as 'this house ' - этот дом, 'this shirt' - эта рубашка, 'this dress' - это платье, 'these students' - эти студенты."

Originally Posted by klopp

1)then why the sentence << Этот дом новый >> is correct? I don't completely get it...


2) what do you guys think about this rule I found?

"Use the indeclinable это to translate English phrases starting with 'This is', 'These are'.
Use the demonstrative pronoun этот (эта, это, эти) to translate such word combinations as 'this house ' - этот дом, 'this shirt' - эта рубашка, 'this dress' - это платье, 'these students' - эти студенты."

The rule is OK.

You can write it with a long dash which is equivalent of English "is" and represent an intonational pause in Russian:

Этот дом -- новый. = This house is new.
Это -- новый дом. = This is a new house.

If you can replace "this" with "it" or "this object" than it should be "это" only.

Этот дом -- новый. = This object house is new.
Это -- новый дом. = This object is a new house.