Quote Originally Posted by Paul G. View Post
As I said earlier, you should learn some patterns which help you start thinking like Russian. It could be a good solution. Try it and I'm sure you'll see the result. You can't just translate words and put them together in the same order. It's nonsense.

For example, the problem with the verb "to have". "I have a car" sounds in Russian like "У меня есть машина". Do you see the verb "to have" here? Right, Russians don't use it a lot, it's not such an important verb in Russian as it's in English.
Also, there is no "а" (sort of "and", soft opposition) conjunction in English. There are only "и" (and) and "но" (but) in English. But the conjunction "a" adds an additional dimension to sentences, which you should figure out. Sometimes you can't say something properly if you don't use this powerful conjunction. It looks like Russians often avoid the words "either/neither", because there are no straight analogs of them in Russian. But can you imagine a good English language without these words?

And so on...

Paul - - I’ll try to isolate some patterns in my textbook and what I read. I don’t want to sound too much like I’m just repeating things I copy down, you know. I do have a question about the genitive case, though. I’m familiar with the phrase “У меня есть”, but I have read it where “есть” is omitted and it’s written in short as simply “У меня…”; i.e. “У меня книгу”. Is this correct to do this? - - I’ll try to incorporate “а” into my sentences. I am a little confused over certain articles such as “тот”, especially when it’s declined as “тут”. I’m not sure exactly how to translate it. I have other questions I’ll ask later. I’m glad I ran into this forum. It helps a great deal!