Thread: Differences between Russian and English - helped needed

Hi there

I am new to this forum and I was wondering if some kind sould could help me out.

The other day I was given a homework assignment. This assignment was to find 12 differences between Russian and English.

So far, I have found 9 differences and a possible 10th.

This is what I have found so far

1) The alphabet

2) Russian is a phoentic language, unlike English.

3) Russian uses written stress indication

4) Different pronounciation of words

5) English only has one plural form wheras Russian has three or more

6) English words have no gender. Russian has masculine, feminine and neutral

7) If one noun follows another, the second noun will change it's ending sound. The form of the noun indicating it's role in a sentence, be it an object or subject

There are no articles such as "the" or "a" in Russian

9) The present tense of the verb "to be" is omitted in Russian

10) There are more vowels in Russian (this is the one I am unsure of)

I believe that there are at least two more differences between Russian and English.

Is there anyone out there that knows and can help?

Thanks!

Jools

Originally Posted by jools230575

2) Russian is a phoentic language, unlike English.

Russian is not completely phonetic. Of course it is more phonetic than English, but that can be said of any language.

Originally Posted by jools230575

3) Russian uses written stress indication

This is not quite correct. The only letter with a stress mark is ё. Otherwise, you have to guess where to put the stress.

Originally Posted by jools230575

4) Different pronounciation of words

You may want to elaborate on this one.

Originally Posted by jools230575

5) English only has one plural form wheras Russian has three or more

This is not quite correct. Maybe you are talking about cases. The Russian language has 6 cases.


The Russian language uses special characters ь and ъ to indicate palitization. English does not have such symbols.

Hi!

Thanks for the reply.

How did I do on the others? I am guessing my other differences were OK as no comment was made?????

Originally Posted by jools230575

7) If one noun follows another, the second noun will change it's ending sound. The form of the noun indicating it's role in a sentence, be it an object or subject

The ending of a noun changes depending on whether it is
1. the subject
2. the direct object
3. the indirect object
4. possessive
5. instrumental
6. prepositional
These are called cases.

Originally Posted by jools230575

10) There are more vowels in Russian (this is the one I am unsure of)

There are actually 11 vowels (а, е ё и й о э у ы ю я)
Some people consider й a semi-vowel since it cannot stand on it's own.
http://www.masterrussian.com/blalphabet.shtml

Numbers 1, 6, 8, and 9 are correct.

Originally Posted by kwatts59

Originally Posted by jools230575

5) English only has one plural form wheras Russian has three or more

This is not quite correct. Maybe you are talking about cases. The Russian language has 6 cases.

Actually, not quite correct in being not quite correct. Russian does have three pluarls

1 = nom sing. 2-4 = gen sing. 5->20 + gen plural
and just regular plural - nom plural.

about vowels, Russian does not have as many as someone indicated above, it is just that they have two letters for each vowel:

a я
э е
о ё
ы и
у ю

Russian has more consonants than English.
Russian has a consonantal feature called "palatalization" which is absent in English.

russian system of tenses is much simpler than English. Basically they have present and past. (This makes up for their much more complex system of declension of nouns and adjectives.)

All verbs of motion have two possible forms, depending on whether the motion is in one direction or not (e.g. there and back).

Russian word order is much freer, and the different possibilities express what we in English would have to use other alternative methods to express. For example:
Ya chital knigu. I was reading the book.
Knigu chital ya. It is I who was reading the book.

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

Originally Posted by kwatts59

Originally Posted by jools230575

5) English only has one plural form wheras Russian has three or more

This is not quite correct. Maybe you are talking about cases. The Russian language has 6 cases.

Actually, not quite correct in being not quite correct. Russian does have three pluarls

1 = nom sing. 2-4 = gen sing. 5->20 + gen plural
and just regular plural - nom plural.

When counting things, there are different endings depending on whether masculin or feminin or neuter.
1 книга, 2 книги, 3 книги, 4 книги, 5 книг, 6 книги, etc...
1 стол, 2 стола, 3 стола, 4 стола, 5 столов, 6 столов, etc...

Regular (nominal) plural
books = книги
tables = столы

But also depending on how the noun is used, there are several different plural forms depending on the case.

книги (Именительный падеж множественного числа)
книг (Родительный падеж множественного числа)
книгам (Дательный падеж множественного числа)
книги (Винительный падеж множественного числа)
книгами (Творительный падеж множественного числа)
книгах (Предложный падеж множественного числа)

столы (Именительный падеж множественного числа)
столов (Родительный падеж множественного числа)
столам (Дательный падеж множественного числа)
столы (Винительный падеж множественного числа)
столами (Творительный падеж множественного числа)
столах (Предложный падеж множественного числа)

And whether the noun is animate or not may also be a factor.

And this is just a simplification!
Man, Russian is a bиtch.

There is also the whole verb aspect thing. Most verbs have 2 forms which are used to distinguish whether an action was completed or not, amongst other things.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Russian:Verbal_Aspect

http://masterrussian.com/aa031600a.shtml

In English the concept of time is important;

I play
I played
I was playing
I had been playing
I have been playing
I am playing
I had played
I have played
I was to play
I am to play

I forget, past continous, past perfective, present continous etc.... luckily russian doesn't have does concepts. Perfective and imperfective et voila

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

...
I am to play

I am to play or I am not to play, that is the question.

Й /j/ is not a vowel in any language. It is phonetically a consonant, but may be called a semi-vowel, but it is still a consonant.

Is W a vowel? Because W is the semi-vowel relating to the English vowel 'oo' sound. No it's a consonant.

Now that we've cleared that up, some more differences:

Russian has forms of the English "you". Ты (singular and/or informal) Вы (plural and/or formal).

Russian word order is much freer than English's rigid Subject Verb Object (SVO) order.

Russian doesn't (usually) use the verb 'to be' in the present tense.
E.g. I am a student: Я студент

Originally Posted by chaika

about vowels, Russian does not have as many as someone indicated above, it is just that they have two letters for each vowel:

a я
э е
о ё
ы и
у ю

It's true that "officially" these are all the vowel sounds that exist in Russian, with one sound per pair, but really it is not the case. At the very least, there are several reduced vowels, and it seems to me that even in each pair above, in reality, the vowels are a bit different themselves (and are not simply indicators of the preceding consonant's softness). Most foreign (but not Russian) books admit this for the "ы/и" pair, but I think it is the case for the other pairs as well.
I wonder if anyone has actually studied, described and counted all vowel sounds of standard Russian.

Originally Posted by TATY

Й /j/ is not a vowel in any language. It is phonetically a consonant, but may be called a semi-vowel, but it is still a consonant.

Technically it may be so, but in actual speech it is usually replaced with a short "i", which is why it is called "i kratkoe".

Also, another difference between English and Russian: adjectives decline based on gender and case.
Here is an example of some forms for the adjective "large" - "крупный"

крупный (Именительный падеж единственного числа мужского рода)
крупного (Родительный падеж единственного числа мужского рода)
крупному (Дательный падеж единственного числа мужского рода)
крупного (Винительный падеж единственного числа мужского рода (одушевленное))
крупный (Винительный падеж единственного числа мужского рода (неодушевленное))
крупным (Творительный падеж единственного числа мужского рода)
крупном (Предложный падеж единственного числа мужского рода)

крупная (Именительный падеж единственного числа женского рода)
крупной (Родительный падеж единственного числа женского рода)
крупной (Дательный падеж единственного числа женского рода)
крупную (Винительный падеж единственного числа женского рода)
крупной,крупною (Творительный падеж единственного числа женского рода)
крупной (Предложный падеж единственного числа женского рода)

крупное (Именительный падеж единственного числа среднего рода)
крупного (Родительный падеж единственного числа среднего рода)
крупному (Дательный падеж единственного числа среднего рода)
крупное (Винительный падеж единственного числа среднего рода)
крупным (Творительный падеж единственного числа среднего рода)
крупном (Предложный падеж единственного числа среднего рода)

крупные (Именительный падеж множественного числа)
крупных (Родительный падеж множественного числа)
крупным (Дательный падеж множественного числа)
крупных (Винительный падеж множественного числа (неодушевленное))
крупные (Винительный падеж множественного числа (одушевленное))
крупными (Творительный падеж множественного числа)
крупных (Предложный падеж множественного числа)

крупнее,крупней (Сравнительная форма)
крупен (Краткая форма единственного числа мужского рода)
крупна (Краткая форма единственного числа женского рода)
крупно (Краткая форма единственного числа среднего рода)
крупны (Краткая форма множественного числа)

Ain't learning Russian a bиtch?
jools? Where are you? jools?

Darn, I guess I scared off another potential Russian student.

3) Russian uses written stress indication

??
If it's what I think, it's used only on educational purposes, to help non-native readers to read the text properly.

Yeah, Russian most certianly does not indicate stress in most things.

Originally Posted by laxxy

Originally Posted by TATY

Й /j/ is not a vowel in any language. It is phonetically a consonant, but may be called a semi-vowel, but it is still a consonant.

Technically it may be so, but in actual speech it is usually replaced with a short "i", which is why it is called "i kratkoe".

That's just its name. It is still a /j/ phenome in Russian, and therefore a consonant. It's not a 'short i' in the phonetical sense, that is you will never find й phonetically represented as /i/. But the consonant sound /j/ is still a short /i/ sound, but so short it is a consonant.

And if we are talking about names, in other slavic languages, like Ukrainian, the letter Й which is exactly the same, and has the same function, it is called yot (or iot), which come from the Greek iot, which is where the word jotated (iotated) comes from (pronounced with a /j/ sound).

Originally Posted by TATY

Originally Posted by laxxy

Originally Posted by TATY

Й /j/ is not a vowel in any language. It is phonetically a consonant, but may be called a semi-vowel, but it is still a consonant.

Technically it may be so, but in actual speech it is usually replaced with a short "i", which is why it is called "i kratkoe".

That's just its name. It is still a /j/ phenome in Russian, and therefore a consonant. It's not a 'short i' in the phonetical sense, that is you will never find й phonetically represented as /i/. But the consonant sound /j/ is still a short /i/ sound, but so short it is a consonant.

And if we are talking about names, in other slavic languages, like Ukrainian, the letter Й which is exactly the same, and has the same function, it is called yot (or iot), which come from the Greek iot, which is where the word jotated (iotated) comes from (pronounced with a /j/ sound).

Well this is the first time I heard that short vowels could become consonants, if we accept that theory then of course it is a consonant, and the English word "my" has two consonants, etc etc... but iirc such sounds are usually described as diphtong vowels...

Well, jools has probably given up studying Russian and is now off studying Spanish or pig-latin.

But one more important difference is in the verbs of motion. There are many variants to the word "go" or "come" depending on whether the action is routine, one-time, unidirectional, by vehicle, or by walking etc...

Just for example, I typed "go" into Multitran and got the following verb forms. There were other variations but these are just the verbs.

go (went, gone) гл.
общ. идти; пойти; ходить; ездить; ехать; уходить; уезжать; проходить; заезжать; заехать; отойти; отходить; следовать; ступать; ступить; съездить; съезжать; съехать; продолжать; продолжить; работать; всходить; брать на себя (что-л.); направляться; отправляться; направиться; вдаваться; оставаться; таскаться; решаться (на что-л.); избавляться; укладываться (во что-л.); бросаться на кого-л.; объезжать; последовать (after); умещаться (into, under)
авт. двигаться
амер., разг. быть в состоянии готовности; работать (об аппаратуре и т.п.; безотказно)
бухг. быть годным; получать одобрение; быть принятым (напр. о проекте)
воен., разг. передвигаться
выч. идти дальше
дип. into вступить в организацию
Интернет перейти (кнопка на вебсайте gconnell); открыть (кнопка на вебсайте gconnell)
Макаров выходить; быть приемлемым; быть расположенным; быть ритмичными (о стихах); где-л. храниться; говорить; участвовать (в доле); ходить определённым шагом; где-л. находиться; гибнуть; двигаться с определённой скоростью; дотягиваться; доходить; ездить (каким-л. способом); завершаться каким-л. образом; заканчиваться определённым результатом; звонить; звучать (о мелодии и т.п.); исчезать; исчезнуть; курсировать; обанкротиться; отменяться; передаваться; передаваться (по телеграфу и т.п.); передвигаться (каким-л. способом); податься; поехать; потерпеть крах; пройти; пролегать; простираться; протекать; путешествовать (каким-л. способом); расколоться; распространяться; рухнуть; следовать в определённом порядке; сломаться; спариваться; становиться (на определенное место); тянуться; умирать; уничтожаться; бить время; действовать (о машине и т.п.); действовать (о человеке); жить (о человеке); одолевать; отбивать время; пропадать (о слухе, сознании и т.п.); работать (о машине и т.п.); слабеть (о слухе, сознании и т.п.); справляться; функционировать (о машине и т.п.); функционировать (о человеке)
матем. быть в движении; делаться; переходить; равняться; становиться; гармонизировать (with); гармонировать (with); поехать; пройти
сл. "отправиться в мир иной"; поддерживать; продолжать дальше; срыгивать; тратить; умереть; умыться; поклоняться; происходить; умываться; "болеть" за (кого-либо)
табу., сл. быть беременной; испражняться; мочиться
хим. действовать; функционировать
юр. быть в обращении; быть принятым; гласить; иметь хождение; получать (пособие); прибегать к помощи (Право международной торговли on-line); обращаться к (кому-л. Право международной торговли on-line)

Originally Posted by kwatts59

Well, jools has probably given up studying Russian and is now off studying Spanish or pig-latin.

But one more important difference is in the verbs of motion. There are many variants to the word "go" or "come" depending on whether the action is routine, one-time, unidirectional, by vehicle, or by walking etc...
...

I think if you pick pretty much any language out there and try to look up something like "go" or "get" in a large dictionary you'll get a similar record. Very few words have 1:1 equivalents in any other language, and especially not common words like that.