Thread: Frustrated with Russian cases...

Originally Posted by it-ogo

Nope. It is quite logical dative. If you help me then you give me help. You generally do not act directly on me, but on some other object for my sake.

Funny enough, even in my native Persian, the verb for helping is said to be "transitive to indirect object". And it doesn't make sense to me. "To help" is not different from "to kiss" in that they're both performed directly. Well, you could "give someone a kiss", but that doesn't make the verb indirect.

Grammar is the way of thinking.

So what? Should I take my hat off to grammar? Well, I won't do that to Russian grammar!

But you don't usually help someone by acting on him directly. You kiss the girl (which is a pretty direct action on the girl ), but you may help someone by doing all kinds of things elsewhere, but not directly to the person themselves.

It's not a transitive verb in German (where there is no such thing as "transitive to the indirect object") and it is "transitive to the indirect object" in English as well, as you can make a passive sentence: I helped him -> he was helped. No such luck in German. I don't know any Indo-European language in which the verb for "help" is transitive.

Originally Posted by Misha Tal

So what? Should I take my hat off to grammar? Well, I won't do that to Russian grammar!

In Iran you take your hat off to grammar, in Russia grammar takes your head off.