Quote Originally Posted by valereee View Post
Wow, thank you to everyone who did all this work! I am finding it tremendously helpful.

In the transcription of Pimsleur I Lesson 8 (reply #14 of this thread), there's this notation on a line:

Нет, я хотел бы пообедать у меня. – No, I would like to eat lunch at my place.
[NOTE: The sentence above is wrong. The correct Russian translation should be 'Нет, я хотел бы пообедать у себя.' ]

I don't understand what this notation is trying to tell me. It doesn't seem to be saying that 'у меня' would not be used in this context, because there's not a similar notation anywhere else that it's used this way, and this particular example isn't even the first instance it's used this way. But I can't figure out what else it could mean.

Thanks for any help!

Val
The reflexive pronoun себя (себе, собой) indicates that the action returns to the doer, i.e. when the subject and object or subject and adverbial modifier are the same persons. In other cases we use personal pronouns я, ты, он, она, они, оно, мы, вы, они in indirect cases: меня, тебе, нами, нем etc.

Она увидела себя в зеркале. Она увидела его в зеркале.

The same is true about the reflexive pronoun свой, своя, свое, свои with that difference that they are used as attributes of the object or adverbial modifier.

Она увидела в зеркале свое исхудавшее лицо. Она увидела в зеркале его исхудавшее лицо.