Thread: The wording of a sentence

Здраствайте всё,

As my usage of the russian language increases, I seem to face many problems with trying to express certain things. An example would be ,"It makes me... (Mad, peeved, happy, depressed)". There's some things in russian I word right, but word wrong in other contexts. For example ,"There's a talking dog!!!"/"Это говорящая собака!!!". That's correct as far as I'm concerned, but I run into problems with ,"I'm selling this car". I'd word it like ,"Я продаю эту машину". But I was just introduced to the word тот, та, то?, and apparently you wouldn't use Эту in the situation, you'd say ,"Я продаю ту машину". I don't understand when to use этот и тот.

I also didn't understand the wording of an excerpt in my book written by Lev Tolstoy, Voina i Mir, vol.1, part 3, chapter 19. Here's the whole excerpt, I'll underline what I question:

[князь Андрей] опять почувстовал себя жевым и страдающим от жгучей разрывающей что-то боли в голове... Он стал прислушиваться и улышал звуки приближающегоса топота лашадей и звуки голосов, говоривших по-фрунцузски. Он раскрыл глаза. Над ним было опять всё то же высокое небо с ешё выше поднявшимися, плывущими облаками, сквозь которые виднелась синеющая бесконечность. Он не пворачивал головы и не видел тех, которые, судя по звуку копыт и голосов, подъехали к нему и остановились.
Подъехавшие верховые были Нополеон, споуствуемый двумя адъютами Бонарте... рассматривал убитых и раненых, оставшихся на поле сражения.

First of all, I don't understand why Lev chose to use the instrumental singular for жевым and страдающим. Is почувствовать an instrumental-governing verb? why did he put себя in there? Secondly, I totally get confused when the author goes "с ешё выше поднявшимися". I immediately thing "with the still taller growing". And that makes no sense to me. Why did the ешё come after the c? and the is the word taller before the word for growing?

yes, чувствовать +Acc. + Instr., что чем.
почувстовал себя жевым. I think a dictionary should tell you this. Did you look in a dictionary?

это and тот mean "this" and "that". No problem there. You are selling "this" эту car, or "that" ту car.

Над ним было опять всё то же высокое небо с ешё выше поднявшимися, плывущими облаками

with even higher raised (past participle, not present)

And again way above him was the same sky, and/with even higher up floating clouds....

Jeez, nobody quote me on that. I am not a poet. I am not a poet. I am not a poet. I am not a poet.

живым

I don't understand when to use этот и тот.

"Этот" и "тот" are pretty close to "this" and "that".
so, "I'm selling this car"="Я продаю эту машину".

Sometimes "тот" has the function of the definite article:
The car that I bought last year...
Та машина, что я купил в прошлом году...

Definate articles are "the", right? Is there a rule to which I know when to use it as an article?

I see. No, Chaika, I didn't look it up. Ah, stupid mistake in saying active present participle, sorry! I just learned them too..wow.

Originally Posted by Orpheus

Definate articles are "the", right? Is there a rule to which I know when to use it as an article?

Right.

You certainly know that there are no articles in Russian... as I am a native speaker and not a linguist, I don't know rules about functions of the demonstrative pronouns, I can only think of examples.

I have a question too.
Is there any difference to say "That car that I sold, it was far better than my new one" or "The car ..."

Originally Posted by Indra

Originally Posted by Orpheus

Definate articles are "the", right? Is there a rule to which I know when to use it as an article?

Right.

You certainly know that there are no articles in Russian... as I am a native speaker and not a linguist, I don't know rules about functions of the demonstrative pronouns, I can only think of examples.

I have a question too.
Is there any difference to say "That car that I sold, it was far better than my new one" or "The car ..."

Well, the sentence you wrote seemed a little unatural to me. By unatural, I mean that I wouldn't say the word "That" to connect the word "car" and "I sold". I would say ,"That car I sold was far better than my new one." The sentence you wrote still made sense, and was grammatically correct though. Nonetheless, when you say ,"that car I sold...", it's a little bit more specific than ,"The car I sold...". When you're saying "The car" in the example, it's kind of like implying that you're not speaking of a specific car, and the car you're talking about could be picked randomly out of a set of vehicles. But when you say ,"That car"... it's implying the person you're speaking to knows about the car you sold, and it's talking about a specific car.

I've a question for you too. If you start speaking to an american foreigner, does their accent drive away from you're comprehension of what they're saying? At my level (I've been learning russian for like 4 months), I've no ability to tell whether something sounds right or wrong grammatical and stress wise.

Well of course strong accent affects comprehension. However, this should not be your primary concern. Your primary concern at your level should be the grammar, because wrong grammar messes up the message completely.

Эта и та simply indicate how you distance yourself from the object. Эта means this car, the one in front of you, the one we all see or clearly understand what we are talking about.

Та means something distant, something around the corner or far away, so you cannot see it, the opposite of Эта, something you've mentioned once and everybody forgot about it, etc.

It is a close yet not a direct translation of this and that.

Здравствуйте всем

In English we distinguish This and That more than in most other languages.

If you listen to most foreigners speak English, they use This loads more than they use that.

they say things like "Stop this!", instead of "Stop that!".

In Russian you usually still use Этот when you expect Тот in Russian.

In English to say "This" for an object, it usually has to be close to the speaker, maybe the speaker even has to be holding it.

Anyway, тот has another important function in constructions like

Мы говорили о том, как Владимир съездил в Германию.

We were talking about how Vladimir went to Germeny.

Всё зависит от погоды - It all depends on the weather
Всё зависит от того, сколько у меня денег.
It all depends on how much money I have.

I expect there are errors in these sentences.

I expect there are errors in these sentences.

I have not found any errors in those sentences. So there is no need to worry! The only error I have found is a spelling one. завиcит

Anyway, тот has another important function in constructions like
Мы говорили о том, как Владимир съездил в Германию.
Всё зависит от того, сколько у меня денег.

In these sentences "том" and "того" are forms of "то" (neutral gender), not "тот" (masculine). These pronouns have almost identical paradigm of declination (the only difference is in accusative case: то - то, тот - того), no wonder people сonfuse them.

Here are examples for "тот":
Мы говорили о том Владимире, который съездил в Германию.
Всё зависит от того, у кого много денег.

But I see То as a form of Тот.

Basically you're right. I just think that if we talk about masculine form, it would be better to give examples with the same gender, to avoid confusion.

Oh, and by the way - to make it more confusing - there are actually 2 different words "то" in Russian. One is a demonstrative pronoun that we've discussed above. The second is a conjunction, meaning "then" (often not translated): "если вы не пойдете, то я пойду" — "if you don't go, (then) I will".

Orpheus, thank you, I understand it better now.

Originally Posted by Orpheus

I've a question for you too. If you start speaking to an american foreigner, does their accent drive away from you're comprehension of what they're saying?

It does Of corse, it's a matter of habit, but the spoken British English is easier to understand.