Quote Originally Posted by Lindsay View Post
@Боб - thanks very much for the detailed explanation. It seems I was 95% of the way to figuring it out myself, but couldn't bring myself to believe it didn't follow the nice neat rules in my grammar book!
Lindsay, I’m glad my explanation was useful.

Quote Originally Posted by Lindsay View Post
I simply have to accept that I have to learn a lot of grammar rules, and then also learn all the exceptions
I agree with what you are saying.
To make things easier, I’d say it is not necessary to learn all the rules and exceptions at once. A better way is getting accustomed to the them gradually, step by step. Learning a new language is always a long process, and there is nothing dangerous in that if you make some mistakes at your first steps. All people do, and it should not discourage you.
Coming closer to the specific subject, you can start with the very basic rules how the cases are formed and used, and leave all the exceptions for a later time. Then, for example, learn how small numerals (1-10) are used with nouns. When you feel confident with them, add adjectives. Later you can learn rules of their declension in a sentence. That’s just an example of how you can deal with grammar. And one more advice is to read more. Even if you seem not to understand some strange expressions, seeing them again and again will result in that they stick into your memory, and become natural to you. That’s exactly how I learned English.

Quote Originally Posted by Lindsay View Post
Reading the other thread about много was very helpful - like Impulse I find myself wanting to understand the why, in the hope that if I understand it for one word then I'll understand it for all words. I think coming to terms with the fact that it's not all neat and perfect is one of the unexpected challenges of learning a new language.
Please bear in mind: different languages do not match each other "one to one". Even when reading in English, I can understand the whole text, but if someone asks me to translate it into Russian, I find it difficult to provide a good Russian translation for some phrases. So, it frequently happens that I understand a phrase in a foreign language, but I do not know how to say exactly the same thing in my native language. I can rephrase it, but the meaning will be slightly affected. And there are many expressions which are different. You just have to learn new expressions instead of trying to translate them with the same wording.
Only one example to illustrate what I mean. There’s a set phrase in English "to make sense". It does not make sense in Russian if to translate it "word by word". In Russian, we have a similar expression "иметь смысл" – literally, "to have sense". When I did not know the English expression, I tried applying the direct translation from Russian by saying something like "This question does not have sense", and it seemed to be logical to me. Then someone corrected me that I should say "make sense" instead. For the first time, it seemed weird to me. How can something "make" sense? It either "has" sense or does not "have" it. But later I realized I got used to it. It is just the matter of how we view the things. In Russian logic, an expression "has" sense or "does not have sense", so we view it as a static condition: an expression potentially "exists" forever, even if not being said by anyone. In English logic, it "makes sense" i.e. it creates some sense when being said, so you view it as a dynamic act. No, when I hear "it makes sense", it makes sense to me if said in English. But if someone tries to say "это делает смысл" in Russian, then это не имеет смысла для меня. It is only a single example. There are hundreds and hundreds of them, and everything is a matter of habit, how the people are accustomed to speak. Did you ever notice that when you hear a new expression the first time (even in your native language), it seems weird to you, but later you start using it by yourself?
However, the human mind has the ability to get accustomed to new things quickly, so you should not be afraid of that. It is interesting after all, isn't it?