Thread: grammar tutor for beginner

U dont need a noun. I've seen / heard быть + adjective. It happens all the time.

"Did you go to the party ? Yes it was bad!"
Ты пошёл на вечеринку ? Да, была плохая(ой?).

In english you have "it" But u don't need it in russian.




@ waxwing - Yes, you can explain please.

@blackmage so sweet.

@ all of you who think that you speak better russian than someone else because your teacher spent more money at a university than the others did, well then eat this.

My teacher is a native speaker from kazakhstan. It just DOESN'T get any sweeter than that. мы с ней смеемся над твоей учительницей and 8 year PHD

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

"Did you go to the party ? Yes it was bad!"
Ты пошёл на вечеринку ? Да, была плохая(ой?).

Since parties arent people, plohaya is correct... (sorry, cyrillic isn't working at the moment)

I get it.

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

U dont need a noun. I've seen / heard быть + adjective. It happens all the time.

"Did you go to the party ? Yes it was bad!"
Ты пошёл на вечеринку ? Да, была плохая(ой?).

In english you have "it" But u don't need it in russian.

Dogboy, I don't want to make you upset but in this example you should say:
1. ...ходил.. (becouse you said "Did..." it is a past simple, so in Russian it is a past form of imperfect verb)
2. ....она(вечеринка) была плохая(ой)( the sentence without она sounds weird here but it is understandable, the next question will be qualifying question: "Вечеринка?"-"Да.")
You don't need "it" in case like this
How is/was the party? It is/was bad!
Как (you even could not use a verb here!) вечеринка? Плохо/Плохая/Отстой!

Originally Posted by BlackMage

Since parties arent people, plohaya is correct... (sorry, cyrillic isn't working at the moment)

Вечеринка была плохая - Вечеринка была плохой - I see no diffrence here.

Allow me to attempt to expand a little on what JJ is saying.

Originally Posted by JJ

Вечеринка была плохая - Вечеринка была плохой - I see no diffrence here.

Here the choice is not about animate/inanimate blackmage, but rather it's the classic question of whether to use instrumental or nominative for the predicate after the past or future of the verb быть.
According to И.М. Пулькина, "Русский Язык, практическая грамматика с упражненями" p. 448:

Originally Posted by И.М. Пулькина

"In the past and future tenses, a complete-form adjective may take the nominative or the instrumental ... In colloquial speech the nominative is generally used, while in the literary language the nominative is preferred."

So that deals with the case of adjectival predicates. When the predicate is a noun, however, as in for example:

Брат будет врачом

The same book states (on p. 477) that the instrumental is generally used, whilst the nominative is occasionally used. Of course this gives us no idea as to what circumstances allow the nominative ... but I do vaguely remember being corrected by friends in Russia if I tried to use the nominative there. If I said я был учитель в Англии they would tsk tsk me and say учителем . So, for nouns, I think it's much safer to just stick with the instrumental always.

Originally Posted by JJ

Dogboy, I don't want to make you upset but in this example you should say:
1. ...ходил.. (becouse you said "Did..." it is a past simple, so in Russian it is a past form of imperfect verb)

Forgive me for the presumption, but I believe the explanation is inaccurate. As far as I have understood, the reason that ходил must be used in this case is that we're talking about a single, completed round trip in the past. For those cases, the multi-directional imperfective (ходить, ездить etc.) is used (cf. p. 244 of the Bible).

Originally Posted by JJ

2. ....она(вечеринка) была плохая(ой)( the sentence without она sounds weird here but it is understandable

What is the diffrence between saying.

как дела - нормально

как была вчеринка - была нормальная

U dont say

как дела ? они хорошие. Why does it sound weird without она ?

Originally Posted by JJ

1. ...ходил.. (becouse you said "Did..." it is a past simple, so in Russian it is a past form of imperfect verb)

=). No, not mad. But what if i have not returned yet? What if i am staying somewhere else (or at the party) and i'm just calling on a phone to talk about how the party was ?


Also, i remember in Penguin book, it talked about how.

идти can be used instead of ходить when talking about the trip
1)you went only one way... See the выше предложение
2)you don't care about the return part of the trip(it's irrelevant because obviously you made it back). Although I don't know what page it is on.

Originally Posted by waxwing

The same book states (on p. 477) that the instrumental is generally used, whilst the nominative is occasionally used. Of course this gives us no idea as to what circumstances allow the nominative ... but I do vaguely remember being corrected by friends in Russia if I tried to use the nominative there. If I said я был учитель в Англии they would tsk tsk me and say учителем . So, for nouns, I think it's much safer to just stick with the instrumental always.

The sentence "я был учитель в Англии..." is not totally incorrect. The nominative case here makes it (IMHO!)incomplete, so if you continue the sentence "...а в России я - президент!" it is quite possible. Or if you just say it dreamily "я был учитель в Англии..." it is possible too especially with another word order - "я был в Англии учитель..."

Forgive me for the presumption, but I believe the explanation is inaccurate.

IMHO, Russians use the another language idea - in my mind the words connected to each other by endings, and they discribe the state so maybe I don't give much attention for discribing an act therefor, such as

a single, completed round trip in the past.

, sorry

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

What is the diffrence between saying.

как дела - нормально

как была вчеринка - была нормальная

"Как дела" is short from "как идут дела" and when you answer "нормально" you mean "дела идут нормально" (нормально is an adverb) The analogy with "вечеринка" would be:
Как вечеринка?(Как проходит (прошла) вечеринка?) - Нормально(она проходит (прошла) нормально)

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

как дела - нормально

как была вчеринка - была нормальная

U dont say

как дела ? они хорошие. Why does it sound weird without она ?

In this case you're totally right. But remember you said "Ты ходил на вечеринку?" the question is ты что делал? what did you do? so the answer is Да, (ходил) Yes, (i did). so if you're talking about Как она? How was it? была нормальная It was great. You talked about action in your question but in the answer you talked about condition - it looks like
Did you go to the party ? Yes it was. It was bad. Didn't it sound weird in English?

Originally Posted by Friendy

"Как дела" is short from "как идут дела"

I wonder, why not of "Как (твои) дела"?

Originally Posted by alexei

Originally Posted by Friendy

"Как дела" is short from "как идут дела"

I wonder, why not of "Как (твои) дела"?

Как твои дела is short from Как идут твои дела

Friendy, I've read this thread again and it looks like we can make conversation in russian without any verbs in the present and the future tenses.
-Как дела?
-Нормально.
-Ты сейчас куда?
-Сначала на работу, потом к друзьям.
-Может вечером по пиву?
-Сегодня - нет.
-А завтра как?
-Я завтра в Москву.
-Поездом?
-Нет, самолётом. Назад через неделю....
...and the like.

Originally Posted by JJ

The sentence "я был учитель в Англии..." is not totally incorrect. The nominative case here makes it (IMHO!)incomplete, so if you continue the sentence "...а в России я - президент!" it is quite possible. Or if you just say it dreamily "я был учитель в Англии..." it is possible too especially with another word order - "я был в Англии учитель..."

I spent some time mulling this over. I tried to understand if there was some hidden rule behind the choice. The last sentence in particular interested me. Perhaps the nominative tends to be used where you wish to especially emphasise the noun?
One more question: did your Russian teachers teach you about this at school? Did they force you to use the instrumental in written assignments, for example?

Originally Posted by JJ

Originally Posted by waxwing

Forgive me for the presumption, but I believe the explanation is inaccurate.

IMHO, Russians use the another language idea - in my mind the words connected to each other by endings, and they discribe the state so maybe I don't give much attention for discribing an act therefor, such as

a single, completed round trip in the past.

, sorry

Well, I wouldn't have mentioned this if I thought it was only a matter of perspective; of course a native speaker has a different perspective to a learner.
But I think this:

Originally Posted by JJ

becouse you said "Did..." it is a past simple, so in Russian it is a past form of imperfect verb

..is wrong. A past simple in English does not always correspond to an imperfective verb. If there is any connection at all between tense in English and aspect in Russian, it should be the opposite - i.e. the past simple tense is more likely to correspond to a perfective verb form than an imperfective one. But that heuristic is, of course, utterly unreliable.

(Plus - пошёл vs. ходил is not only perfective vs. imperfective, but also идти-type vs. ходить-type. It's a difficult question for learners; usually the 'completeness' of the trip would be a dead giveaway that a perfective should be used, but in this special case where the trip is not only complete but also there-and-back, we need to use an imperfective form. Very counterintuitive.)

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

Also, i remember in Penguin book, it talked about how.

идти can be used instead of ходить when talking about the trip
1)you went only one way... See the выше предложение
2)you don't care about the return part of the trip(it's irrelevant because obviously you made it back). Although I don't know what page it is on

Dogboy: is it possible you misremembered that (I mean point 2)? If you mean p. 250, on that page it talks about how you can explain the use of ходить for this circumstance in terms of the 'cancellation of result' concept. But I can't find a section saying what you're saying. On the other hand, I see the logic in point 2, and maybe it's true but just not applicable to this context.

Originally Posted by Friendy

Originally Posted by alexei

Originally Posted by Friendy

"Как дела" is short from "как идут дела"

I wonder, why not of "Как (твои) дела"?

Как твои дела is short from Как идут твои дела :lol:

LOL
Friendy, you're so smart, it seems you have answers for any questions, I even forgive you for wrong "right" pronunciation of "спросоня" :D

Originally Posted by JJ

Friendy, I've read this thread again and it looks like we can make conversation in russian without any verbs in the present and the future tenses. :)
-Как дела?
-Нормально.
-Ты сейчас куда?
-Сначала на работу, потом к друзьям.
-Может вечером по пиву?
-Сегодня - нет.
-А завтра как?
-Я завтра в Москву.
-Поездом?
-Нет, самолётом. Назад через неделю....
...and the like. :lol:

Hmm, I see no verb of any tense at all :)

Originally Posted by JJ

Friendy, I've read this thread again and it looks like we can make conversation in russian without any verbs in the present and the future tenses.
-Как дела?
-Нормально.
-Ты сейчас куда?
-Сначала на работу, потом к друзьям.
-Может вечером по пиву?
-Сегодня - нет.
-А завтра как?
-Я завтра в Москву.
-Поездом?
-Нет, самолётом. Назад через неделю....
...and the like.

True. It would be interesting to make a longer (and complete) story in that manner.

Originally Posted by alexei

LOL
Friendy, you're so smart, it seems you have answers for any questions, I even forgive you for wrong "right" pronunciation of "спросоня"

Thank you.

Originally Posted by alexei

Hmm, I see no verb of any tense at all

Except "может" but since it has a special role here, we may turn a blind eye to that.

This is a little off topic, but I really don't think you can teach the beginning level of a subject unless you've a mastery of the subject. Students need 100% accurate information, especially when they're just starting out. The last thing someone needs when they're building the foundation of a new skill is a crack in the metaphorical concrete.