"Tell me again, is my mom at your place?"
Translation:Скажи ещё раз, моя мама у тебя?
136 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Can someone tell me how or when to use "скажите" vs "скажи"? The both mean "tell me", no? What am I missing?
1289
Скажите is more formal or plural, so used with вы. Скажи is less formal and singular, so used with ты.
Is that the difference between ты and вы? Ты is singular and вы is plural? I've been wondering.
Yes, вы is plural and also used to address someone in a more polite way, whereas ты is singular and used in a more casual sense.
Вы literally translates as "you" while ты is "thee". "You" was both plural and polite form, with "thee" being informal singular. But in 17th/18th centuries, people became so afraid to offend eachother, they stopped using the informal terms altogether!
Excellent explanation. Can you also explain the difference between "сказать" and "скажите"? I'm stumped. Thanks.
- 1098
Сказать - to tell скажите - tell (me)
i want сказать something
скажите me something
Скажи ещё рас, моя мама у тебя? или Скажите ещё раз, моя мама у вас?
скажи - тебя / скажите - вас
NOW I GET IT! There has to be agreement between the formal and informal. I wrote "Скажите ещё раз, моя мама у тебя?" It was incorrect. Now I understand: "тебя" was the only choice given, so it had to be "скажи" (to match the informal "тебя").
- 164
There are two alternatives for the answer: Polite form "скажите ещё раз (пожалуйста), мама у вас? "... Informal form "скажи ещё раз, мама у тебя? "
You can say it, "мне" was added to the database. Just remember that while in English you are not supposed to use "tell" without "me" in Russian "скажите"/"скажи" is perfectly fine.
Based on how this thread looks, I may not find an answer here, but I have two questions:
1) Why is it "у" versus "в"? How do you determine which to use for "at"?
2) How is "your place" indicated? I'm assuming by "тебя", but I don't quite understand why. I know it is "you" or indicative of speaking directly to someone. It seems to me the translation would be more along the lines of, "Tell me again, is my mom with you?" which can be very different from being at your place.
Help?
I looked on the internet and "y" correspond to "by, close to" and "B" correspond to "in, inside". "your place" is a bad translation, in english it would be something like "close to you", which in russian is translated "у тебя". The problem here is that russian and english are very different and some expression just can't be translated in a perfect way
In British shows, people always talk about "going back to yours" or "spending the night at mine" when referring to people's homes. I figured it was kinda like that?
у is used with the genitive, the equivalent of у тебя is at yours, that's why it says " 'y' тебя"
у has the meaning of "at" and "next to" and is used only as a preposition of the genitive case
в is more like "in" and "welcome 'to' ...", and used to say e.g. at 8 o'clock. в is used as a preposition indicating the accusative case
i hope that helped
скажите is the plural form, to be used with вы instead of ты... This would be way more polite, and thus should be the best answer in this course segment about politeness! Please report it as correct, and let's hope they update the answers.
- 1492
But then, wouldn't it have to be combined with у вас in the second part?
So I guess it is the combination of скажите and у тебя that gets us marked as wrong.
I think that since the sentence reads as "Tell me again, is my mom at your place?" it implies that it is informal since it is giving a command. Where as if the sentence were "Excuse me, tell me again, is my mom at your place?" the "excuse me" would imply that it is formal and thus more polite in which we would use скажи́те.
I think you could use either while still having the same meaning, but your phrase is different from whats supposed to be translated. I also think that it is more formal, which is something you would only use if you were sure that your mom wasn't having some kind of relation you didn't know about.
I typed скажи ещё раз, у тебя моя мама and got this wrong. Why can't у тебя come before моя мама?
This question made me quit for like 6 months and im back thinking of quitting again now lol
Do a few of the other exercises in between, then come back to this one. It'll take a few repetitions, and eventually you'll get it.
This particular exercise has several difficult elements in it. Pretty hard for a beginner level task!
It's incredibly difficult. I've decided to just answer it and move on for now, hopefully it will make more sense in the future, too complicated for me.
- 1997
Duo is wrong on SO MANY levels here! Being a native Russian who born en grew up in Russia, I can say that they give only one translation while there are several possible and no one of the is wrong. If they put it this way: Tell me..., then it's very strange of them not to accept Скажи мне... Meaning same thing, you can say rather скажи.. or скажи мне in Russian, both are correct. Then - you also can say rather "у тебя" or "у вас", BOTH ways are correct, both mean "at your place. As long as you place вас it's OK. If you use the pollite way of speaking, then you'd say Скажите мне еще раз, моя мама у Вас? So, you would use the capital В (вы - you plural, Вы - singular pollite form) So, as you see there are really many ways to say same thing in Russian, all of them are right, but non of them is accepted by Duo Скажи мне еще раз, моя мама у тебя Скажи еще раз, моя мама у вас Скажите мне еще раз, моя мама у Вас Скажи мне снова/опять, мама моя у тебя (yes, you can switch places as well: моя мама = мама моя. so, that makes even more variations of the translation)
Скажи ещё раз, моя мама у вас? is yet another of the answers inexplicably marked wrong.
Вас and скажи do not match. Скажи езё раз, моя мама у тебя would work because the politeness matches throughout the whole sentence. If you use вас you must also use скажите
- 840
But I can speak with one friendly скажи, but I can ask у вас like in plural - in the room, where there is more people
- 1385
So, since this question seems to create many doubts and a lot of discussion, I'll just try to recap what I've been reading around in other people's posts (I'm not expert, I'm studying Russian myself - please let me know if there's mistakes and I'll edit).
All the following should be correct:
- 1) Скажи [мне] ещё раз/снова/опять, моя мама у тебя?- informally asking one person
- 2) Скажи [мне] ещё раз/снова/опять, моя мама у вас?- informally asking where вас means more than one person (ie a family)
- 3) Скажите [мне] ещё раз/снова/опять, моя мама у Вас? - formally asking one or more people
legend:
[optional stuff - correct both with or without]
a/b/c - alternative options all correct
Unfortunately duolingo seems not to accept all the sentences that use мне, any alternative to ещё раз, and the second sentence. As for the first 2 issues, I'm not sure we are supposed to know those words when we first encounter this lesson (yet it would make sense to accept them). As for the last I assume Duo here wants us to focus on the difference between formal and informal, so I can kind of understand not accepting the second sentence.
Answers accepted by Duolingo:
- a) Скажи ещё раз, моя мама у тебя?
- b) Скажите ещё раз, моя мама у Вас?
NB: it makes no sense to complain about it here, as it would only cause unnecessary clutter and notifications to other users. Just report it as "my answer should be accepted", as with any sentence that you're 100% sure (after checking in the discussions) would be a correct answer (I guess false report don't help much correcting the real mistakes, so don't abuse it).
How is the "me" implied in "Скажи ещё раз"?
I kind of want a мне In there somewhere?
"ещё раз" must come after "Скажи"? Why? Why not "Ещё раз cкажи, моя мама у тебя?"
- 225
what is the function of the word 《раз》in this sentence? haven't seen it anywhere before this
i got this wrong for saying скажите instead of скажи. i thought they were the same thing...
It is valid to use скажите, but you must thereafter follow it with the polite form. The sentence would therefore become "скажите ещё раз, моя мама у вас?". I just got this wrong as well, having used скажите along with тебя.
В 99% от перестановки "у тебя моя мама" или "моя мама у тебя" суть не меняется и так и так правильно!
So you can leave out "place" like you can in english. Weird realization though, since I was looking for the word for place for a good while.
In American English we say "at your place," but also "at your mom's," omitting "place," as it's understood. But in British vernacular you'll hear "shall we meet at yours?" also omitting place, something we don't do in America. But this is common in other languages, namely French: "chez moi," "chez toi," "chez Paul"; and German: "bei mir," "bei dir," etc. So Russian is no different.
I said сказат in stead of скажи. What is the difference, and how do I know when to use one instead of the other?
how do you phonetically transcribe ещё ? I don't have a russian keyboard on my work computer. I've tried everything possible: eshhyo, yeshcho, yesho, yeshyo.
I can't find what duolingo will accept!
- 1997
You have to use the right form of the noun (Genitive=Родительный): "скажи ещё раз, моя мама у тебя дома" - Notice the ending. Check out these forms of the word ДОМ Дом - дома - дому - дом - домом - доме
And correct - the right word is ещё, the word ешё does not exist
- 1997
Sorry, I probably wasn't completely awake while writing this. Although the forms are correct, but it's the answer to a question which no one asked. The reason you have to say "у вас дома" is because "дома" means "at home", while дом = house. You just can't say "у вас дом" and mean THAT what Duo had asked. Although there is a possibility to say "у вас дом" with another meaning "у нас - квартира, а у вас - дом" . Meaning "we have an apartment and you have a house". See the difference in the meaning? I'm a native Russian, born and grew up there. I'm SO happy I didn't have to learn it as a foreign language. It's a pain...
"I'm SO happy I didn't have to learn it as a foreign language. It's a pain..."
yeap
Is скажи мне wrong in every context? If so, why is it still in the hints? If not, what makes it wrong here?
Think of it like the expression "Say" in English. "Say, is my mom at your place?" If you add "мне" it makes it "Say to me, is my mom at your place?," which changes it into a command to repeat back to me what I just said.
What case is being used after "у"? Why isn't being used the prepositional case?
- 1385
I think that's genitive and it's what many prepositions take... but I'm learning myself and haven't studied prepositional case yet
- 1385
you can say both
Скажи ещё раз, моя мама у тебя
and
Скажите ещё раз, моя мама у вас
you can't say скажите with у тебя; you can't say скажи with у вас.
as simple as that
It's the difference in English between "say again" and "again say"; you'll never hear the latter. Same in Russian; word order makes a difference.
- 699
I got this wrong because I wrote "ещё рас", because it sounded to me like it ended in "с" rather than "з". I'm having a fair amount of trouble learning to spell basic words in Russian.
All I've heard about скажите или скажи is formal vs. informal. It doesn't explain why, in this sentence, the formal скажите is incorrect? I suspect it is because of the use tell me again, as opposed to saying please tell me again? But I don't know. Interjecting word please would tend to make this sentence a little more formal.
Both скажи and скажите are accepted. Just make sure to use the same form of "you" at the end of the sentence:
скажи ... у тебя
скажите ... у вас
- Скажи ещё раз, моя мама у тебя?
- Скажите ещё раз, моя мама у вас? Both sentences are correct, but you would say the first one to your friend ("ты") and the second one to someone you didn't know well ("вы")
- 699
Have you gone to the Russian forum and read the posts that are marked sticky on the popular tab, meaning they're for all students, especially the one about Russian and the Alphabet and the Keyboard?
So given that we don't know to whom the question is being addressed, why is скажите incorrect? If it's not clear from tge question, I would generally assume formal just to be safe - and yet it's marked incorrect.
- 479
It is incorrect to use formal скажите with informal тебя; you can't mix & match, you have to be consistent.
when you report a fault or an error or a symbol not on your laptop, where does it go and does anything actually happen?
- 699
I think error reports are supposed to go to the maintainers of that language course to be checked.
Although, they're obviously only going to look at issues with the course language, not issues with your laptop.
- 699
When that happens, or you think that happens, I recommend copying your exact answer, using a computer copy to get it exactly, and then pasting it in here (in the sentence discussion) to ask what is wrong with it (if anything is), or whether it should be accepted.
- 1477
I just wanted to say, I had the multiple choice of this question and had the option of either скажи or скажите.
But since the only genitive 'you' i could choose from was тебя, the correct option is скажи since we need informal.
Hope this helps someone.
Скажи ещё раз моя мама у тебя? I translate it like" tell me once again do you have my mother? Is this the correct translation. I know literally we don't say like this in English
- 479
It's not a "correct translation" because it doesn't convey the correct meaning in English. The meaning that needs to be conveyed is "... is my mother at your place?"
One place to look it up is at openrussian.org. If you look up Скажи there, it will show you the page for the infinitive form сказать. Once there, scroll down to "conjugation", and then "imperative".
I mean... how are we supposed to know to use informal instead of formal... скажите should be accepted here. I believe when you have no idea who you're talking to, that the more formal the better...
- 538
It is accepted. But of course you have to be consistent: if you use скажите then you can't use тебя.
- 479
I think because the question is not whether моя мама exists (есть), but whether she is at your place or not (быть--but that verb is omitted in Russian in the present tense).
- 479
I recommend always copying and pasting your exact answer; otherwise, nobody can really give you any help, as we don't know what your answer was.
"Снова" is semantically closer to "anew". So, you can use it, but that sounds a bit weird.
I pray to be able to do this course in french. It will sure be less confusing regarding the formal/informal form
По моему мнению, перевод некорректный "again" - "снова", а "еще раз" - "one more time". Перевод "Скажи мне снова, моя мама у тебя?" не принимает.
Tell me again, I say скажите ещё раз but it's wrong because should have been скажи ещё раз.. just why...