"This is not Tom, but my dad."
Translation:Это не Том, а мой папа.
95 Comments
Something that happened a couple questions ago was I got counted wrong for saying papa instead of dad for the translation of папа. What if you added papa in English as an option?
That would be a weird version of English, I guess. Unlike in English, папа is an everyday word in Russian.
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I got a wrong answer for putting in mama somewhere. I think both should be accepted. It's rare relative to mommy and daddy, but lots of people in America do use mama and papa and I wouldn't consider it weird at all.
I think papa is used more often for a grandfather actually in the US but anyone would recognize it to mean father. Daddy or dad would be most common, for sure. I do hear mama all the time though, especially here in the southern states.
My children both call me Mama and often their father Papa, but I know we are minorities. :) I have hear Papa both for a grandfather and father, depending on the region in which I was living.
now that you mention it (now being a mont ago) is папа the only way to refer to someones dad or is there a more formal way like father? it sounds like the way a child would talk.
The formal one is отец. Our course has it a bit later. I think папа will be much more common in spoken speech: отец и мать are even more formal than English mother and father.
It isn't that weird really. I here that often in my circles. (native speaker American English)
That's the thing you can't write Russian in English letters. You might as well try to write arabic with these. Totally different. Foarte diferit. (That was Romanian)
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I'd like to know if I can translate the word ''but'' as ''а''? Because as I already knew that the way as you say that in Russian is ''но.''
Well, in sentences like "This is not a cabbage, it's a potato" you can only use а.
If you use и here, it makes no sense. If you use но, you sound like a prophet teaching young'uns eternal wisdom. For example, this is what is used in «Слова́ не ма́льчика, но му́жа» ("The words not these of a boy, but of a man"). Needless to say, we do not have one sentence in the course where it is remotely justified.
- note also the use of муж for a "man" in my example, which is clearly archaic
In my understanding, "a" always translated to me as "and". "but" it totally new to me and I would always use "и"
Dad = папа Father = отец, папа Grandfather = дедушка Mum = мама Mother = мать, мама Grandmother = бабушка
But isn't Papa feminine since it ends in "a"? After all, grandfather is feminine.
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I thought the same thing Donald, if it ends in 'а' it's femenine. Obviously we're missing something here.
Папа is an irregular noun. You would be correct in thinking that it should be feminine because it ends in a, but since папа represents a male, it is masculine. A general rule of thumb is that if the noun represents a male or female person, it is the respective gender regardless of its ending.
Would someone explain why the following was considered incorrect: "Это не том, но мой папа." I used "но" in place of "а." Until now, I'd never seen а being used this way. Are а and но equivalent?
А and но are not equivalent. Such use if «но» is now quite old-fashioned and associated with bookish words of wisdom (cf. «Слова не мальчика, но мужа»~"Words not of a boy but of a man grown").
Sentences like "A is not X, it's Y" normally use only а. There is no real choice of a conjunction here.
"Ето не Том, а мои папа", can someone tell me if there's something wring about this sentence, -.-
мои is the plural form of мой. so you would say мои папы if you had more than one dad. мой папа for just one
The translation for but is но. I asked a native Russian speaker and he said that your translation literally means "This is not Tom and Tom is my father.
Hey, I have nothing to say but this was my first complete sentence in russian that I could write
why is это required in the sentence? in other words, why is simply не том, а мой папа incorrect?
I just started learning as well, but my impression is that нет is as in "no.", when you are stating it, for example, in an answer to a question—«Это Том?», «Нет.»—, whereas не would be for negating something, perhaps akin to the English "not" as in "this is not Tom": «Это Том?», «Нет, это не Том».
моя describes feminine nouns and мой is for masculine. ex. моя рувашка or моя мама. мой компютер or мой папа
I HAVE A PROBLEM . TOM IS A MAN . ITS SEEM CORRECT BUT IN THIS TRANSLATE I USE ЭТОТ . DUOLINGO SAY ME ITS A MISTAKE . CAN YOU HELP ME ?
This is late and you probably already figured this out, but in case other people are confused -
Этот is a demonstrative pronoun and you would use it if you were saying this not Tom, as in "this particular "not Tom'"". Another example would be "этот кот", as in "this particular cat" (which is not a full sentence).
Это is just "this is", like "this is not Tom". Another example would be "это кот", as in "this is a cat" (which is a full sentence).
это не том, но мой папа was not accepte, I haven't used the course for a long time, but as far as I remembered но fits better in this phrase right?
What is the difference between 'моя' and 'мой'? Do they not have the same meaning? I keep getting them mixed up
The form depends on the noun you attach it to. In the Nominative these would be мой(masc.), моя (fem.), моё(neut.), and мои (pl.). There is no grammatical gender distinction for nouns in plural.
I think it's illustrating an example of an informal word.
Папа is dad, which is informal - if you were to address your dad in Russian, you would call him папа. Отец is father, which is formal. If you were to talk to a relatively new person/stranger, about their father, you would use отец.
If it were saying "but my father" (which is <sub>socially</sub> weird to say in Russian), then you would use отец.
Does that make sense?
I tried Том нет это а папа мой, why is that wrong? is it just the word order?
Not, that's just wrong. Phrased that way it makes as much sense as "Tom no this but dad mine".
Would saying "Не это Том" be grammatically incorrect or a funny way to say it? From what I've gathered, word order in Russian isn't that important but when I put it that way duolingo marked it wrong and wanted Это first
The word order is important in Russian, just not the way it's important in English. "Не" always directly precedes the word it negates. So if you put it right before "это" you would negate "this" instead of "Том". I.e. the result would be "Tom is not this, [Tom is something else]". Which does, admittedly, sound pretty weird.
That makes sense. So I gather that the placement of the noun isn't too important because of the case system, but with modifiers like "He" and "Это" it is because the placement changes the logic of the modifiers, kind of like in English
Pretty much, though we usually change the word order to focus on something and aid comprehension.
не negates what you attach it too, which is different from English, where "not" is primarily something you use to modify a verb. In Russian, "Я спрашивал не об этом" is OK. In English "I asked you not about that" is odd ("That's not what I asked you about" is a much more typical way to express that idead).
I am familiar with russian language having studied it for a few years in moscow i cant understand why "a" is used for "and " and still "but"..am i mistaken what hapoen to "и" and "но"
Hiw do you get the russian keyboard up? Idk how and i keep geyting these wrong
Just write with English letters, instead of doing 'это' you would write eto. That is what i did before i got a Russian keyboard. You can download google Gboard and it had almost all languages. I hope this helps
Got this wrong for not including the comma kinda scummy should really just give it to you
ну вы вообще поводья попутали. " но мой папа" should be accepted. Требую удобной дословности для народа
Can you please put this type of question farther on? I still don't know the letters... Maybe add in an optional side course to learn the alphabet and the sounds?
