"I need to cook potatoes for the salad."
Translation:Мне надо приготовить картошку для салата.
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English verbs generally translate into two Russian verbs, one perfective and one imperfective. Perfective verbs are used for a particular instance (Я хочу приготовить борщ на ужин. I want to cook borscht for dinner.). Imperfective verbs are used for general or continuous actions (Я люблю готовить. I like to cook.). There is a lesson a bit down the line about the difference.
Thanks so if i understand well (and i'm not sure because it's still unclear for me but it's why i'm here to learn and improve), i can say :
"Мне надо готовить картошки для салата" which would mean (in general to cook the salad i need potatoes)
Is it correct and possible or am I totally wrong?
Thanks in advance for your help and your answer
3228
but it is said in the lesson that if the word is used as a mass noun, one must use the genitive instead of the accusative. So why is it used here картошку and not картошки?
388
My guess is, when you want to emphasize actually "boiling" potatoes, and not generally preparing them.
313
It seems to be the preferred translation in the Russian-German course. Guess it's more familiar to German speakers that way.
Well, a course teaching English or German does not have to concern itself with native Russian speakers stylistic confusion. We know both картофель and картошка, both помидор and томат. A non-native speaker, however, should know that картофель is used as a name you see in a shop, not something you use in speech.
Similarly, all the English courses I had, taught the word "TV" first. I was pretty surprised to see Duolingo teach "a television" as a word for a TV set.
The animate/inanimate trick is only for two situations:
- masculine consonant-ending nouns (брат, стул, телевизор, актёр, день, февраль)
- ALL nouns in the plural (e.g., сёстры, телевизоры, яйца, кошки, братья)
Nouns that end in -а/-я have a dedicated Accusative: мама→маму, мужчина→мужчину, земля→землю
Neuter nouns ending in -о/-е/ё (or even -мя) do not change: молоко→молоко, море→море, имя→имя
Feminine nouns with a -ь at the end do not change: лошадь→лошадь, ночь→ночь
Russian prepositions have their own case requirements. Для wants the Genitive—and it is in a good company. Many prepositions do! For example, у, из, от, с, без "without", до "before", после "after", кроме "except", около "near", возле "near", против "against", из-за "because of", вместо "instead of".
As stated above:
English verbs generally translate into two Russian verbs, one perfective and one imperfective. Perfective verbs are used for a particular instance (Я хочу приготовить борщ на ужин. I want to cook borscht for dinner.). Imperfective verbs are used for general or continuous actions (Я люблю готовить. I like to cook.). There is a lesson a bit down the line about the difference.
I suppose there's a practical reason. In a lot of cases the accusative is the same as the nominative (neuter nouns, masculine inanimate, even feminine ending -ь) so word order is needed to convey meaning. Whereas the indirect object takes the Dative which I think is pretty much always different to the nominative
You do not need it for the grammar to work. Нужно and надо can perfectly express necessity without specifying who needs that thing (e.g. "Надо подождать"≈It's necessary to wait).
However, it hardly translates to "I need" if you do not have мне. I mean, you may imply it, but in a more literal sense надо alone does not specify it is you and not anyone else.