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- "I need to cook potatoes for …
"I need to cook potatoes for the salad."
Translation:Мне надо приготовить картошку для салата.
57 Comments
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.
The sentence asks for 'potatoes' plural, which should be картошки not картошку
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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?
This does not explain why Картошки is wrong, it only explain why Картошку!
This needs to have both answers accepted
I use the keyboard to write, as I've taught myself to write russian with it. Now, it said 'cook potatoes for the salad'. Logically I assumed they meant the word that actually means putting stuff in boiling water, you know... сварить... and it was wrong o.o when do you use that one?
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My guess is, when you want to emphasize actually "boiling" potatoes, and not generally preparing them.
Картофель is what is written on a price tag. We are not teaching it as a word that is common in speech, which it is not. Not unheard of, sure.
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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.
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Why not. Right now I never watch television. I dont even have one. Too busy for tv anyway. Sunce both are used equally, at least in USA, why wouldnt you want to know it?
I was talking about a television. As in "We bought a 4K television yesterday".
I have the same question. I suppose сварить is to boil, but it was listed in the hover hints as cook
I get that the perfective is used here, but why can't the imperfective be used in this case? I mean, it's not like you're only half-cooking the potatoes, right?
Potato, carrot, onion, cabbage are mass nouns in Russian. Both картошка (spoken) and картофель (formal) are primarily used in the singular.
A single potato is картофелина (if you ever need it).
can someone explain why картошка is in the accusative form? i thought we didn't apply it for inanimate nouns?
what's wrong with saying: "мне надо приготовить картошка для салата"
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
Is this why "лук" is unchanged in a previous sentence: "Ты хочешь нарезать лук?"
I was having trouble reconciling how картошка changes to картошку in the accusative and лук stays the same. They are both these mass nouns but the latter ends in a masculine consonant.
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Reread Shady's above you. Лук is masc, mass noun Картошка, fem mass noun. Mass nouns remain in singular. Лук, doesnt change because masc inanimate doesn't change in accusative. Картошка. Fem, inanimate changes to картошку in acc because a always will change to y in inanimate acc.
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.
We definitely boil, roast, fry etc. potatoes and not cook potatoes in English, for a salad it would be boil. I don't know what the perfective of сварить is but I think that is the one that should be used here.
сварить is perfective as it is. The imperfective is варить.
As far as I could tell, we use варить a bit more often than an English speaker would find comfortable: we "boil" vegetables, eggs, meat, jam, soups, and pasta. Quite a lot of cooking is described as варить as long as you put the stuff in the pot with some water rather than use a frying pan or an oven (there is also тушить "braise", when the amount of water is small).
That means that prigotovit is equal to gotovit. What is the clue here, when to use prigotovit and when gotovit?
I am constantly getting word-order wrong - in this case, reversing pregotovit' & kartoshky. Is it better grammar to put the two verbs together?
As in English, the standard order is verb-direct object. Cook potatoes = готовить картошку. Indirect objects are different hence мне надо literally to me it is necessary
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.
