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- Topic: Russian >
- "Good night, mom."
"Good night, mom."
Translation:Спокойной ночи, мама.
89 Comments
That's a greeting, not a goodbye. If you walk into a supermarket at 2 AM, you can say добрый ночи to someone. If you're wishing them off to bed, yoy say спокойный ночи.
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In one sentence, they use a conjugation of добре and in another they use спокойной for "good" and I haven't figured out if they are interchangeable or if they somehow depend on context.
This might be old but i'll put this here for if anyone else comes by. Спокойной translates to calm, and спокойной ночи is a farewell phrase used the same way as good night in english, добрый вечер is a greeting that translates to good evening
I agree... Duolingo does a terrible job explaining differences like these... they just throw them at you. Gives me the impression of a course made by robots using Google Translate (I know this isnt the case but the lack of more in depth explanations gives this general feeling in my opinion).
There is no difference in meaning. I am a born Russian, and this Duolingo-implied difference in meaning is ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤. They mark доброе утро (добрый день, вечер) and et cetera as valid translations to good morning (afternoon/day and evening). Sometimes, they even mark good night as доброй ночи. But not this time. Why? It's a bug, I guess, or they missed it.
Don't worry - there is literally no difference at all between using доброй or спокойной ночи. They both mean that you are wishing another person to have a kind, or a quiet, peaceful night. And both are mostly just idiom noise by now because no one actually pays attention to what is being wished in particular, or why we have to say it before night. We just do. It's polite, and bears almost no meaning on its own. That's all.
But remember that спокойной (спокойного) can't be used with anything else but "night". Using that qualifier for "day" or "evening" or even "morning" is not a thing, and would likely sound stupid.
Although, when you are making a joke between two friends (or close family members) you might use спокойного дня (спокойного вечера, спокойного утра) when the person wants to take an uncharacteristic nap during the day (evening or morning, respectively). Simply by association with the "good night" idiom. It won't be correct, but people sometimes use it as a joke.
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I took courses with deep explanation. Every lesson explained it all. All you had to do was memorize the vocabulary, the 7 different cases each of which had different endings for masculine ,feminine or neutral nouns, plus animate. And each of those were different depending on what letters the noun ended with, and if course many were irregular. And then each one was either singular or plural . And some had several different cases depending on if was preceded by a verb of motion or certain numbers, pronouns or adjectives. There was a grammatical chart so each word could change in the beginning, middle or end as much as 30 or more ways. If course, many were exceptions. Then the other parts of speech, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and even numbers did the same, each eith charts. All clearly explained. I think I gave up completely by lesson 7. I had some Russian friends but they didnt know the grammar either in spite of 10 years of it mandatory in schools. So you should thank God for Duo, because you learn like kids do, by repitition, hearing it,seeing it and believe it or not, its presented to make grammatical sense. Its fun, frustrating and free. And the explanations here on the forum are excellent.
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I don't access to any of your lessons or charts on my phone app. Nothing has been explained clearly. I've had to figure all this on my own. The only advantage this course offers is that it's free.
The courses weren't offered by Duolingo, as I understand. What JanetGidle means is that grammar in Russian is very heavy and complicated, so it would feel hopeless if it was just thrown in your head from the beginning. You will first learn sentences, idioms, to get familiar with the language. They you will begin to recognize patterns. And then it the grammar, the charts will make sense. Look at the "Tips" at each lesson for that (sometimes not available on mobile version though, check the web version).
спокойной ночи is incorrect. Спокойной is the singular form, yet ночи is plural. It should be спокойные ночи.
Спокойной ночи is correct. It means = have a quiet night. Спокойные ночи = the nights are quiet.
See the difference? One is singular, another plural. Ночь is a feminine word, singular, meaning "night", used in Nominative or Accusative Cases. When it is used in Instrumental Case, it becomes "ночью". When you use this word in Genitive, Dative, or Prepositional Cases, it becomes "ночи" and thus all of its adjectives (спокойная, in this specific example) have to shift accordingly.
You are being confused by the adjective, I understand. But check out the usage of спокойной. It is never used with anything but the feminine singular in Accusative, Genitive, Prepositional, Instrumental or Dative Cases. Which this sentence exactly happens to be.
So Nominative Case = спокойная ночь. (A quiet night) . Accusative Case = Cпокойной ночи. ((Have) a quiet night).
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I believe that спокойной ночи is in the genitive case. The accusative would be спокойную ночь.
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If the genitive case is 'спокойной ночи' and is saying 'have a good night', what is the accusative 'спокойную ночь' saying?
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I erred in my earlier comment; it was two months ago and I know more now. Here, спокойной ночи is in the dative case, which is used for indirect objects. (The genitive declension for this phrase is the same.) You are wishing someone a good night. (Я желаю тебе) спокойной ночи = I wish you a calm night. The accusative case is used for direct objects. For example, Я люблю спокойную ночь. I love a calm night.
not exactly
you can use доброй ночи as a greeting and rarely as a farewall,
but you can never use спокойной ночи as an evening greeting, only as a evening farewall or a wish before bed
It's in genitive. It is commonly used in "wish sentences" - which in english stuff like "have a nice day"
Why "Доброй ночи, мама" is not accepted? it is common figure of speech in Russian and completely synonymous
Why do you use "добрый" for "good afternoon" but "спокойнй" for "goodnight"?
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Oops. I deleted my post because the other two posters were correct and I was not. I did not realize this would also delete theirs because they had replied to mine. So I will just reiterate what they said. The final syllable is unstressed, so it is pronounced as a reduced ой, still a dipthong. (The difference between stressed ой and unstressed ой is exactly the same as the difference between stressed о and unstressed о.) Said quickly, it can sound like an i to a someone still getting used to Russian pronunciation (like me).
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No worries, I've still got the Email notification which has the original comment! I'll post them as a future reference for future references, with the respective commenter's name.
And thanks for confirming that I wasn't the only one who heard "nee"!
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https://www.duolingo.com/profile/JanetGidle JanetGidle has commented as "I'm not a native speaker, still learning. I have always heard it pronounced that way. My guess is, since it's ой, not oи, it's like мой, in that both letters are pronounced separately. Also in the stressed part of the word the o part is an aw sound because of the stress. The end ой is Unstressed so the o sounds more like ah. Stressed spakOIN Unstressed at end - more like aye. Hope this helps. An easier or better explanation by a native speaker would be great!"
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https://www.duolingo.com/profile/DVOEII DVOEII has commented as "Если вы слышите тот же sound line что и я, где говорит мужчина, то произносит он достаточно нативно. В конце слова "спокойной" нет звучит "ы", там редуцированный звук "о". P.S. I think JanetGidle proposed very realistic explaination."
Just found a website that says that спокойной is used with family, while доброй is more for people outside of the family circle. Is this correct?
The first word means "quiet" or "easy", not "good" as in good night. The frase you are taking as correct really means "easy night, mom" or "quiet night, mom"
why does it keep saying i'm wrong when i spell it as "spokoynoy nochi, mama." ? isn't that how it is spelled? when i googled it to make sure, it said i was correct. i don't know any other way to spell it without the russian alphabet, and i know the alphabet i am using right now isn't the problem, because i've answered questions like this before the same way and have gotten them right.
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You could try "spokoynoi", but why don't you just install a Russian keyboard? It's easy. See the sticky note on keyboards in the Russian language forum: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/11449014
My personal problem with this is that it is not a literal translation since as was mentioned before the literal neaning of the correct sentence is have a calm night
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It depends on keyboard.
If you are using PC with Windows OS, I recommend you to add Russian keyboard from the settings and use Touch keyboard (A keyboard that shows on screen and can be typed with a mouse). In that case it's at the most left upper corner.
If you are using an Android Smartphone with default keyboard settings, it's in the most upper left corner as well. If you still can't find it, try press longer, or holding on the и for a second, you should see it.
The application wants me to type an answer in Russian but does not provide for a Russian keyboard. Nor did the App provide the "word bank."
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Gosh why are you guys making a huge problem out of it? Install another language on your google keyboard app. And problem solved.
I wrote it in Latin letters as "Spokoynoy nochi, mama", perhaps make different transliterations correct? I could have easily also written "spokojnoj nochi, mama" or something else.
We don't have control over which transliterations to make correct, so it'd probably be better for you to use the Cyrillic letters.
Tablets are good for this as it is easy to get Cyrillic. Laptops often need a payment for a new format
You can install new keyboards on you laptop for free. Just go to "Settings", then "time and language" (this might be different, depending on your laptop). You'll have to buy keyboard stickers if you don't know where each letter is, or you can just print out a keyboard layout.
or, if in Windows, click on the start button and search for "on-screen keyboard", then a map of the current language will be shown on the screen. You just need to change to the Russian layout and the map will show where the letters are on the keyboard
If you do it on your phone thry actually have a bunch of different language keyboards at no cost!
