"These are lakes."
Translation:Это озёра.
36 Comments
Well I'm lost... What about это implies an invisible "is" that эти does not imply (if that makes sense)?
319
It’s not exactly that it implies invisible is; it’s that this/these have two different kinds of functions in English, which behave a bit differently in Russian.
This/these can be pronouns, in e.g. This is big, These are dogs. The pronoun version always corresponds to это in Russian, regardless of the gender/number of what they’re referring to.
On the other hand, this/these can be determiners, modifying another noun: this cake, these lakes. The determiner version corresponds to это, эта, or эти in Russian, depending on the gender/number of the noun being modified.
So Это человек can mean either This person or This is a person. But Это озёра can only mean These are lakes, with these as a noun — these lakes would be эти озёра, since when these is a determiner for a plural noun, it has to be the plural version эти.
- 319
Putting asterisks around text makes it italics, e.g. Italicise the *third* word gives: Italicise the third word. (Search combinations of “Duolingo”, “formatting”, and “markdown” for more about how this works.) And traditionally, the italic forms of Cyrillic letters are roughly like the cursive forms.
This is a bit font-dependent — most serif fonts have the traditional (cursive-like) italics, but most sans serif fonts use something more like a slanted version of the non-italic forms. On my system, Duo gives a serif font with simple slanted italics — but I guess your system has slightly different fonts, with the traditional italics!
Isn't этот the masculine determiner? So это человек can only mean "this is a person". "This person" would be этот человек.
However, your explanation holds for neuter: это озеро can mean both, "this lake" and "this is a lake"
- 1377
yes, you're correct.
это [есть] озёра. this verb is often omitted.
blue spots on the map, these are lakes - синие пятна на карте, это (есть) озёра
these lakes are clean and cold - эти озёра (есть) чистые и холодные
"lake"="озеро" if a gender neutral noun like lake ends in "-о" then the ending is changed to "-а" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_grammar#Neuter_nouns
azure is based on an persian word for a blue rock "lapis lazuli" ---- озеро is based on a Proto-Indo-European word for "border" (statements may be false as they are only based on a few minutes of internet searching).
Sorry no one responded to your question. Inanimate neuter nouns that end in o have the o changed to a for the plural. These ARE the rules you're seeking:
Ok...this is new information for me and I think I get it now. Thanks. I was confused.
Why is it not spelled озёро when о in the end of a word is pronounced like а anyway?
I wish there were a way to skip the type in Russian as I dont have the keyboard on my phone.
on android: Settings->Language & input->Gboard->Languages->Add keyboard->Russian. Now you can switch between languages by just holding down the space key. пожалуйста
I think it's a bit early in this course to introduce the word "lakes". I think we could start with basic words: family members, animals and day to day objects.
