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- Topic: Russian >
- "Мама там."
168 Comments
It worked for me now. I wrote it in English instead of American English.
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Well, Hurray! This means Duolingo took three years to include the English English version.
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BRITISH English. Unless, like Henry Higgins, you don't think Americans speak English.....carefeul!
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Hahaha. Yes, I know people say British English. But they also speak English in Wales and Scotland, and I meant what they speak in England.
why did mam get downvote bombed, mam/ma is used in areas of the UK, mum is only used in the south. mum is accepted so mam should be too
colloquially yes mam is used in english, but in english language education it is spelt "mum". When creating a database like this it is much simpler to stick with the correct form rather than inputting regional spelling mistakes.
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Hang on! Yes, they're all regional (aren't all languages/ dialects?) but they're not mistakes! But I agree it's better to spell it the standard way that's taught.
Come on! What's the benefit to include every possible existing variants, when it costs a lot of time to add them, and it's not the purpose of this course, I prefer they spend their time wisely to add Russian variants to allow me to learn them! They work for free, their time is not infinite or extensible. Just stick to the standard "mum" and "mom", what's the problem?
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PERCE_NEIGE (what a lovely name) , I think you're absolutely right that it's the Russian variants people want to learn. This is not an English course. Have a lingot.
In Russian it's very common to omit the "is/are" verb. If you want to emphasize it, you can use "Есть"
but nobody says "Мама есть там" or "Я есть студент". I think only in case of having something you can say: "У меня есть это", translated as "I have it". Or if you use "есть" as verb meaning "to eat" - есть, кушать.
You're right. "Есть" meaning "to be" is generally used to establish the existence of something, and it's not really a true verb, because it doesn't have a conjugation (any longer). You can say something like "Там есть велосипед" to establish the fact that there's a bicycle somewhere.
In casual spoken Russian there is simply not a verb "to be" in the present tense. For the past and future tenses, as well as when you need the infinitive, you use быть. (E.g., может быть = maybe (or may be: Это может быть Том. = It may be Tom.))
Есть = "to eat" is not the same verb, but it's a real verb, since you can conjugate it into the different forms ("I eat," "you eat," "he eats," etc.).
In military parlance, "Есть" is used much in the same way one says "Roger" in English.
A little remark: to be translates as быть am, are, is - as есть (very rare archaic form of "are" is суть) she/he will - она/он будет they will - они будут I will - я буду I(male)/he was - я/он был I(female)/she was - я была They/you were - они/Вы были Thou (this form remane in russian) wast - ты был (male) / ты была (female). These all are forms of the verb "to be" in russian.
This is one the basic differences. When Russian man started to learn English (Spanish, German) he thinks "why are they using "is (are)" ?".
yeah we turkish people kinda have the same reaction when we are learning a foreign language
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I think I finally understand the Hollywood stereotype of a Russian person speaking English. All because is is omitted lol
To answer everyone. Let's consider a situation: Dad is next to a boy and mom is at the opposite side of the room.
The boy: "Dad is here and mom is (over) there", "Папа здесь, а мама там".
Other phrases:
"Here is mom" - "Вот мама". "Mom is here" - "Мама здесь" or "Мама тут".
"There is Mom" translates differently, depending on context:
"Look, there is mom over there!" - "Смотри, вон там мама!". "There is mom in the room" - "В комнате есть мама".
But:
"Mom is in the room" - "Мама в комнате".
As I'm not a native speaker, so I can be mistaken. But for me "mom is there" means that mom is in some place I'm indicating. While "there is mom" sounds like just a fact that mom exists in general.
When is там used as a question (like: мама, тим там? Mom, is Tim there?) versus a phrase as in this exercise? Repondez, svp.
The same sentence for Mom is here and Mom is there? That is confusing???
"Mom is here" would be "Мама тут", "there" has different translation - "там"
I originally put "is mom there?" and it was wrong, so what is difference between hearing "Мама там" and "Мама там?" Is there an intonation sound I should be listening for when it is a question?
The "alphabet" section should be the letters and what sounds they make not full words.
Yes, but it would be boring. Only letters will be for one of the next lessons I guess.
I think that the translation should accept "mother" with an article like: "The mother is there."
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I believe it doesn't accept it because "mother" in Russian is мать (if I'm not mistaken). So the accurate translation for мама would be "mom".
338 !!! Streak... In your opinion, would a person at level 25 in Russian be considered fluent?
I don't think it's that simple, because the level only relates to how often a person has studied, not how thoroughly or how far.
One could theoretically get to level 25 just by doing the introductory lesson again and again and again, in which case one would definitely not be functionally fluent.
It also doesn't take into account study outside of Duolingo; someone who has got to level 25 but has never spoken to a Russian person/used their Russian outside Duolingo is unlikely to be able to use the language in a way most would consider fluent.
On the other hand, someone who was already fluent in Russian could probably test out of large sections of the tree and complete it with a relatively low level, which would be a poor indication of their fluency.
I see so the level is more a representation of time spent than ability. Thank you replying.
Yes. If you were speaking in a formal situation you would probably not use мама, but мать. There's some overlap — you might hear a teenager calling out "Мать!" to get someone's attention, but as a rule of thumb, mom = мама, mother = мать.
Is the - Supposed to make a pause when speaking, or is it only there in writing?
There's not necessarily a pause in speaking. The use of the " — " in writing is a bit complicated (like all punctuation rules), but I don't think it's something you should worry about starting out.
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I am wonderng this for a while... Where is the " — " gone? When I first did this lesson it was there. In another comment I read that it is not a help for learners as someone guessed. It is the way it is written in Russian. Why has someone removed it? How am I supposed to learn it when it is not there? Does it show up later in the course?
Thank you. Corrected. I have been learning Eanglish for only about one year and I still make mistakes sometimes. I have to be more attentive. "is" instead of "are" is an absolutely stupid mistake...
It took me 4-5 years to learn English, so you must be doing very well. I hope in one year I will be able to hold a simple conversation in Russian.
If you want it then you can do it ). I whish you to learn Russian as soon as posible!
At least you will surely be able to tell someone that your motor is in the subway or that is not your dad! ;)
Can I keep the lesson switched to Cyrillic and type in the Latin alphabet? So far I've switched to to Latin when I've had the listening exercises and then switched it back to Cyrillic.
I've brought up an onscreen keyboard and have added the Cyrillic alphabet, then I just switch to Latin when I'm translating from Russian. Hope that helps.
The "is" is not in the phrase. Please, click in "Tips 7 notes", it's at the left-top part of the page. I didn't understood it too, but someone said it so I clicked and have some precious tips :) Those tips are also available, sometimes, >before< start the unit, what is very helpful.
Report it, the course is still in beta so not all possible correct translations have been added.
They cannot include all the variants, it would be losing precious time on non interesting details.
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Ouch!Russian hurts.I'm septalingual and Russian is not similar to any one of these: English German Hindi Kannada Tamil Spanish Malayalam
What's the difference between "There is mom" and "Mom is there"? Because I wrote the first one and somehow it's wrong.
What's the reasoning behind it not accepting "There is mom."? "Mom is there" is the correct answer but re-arranging the words slightly causes for a wrong answer?
So tam means "is there", which is fine to use if we are saying an object or person is in a specific place. But would you use tam in a sentence such as "is there a way out of here?"
There is/are in most cases are translated into Russian as "есть" and imply existence. Is there out of here? = Есть ли выход отсюда?
What's wrong whith "Mom is there"? Dialogue: Where is Mom (Где мама?) Mom is there (Мама там). I'm a native Russian btw
Why was I so careless? I wrote 'there is mother' instead of 'Mom is there'. Now they will know I am not native speaker. грустный!
Why is Mama not accepted? We use that as a variant on mother in English too.
I put mam is there surely that is right eventhough i didnt write mom but why would or should i have to
I Don't know why but I actually type ,,mum this is there".. Then it corrected me and I was like..,,what the heck did I just type here? "
There is mom should technically be right, but i get it if there's more important stuff to fix
How do I learn the alphabet in Russian with English as the counterpart?
In Russian we don't use "to be" verb normally (no one say "Мама есть там"), because of context we can get that mom is located there, but you can use it if you wanna say that mom has smth ("У мамы есть " - "Mom has ") or if, for example, animals are in some country but we may not to know about it ("В России есть медведи" - "There are bears in Russia")
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I don't hear the M in там when spoken by the male speaker. It sounds like да. The female speaker on the other hand is very clear.
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As a speaker of Brazilian Portuguese, I have the impression that he's nasalizing the first A in мама while he speaks. Well, in fact Russian has no nasal vowels, right? That serves as an initial tip for pt-br people who are learning Russian. ;)
When they slow this guy's voice down, it sounds like he gargled broken glass and it's really hard to understand. Is it just me?
I heard "mama te amo" for spanish speakers. Meaning Mom I love you. Weird
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English, unlike say Latin, does NOT mean the same. These may express the same idea, but one is more used than another, depending on person, subject. etc. It's as subtle a thing as 'Let's eat, Grandma' and 'let's eat grandma.'
here meas здесь definitely. Там is "there", "over there". Pointing to (showing) the exact place where she really is.
While I've now at least managed to 'learn' the Cyrillic alphabet, I'm lost as to how to proceed from here on. Do I learn the 'words' separately in English before tryna 'spell' them out in russian, or do I directly try to wire my brain to 'learn russian'? To Cyrllic or not to Cyrllic? If anyone out there can shed some light, I'll be indebted as currently, I believe I can identify with an alien that's crash-landed on a foreign land and the only way to make sense of anything lies in this app. (For the sake of which, I assume English in the app = native alien language) I don't intend to spam, but I'm gonna keep posting this comment in these threads till some saint fixes my (malfunctioning) translator or at least tells me how on [insert native planet] I can 'learn' Russian without resorting to violence or flat-out rote-learning. (Could never grasp that particular skill either in school) That is all. I'll be waiting in my smoking, broken space craft, possibly stringing together Cyrllic syllables and consonants to form (most definitely) pure nonsense. At least there's no Russian-speaker nearby to offend. Joy.
So I was wondering about там; some languages distinguish between
"this" - an object by the speaker
"that" - an object by the listener
"that [over there]" - an object by neither the speaker nor the listener
Is там both of the last two cases, or only one of them (and, if so, which one?)
What's the difference between tam and bot? I don't get it ! Is it the same or what?
If I have understood you right, then "tam" (spells as "там") means that something or someone is located in the direction you point to. "Bot" (spells as "вот") in its turn means that something or someone is located in the direct spot you point at.
and so it begins. introducing words that sound the same such as dom and tom in the first lesson.
How else will you learn to distinguish between those sounds if you don't start from the beginning?
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A "mummy" is a body that has been preserved for burial by embalming and wrapping in bandages in Egypt long ago. Using it to describe ones mother is insulting. "Mam" [which is closer to the Russian] is used in my country.
While i agree that "Mummy" shouldn't be allowed here, it is definitely not insulting to use it to describe your mum, as it's generally used in the UK by toddlers instead of "mum".
