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- "Как ты?"
48 Comments
104
From my understanding, как дела is the idiomatic "how are you?" to ask about someone's health and general state. So when would you use как ты?
Here's a recent discussion ("Как Дела vs. Как Ты"): https://www.reddit.com/r/russian/comments/3rc04a
I am afraid that reddit.com is being banned in my country so i can't read it. Can someone please describe the exact difference between как дела and как ты in a way that a child can understand easily? I've read comments below but still don't understand. Thanks
apparently как ты is more like "how are you holding up" than "what's up". So it's expected that something bad happened and you're asking them how they are doing
- 2247
It's when you already know what's wrong, e.g. the other person is sick and your question implies that you ask how he/she copes with the illness. But it's just how I feel, others may see it as synonymous with Как дела?
Interesting, I am familiar with the more formal как у вас дела? Maybe that sounds old fashioned now?
Could you please tell me what are the literal translations of как ты and как дела are? Thank you.
- 401
My Russian is poor, but from memory: как ты = how (are) you? как дела = how (is it) doing? from the verb де́лать (to do)
- 280
My Russian is even poorer than yours, but as I understand it, дела would be the plural of дело (business). So the literal translation of как дела would be "How (are) things?" or "How (is) business?".
- 401
Then it should be How (are) things? .. You are right, this is a noun, not the verb I was thinking. (Business = Things, but in English Business usually references commercial affairs )
- 280
I think that the question "как дела?" originally was asking information about how someone's commercial affairs (or business) were (was) going and that later it developed into a standard polite greeting formula. In English, business is normally used in the singular, not like in French where one would ask "Comment vont les affaires?, au pluriel. Anyway, we can agree that дела is not a verb (at least there is no such verb form that I know of, but as I already said, my Russian is still very poor). PS How many more languages are you planning to study?
No, it is usually not about commercial affairs. Дела could mean anything that happened with the person recently and was important to him/her. Typical answers are "Отлично/Хорошо/Нормально/Неплохо/Ничего/Сойдёт" and then (depending on your relationships) some possible details may follow, e.g. about graduating the Univercity or something about recent travelling somewhere or some recent health problems, anything related to person's children, visited events etc. Of course if you are not good friends or you will usually here one-two words in response.
Как дела - lit. How's business; how are things; used like "how are you?" Как ты - lit. How are you; implies previously known information; has a meaning like "how are you holding up?" or "how's life treating you?" Similar to the English phrases, it can be used as "how are you" but still has those connotations.
This is my interpretation. If a native speaker could confirm, that'd be great.
Anyone please help me with pronouncing ты? That ы is really hard to pronounce, I watched videos and it's still quite difficult!
It is a rapid elision from something like the u in "uh" to the ee in "beep."
- 457
In an earlier lesson, we have learnt that вы is formal you-form and ты is informal you-form. So, if we don't know someone personally or is elder to us, can we/should we use Как Bы instead of Kak Tы?
Is much better to use Как дела? Is more respectful / Как ты? Is not appropriate to use with people you don't know.
Как ты when you already know something's wrong and Как дела is the normal "how are you?"
They are mostly synonimous, although Как ты? is often used to express more care about the person who you know very well. Я русская :)
Not, как у тебя дела? I had a native speaker from Russia tell me it is like this
This question was already answered by elinoshka one year ago:
как ты when you already know something's wrong and как дела is the normal "how are you?"
:)
I was watching a youtube video about Russian pronunciation and the native speaker said it is not really proper, and that it is a mistake most non-native speakers make, to use как ты. Is there truth behind that?
This is a bit inconsistent. A few slides back, i was asked to translate 'how are you?' and как ты was not accepted (как дело was given as the correct answer) . But here, как ты is translated with 'how are you?'
This question was already answered by elinoshka one year ago:
как ты when you already know something's wrong and как дела is the normal "how are you?"
:)
Как ты? Как поживаешь? Как дела? Как у тебя дела? Как твои дела? = How are you? How is it going?
