60 Comments
These really are valuable drills, Im picking up common patterns very quickly. Excellent.
All mean "our", and unfortunately these also have other forms. However: наш = masc.,наше = neuter., наша = fem., наши = plural
Thanks. Are these endings (е=N а=F и=Pl) consistent across all the possessives pronouns etc.?
Not really. Your (ты): Твой (m). Твоё (n), Твая(f). Твои(pl). His: его. Her:её.
Would it depend on the word that is being used or the person you are talking to? For example: I say "Your table" to a man. Does the "your" become "твая" because of the table being feminine, or is it "твой"?
It only depends on the object's gender. In your example, the table (стол) is masculine. So you use твой стол to both a man or a woman.
I'm a little baffled with that. If 'наш' is plural anyway, then why is there a plural form OF the plural form...наши?
The word наш is for when what you have is singular (our egg) and наши for when what you have is plural (our eggs). In English, these to forms of our just happen to be the same.
Even the possessive pronoun depends on the gender of the nouns (masculin feminine neuter and plural) ex мой моя моё мои all refer to the possessive pronoun "my"
An egg? You were lucky. When I were a lad we used t' dream of having an egg. 15 of us used to live in a shoebox in t'middle of road, and eat a handful of hot gravel once a fortnight.
I had the same doubt. Check this pronuncation on Forvo: http://forvo.com/word/%D1%8F%D0%B9%D1%86%D0%BE/#ru
There are 5 pronunciations, the only one which was clear to me was the one by "Wellnews"
яй is the "i" sound in "it", followed by a consonontal "y". [ɪj] if you know phonetic notation - [jɪjˈt͡so].
я, ё, and у are pronounced further forward in the mouth when they are followed by a soft sound, (sort of) like umlaut in German. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_phonology#Back_vowels
When followed by й, я becomes [ɪ]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_phonology#Diphthongs
Is there a pattern to which nouns are m/n/f? Like most Spanish words ending in -a are fem, most in -o are masc, that type of thing?
Yes, there is.
- if it ends -a or я it's feminine.
- if it ends with a consonant, it's masculine.
- if it ends in -o or -e it's neuter.
- If it ends in ь it might be anything.... but usually it's feminine, so if you have to guess, go with f.
There are of course exceptions to all these, but as a rule of thumb this works.
The problem I encounter, is that this only works for nouns in the nominative case - so if the first time you encounter a word it's in genitive/accusative etc. the endings will be different, so you might need to look it up to find out the gender.
Technically, if it ends in ь it can be masculine or feminine, but not neuter. So not anything, but still a pain :p
There are also some patterns you can learn with suffixes that end in -ь. For example, words ending in -ость are feminine while words ending in -тель are masculine.
When to use мы and when to use нас? Also when to use наш and when to use наше? And are there other words i should know of?
If its in the plural sense, of "our", I feel like it should be eggs and not egg.
"eggs" would be яйца. It's the pronoun that is plural, not the eggs - and it's possible to have just one egg between more than one person.
363
in english a "nest egg" is a sum of money saved up for the future. (maybe to buy a house? dunno) is there a comparable phrase in russian?
I know a few: "положить в загашник" or "сделать заначку" or "отложить на чёрный день". All have similar meaning. The last one is more formal, I think. The first two have some sarcastic flavor, meaning that money is saved not for long and for something not very important, i.e. drinks or hobby.
