"Нам надо приготовить щи на обед."
Translation:We need to cook shchi for lunch.
102 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
"для" is not suitable here at all. If you say Нам надо приготовить щи для.. you should put for who: для мамы, для гостя (for mom, for a guest). I don't think there is a logical explanation for that, just rememebr: на зватрак, на обед, , на ужин, на ланч, на полдник (for midday meal, for morning meal, for evening meal, for meal between morning and evening ones, for snack at around 12)
Yeah, Russian prepositions don't match up one for one with English prepositions, so you're right -- it's memorizing the context where they're typically used and sometimes you have to extrapolate. Another fun thing about them is that the objects of prepositions take different cases (endings) depending on which preposition and what that preposition means in that context.
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From the examples you gave i'd assume для is used when directed to physical objects (animate or inanimate; like "towards") and на for temporal occasions (if you can provide other examples i can maybe come up with a better explanation)
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But duolingo gave the following example of sentence: вот масло для риса . For rice. Not someone. Shouldn't it used на instead? Sorry i dont quite get this
My grammar book says that на+ accusative has several meanings among which there is: "indication of time ,duration of the action that will be concluded in that segment of time. So I intetpret the example as "we need to prepare it 'in time for lunch' " , the action of preparing the plate will be concluded before lunch.
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"нам надо приготовить обед для того, чтобы не остаться голодными, для встречи гостей, для парадного ужина, для пересылки по почте, для анализа на яд...". :)
You have to realise that "for" in English has various meanings that often get split up into multiple words in other languages. The main definition of "for" in English roughly means "to the benefit of". This is what translates as "для". Other forms will translate as на or за. Clearly "for lunch" does not mean "to the benefit of lunch".
Щи (shchi) is a traditional Russian cabbage soup. It first appeared in Russian cuisine around the 9th century, but nowadays it is made with meat (usually pork), cabbage, potato, tomato, carrot, onion, and spices.
For more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shchi Also in Russian: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A9%D0%B8
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I agree with you. I live in Russia in Krasnodar region. We don't cook shchi here. We prefer Kuban borsh. It's more delicious.)
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Не все готовят щи каждый день; как и не всех русских зовут Иван; и мало кто умеет играть на балалайке. Правда)))
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Yes, it's the same in other slavic languages where na means for a purpose and not on something. I also think the phrase prepositional case can be misleading as it could give the impression that it's used after any preposition. I know it as the locative, i.e. denoting location
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Я хочу приготовить (что-либо) means that I want to cook and have a result. Я хочу готовить (что-либо) means that I want to cook because I like cooking.
I typed "It is necessary for us to cook shchi for lunch." and it was not accepted. It is a more convoluted English sentence, that does not sound so natural, granted; but am I right to think that it is a more "literal" translation of the original Russian sentence?
My thinking is that "dative" seems to be typically associated with "for whom" or "to whom" the action is done. So "надо" being the adverb for "necessary", "Нам надо" works in a sentence sort of like a "necessary for us" particle. So literally this would be like "Necessary for us is that the shchi be cooked for lunch".
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Because nam is a dative form and wouldn't make sense on its own. The literal translation of "nam nado" is something like "it is necessary for us to..."
нас is used in (i) Genitive; (ii) Prepositional; (iii) Accusative.
Check out this table: http://www.russianlessons.net/grammar/pronouns.php
The first meal in the morning = завтрак, breakfast. When you eat somewhen around the midday, it's обед. And the last meal before you go to bed is ужин. Some people eat 3 times a day, while others have 4-5 or even more. If you eat somewhen between завтрак and обед, you can call it the second breakfast or lunch (ланч, sometimes ленч). And there can be пОлдник between обед and ужин, that's something like English 5 o'clock tea (and you're supposed to eat sweets at полдник, especially if you are a child).
Well, the big English-Russian translation problem is the "If The Dinner Is Обед Or Ужин?". Usually there is dinner-обед in the books from XX century, but now that's pretty overdated. Nowadays the dinner-ужин (and the lunch-обед) is more accurate translation. (BTW, I hate when you watch a movie and the hero is going to "обед" with somebody, but then we see them eating, and it's dark outside! Hey, translators, обед is when the sun is high and hot, and if there is a sunset or darkness everywhere, the meal can be ужин only!)
It is so frustrating because obviously the problem is the change in use of the English words. The word "dinner" can be either the midday meal or the evening meal, depending on occasion, class, and region.
As a German learning Russian I easily understand and translate the Russian word's meaning and then have to pause and guess which English word might be asked for in sentences such as this one - a problem that seems to pop up in every course taught from English. I'd love to see expressions such as "midday meal" and "evening meal" being used in English. It would make things so much easier.
Hi Tattamin. You're so right about the English language causing confusion. We have breakfast (no confusion thankfully), tea (morning), brunch (mid-morning), lunch, tea (around 3pm in the afternoon), tea (early evening meal around 5pm), dinner (as you say, lunch or main evening meal), and supper. And some people use supper to refer to 'dinner' (or tea) at around 6pm while others use it for a late evening (post-dinner) light meal. Aargh - apologies for the difficulties my native tongue causes non-English speakers!
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Roger, you are further advanced in your Russian comprehension than I. I am still struggling with "prepare" (food) versus "cook". (My girlfriend/fiancé lives in Lyiv, only speaks Russian, and has never hear of shchi soup?
The audio sounds like 'щил'. (it's fairly faint though) Still, I'm guessing the л is not supposed to be there... or be heard?
On a kind of relevant sidenote: some people have referred to listening to the speech "slowed down". How do you do that? I read it was something like ctrl+space but I tried a bunch of key combos and it's always at the same (fast) speed.
I know this comment isn't about this sentence, but while listening to Russian conversations without looking at the subtitles, I found out that it's not easy at all for me to understand what they are talking about. Is my Russian just not supposed to be advanced enough to understand most conversations at this moment, or am I supposed to understand it?
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Not without a lot of exposure to the spoken language. Learning to understand native-speed speech complete with parts of words that are dropped or swallowed up is probably the hardest part of learning a language.
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If you are using just Duo for learning Russian, it is not intended to enable you to understand ordinary conversation. When you complete the tree you still won't be able to follow people talking.
Duo is a series of translation exercises that exposes you to vocab, sentence structure and some grammar. It gives you a platform to use with other learning sources.
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It's quite annoying to get this wrong just because I couldn't remember how to spell щи in English.
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My fiancé was born in the USSR and has lived in Kyiv all of her life. She had never heard of shchi. Her family simply call the soup borscht.