"Is my mom at his place?"
Translation:Моя мама у него?
43 Comments
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I'm confused. I was under the impression that 'у него' was part of the 'есть' line, and as such, implied the 'his/her' form of 'does x have/there exists' in Russian. Here it appears to also stand for 'his place'? Is this correct?
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Thanks, Theron126, I'll try and remember it. Does this mean that I can use all versions of the 'есть' line as "belonging to 'x's place" simply by omitting the 'есть'? (Or is that thinking too simplistically?)
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У is used to describe location. У стены - "by the wall". Possession is indicated in Russian by saying the item is located "by someone", у него - literally "by him", but also used to mean "in his possession". Being at his house can also be described as being "by him".
Есть is used when the existence of an item is in question.. "У него есть дом?" - "does he have a house?" We want to know if his house exists or not, use есть. If asking about a characteristic of an item that is known to exist, then есть is omitted. "У него дом большой?" - "Does he have a big house/is his house big?" We know he has a house, we want to know if it's big or not. Есть is omitted. In this sentence, Mom's existence is not in question. You know that you have a Mom, you're wanting to know where she is.
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So the answer is 'yes'. Sweet! Thank you for the explanation!
I realise that, for someone who grew up with the language, my question might be counterintuitive, but to me, I have learned the combination of those three words together, first. So to me, that is one puzzle or lego piece. I just wanted to verify that I can detach the last part of that lego piece, in essence, and it still be a valid piece of a puzzle that I can apply to other places without the piece, effectively, being broken/or ending up kaput.
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I'm two years late to the party, but your explanation was extremely helpful. Thank you.
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Your grammar seems to be correct, so maybe it's because a "place" is not necessarily a "house/home". All homes are places, but not all places at homes.
It could also be that your sentence is not in the database. I'd report it and see what happens. I get the occasional email telling me that one of my suggested translations has been accepted and entered into the database, although that seems to be limited to the Spanish course right ow.
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I entered "моя мама - у него положу?" and it was also wrong. I'm not exactly sure about the grammar, but basically what I did was just literally adding the "place", it was in the hovertips! I don't know if that's the right word, but I couldn't know beforehand ('положить' actually seems to be the verb... "place" as in "set", "lay" etc... which is starting to make my sentence sound even more super humorous)
There "phrases" seem to be particularly problematic since they come completely out of the blue. You get it wrong, and then learn "oh, you just leave that word out completely, because... it just happens to be so". And I still don't know what would be the literal correct translation for "at his place". I'm still wishing for multiple translations to be listed to reduce the constant guesswork!
They are not necessarily using the word 'his' for mom. Consider the two sentences: "My grandfather lives over there. My mom is at his place". Also, there is no word for "place" in this example. It is simply used, because a lot of English speakers complained about the literal translation being bad English. The literal translation is "My mom is at him". The English meaning you can gather from this is: "at his place". "My mom is with him" would also make sense.
I mean really, any studios person who is doing a duolingo course, would also have a google translate window open, and every time they come across a new phrase, put the words into google translate, one at a time. Then, using the ability to perceive other paradigms, an ability that anyone of reasonable intelligence has, one would be able to make sense of how a speaker of another language builds their perception from that language.
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I'm not that good with word order and the implications thereof so possibly wrong, but I believe that putting "у него" first asks about possession rather than location.
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In fact it's not always. "Есть" is used only when the existence of an item is in question.
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Ok, I checked with one of the Duolingo's Russian speakers (see my profile for the full explanation), and both sentences would mean "my mum is at his place", but changing the word order changes the emphasis. The new information you want is more likely to be at the end of the sentence.
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"У него месте" simply doesn't make grammatical sense, ever. The literal translation would be "в его месте". But that isn't used in the same way as "at his place" in English. Guessing a bit here, it might work if she's taken his seat at a concert, that kind of thing.
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One thing that confused me: его is both the genitive and possessive form of он. Does the exercise sentence mean (literally) "My mom is by him" or "My mom is by his [place]", where "place" (e.g., месте) is understood but elided?
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It's an idiom. "У [possessor] есть [thing possessed]" literally means "By/near [the possessor] is/exits [thing possessed]", which is interpreted idiomatically to mean "[the possessor] has the [thing possessed]".
Is there a Russian 'typewriter' on this system? (the free version of duolingo)? I hate trying to remember how to transliterate Russian into English.
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has nothing to do with free or not.
desktop: branah.com virtual keyboard, duokeyboard extension (for chrome) or just installing/switching to a russian cyrillic keymap directly from the os are three options. The first one is the easiest to start with IMO.
mobile: switching between keymaps should be trivial. check the settings and look for whatever has to do with the text input mode, probably all you need to do is install the cyrillic keymap.
Why is "лошадь" not used at the end? If you've got an answer, try not to speak like an English teacher, lol. Layman's terms please. It means "place" according to the hint... thingy. (No idea what they're called. xD )
I'm just learning for the fun of it. I'm also curious about whether or not this app is accurate and effective. It just seems strange that there's a word for "place," but a sentence with "place" in there doesn't include it.
I'm gonna go text my friend about this, he's extremely fluent in English and Russian.
