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- "Я говорю и по-английски, и п…
"Я говорю и по-английски, и по-русски."
Translation:I speak both English and Russian.
32 Comments
12
Sorry for this question but, is it necessary to put и twice or could I also say ''Я говорю по-английски и по-русски.''?
Sentences like this remind me of that moment in The Blues Brothers where John Belushi walks up to the barlady and asks what kind of music they do at Bob's Country Bunker, and she goes "We do both kinds: country AND western!"
Only there is a difference between English and Russian.
Did the russians not have a word for the english language before the cold war? Did they just think to themselves during say, the middle ages “those девилы that keep going to war with France, and Scotland, and Ireland, and the Welsh, and the Germans, and are descended from the anglo-saxons, yeah they seem american to me.” “Bro America isn’t called that until 300 years in the future” “Shut up Ivan, I am talking”
1353
And England comes from the Angle tribe who colonized Britain after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Angle(s) plus land (from German)
From the tips page for this unit:
“ To express the idea of speaking some language, or something being written in that language, Russian has adverbs literally meaning "Russian-ly", "English-ly" etc.. :
Я не говорю́ по-ру́сски. = I do not speak Russian.
Вы говори́те по-англи́йски. = Do you speak English?
They are formed from -ский adjectives by attaching по- and changing the tail to bare -ски: по-ру́сски, по-италья́нски, по-япо́нски, по-вьетна́мски, по-америка́нски, по-францу́зски and so on.
And remember, these words actually mean something done "in a certain way", so «суши по-американски» (American-style sushi) should not surprise you!”
I disagree with Duo's use of commas. I'm no expert on Russian, but from what I've seen grammar rules are fairly similar to English and if that's the case, it seems like there are just too many commas. I also think they should use the Oxford comma but that's not a grammar rule, so I can't say they need to :P