"Где цирк?"
Translation:Where is the circus?
72 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
One may say "Где этот цирк?" if she means some specific circus or if she was looking for if for a long time and was irritated by this. In Russian you can say "этот" not only about objects near you but about some specific/selected object even far star which you point at: "посмотри на эту звезду" (look at that/the star).
279
I think the point of Ellablun wasn't that skipping articles is grammatically correct, but that you often don't even need articles in English to understand what a person wants to say. Because some people were stating that the content of Russian sentences is harder to comprehend because of the lack of articles. I would agree that it's rather a matter of habit than actual lack of context. Perhaps not in every case but generally speaking.
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Chatbert
That is because many manuals are written by non native English speakers. The editors of the manual are often concerned about brevity more than elegant looking explanations.
1470
I know it's been two years but I just wanted to point out that articles are often omitted in user manuals. So that's one semi-official case where it happens.
1016
Yes and no. We sometimes omit/don't require an article, like eg "I love nature" but in French there would be an article. In other languages too. I know what you meant, but you mustn't mislead people into thinking that English always requires the article.
Yes, where is a circus/where is there a circus... I never realized that but it's true... Is there a written rule somewhere explaining that? Or is it just common use?
Because it's a little bit redundant. The "there" is not really needed.
But it looks the same in my language.
Où est LE cirque? Where's THE circus ?
Où il y a-t-il un cirque ? Where is there a circus? (où est un cirque cannot be said, while Where is a circus seems legit, according to what it's said here.)
So, it's the same structure in both language. Some linguist could explain why?
I had this same question when learning Serbian. I learned to speak it first, and the writing didn't make sense. It is the same word. It's like "Gid'yeh" but really soften the i and y (they really aren't there, but it helps mentally). Pronounce the г entirely, your brain wants to cut it short because there's not a vowel following. Then do the same with the д - your brain wants to stop, but pronounce all of it. You almost pronounce the "eh" twice - once to "end" the д and once for the е itself.
It's random... Only here to teach us letters. Don't search too much meaning in Duo's sentences or you'll have a hell of a disillusionment. Lol.
But the topic is interesting to learn about Russian culture, and I've found that:
"Although some observers credited the popularity of circus in the Soviet Union to its ability to serve, sometimes simultaneously, as both propaganda and escape from Soviet philosophy, circus was enormously popular before the Revolution and continues to be enormously popular in Russia today. " (source:" Rosgoscirk: 95 years of Russian circus". www.circustalk.com/news/fr/rosgoscirk-95-years-of-russian-circus
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I don't understand the fuss about articles. Be happy there are no articles in Russian! :) I am for sure! :D
French has articles literally everywhere and they always need to be changed according to the genus (same as adjectives, some are even irregular). If you think Russian's lack of articles is confusing you, try French. ;) German is similar, though a tiny bit less extreme. It just makes it much more difficult to learn a language. English is a lucky exception where articles aren't gendered, it's just a/an/the.
However, translating a sentence grammatically correct, not exactly word by word is very usual when learning a language, also in school. Just because "where is circus" is grammatically correct in Russian, "where is the/a circus" remains the only correct sentence and therefore translation in English. When you translate "pomme de terre" from French to English, you would also say "potato", not "apple of the earth".
279
Yes, so to speak. But only the grammatical one referring to all objects, not only persons. I assumed the latin word "genus" for grammatical gender is also used in English.
1016
I have never heard "genus" used in the sense of "gender". And "gender" was a grammatical term long before it was appropriated as a politically correct term for sex as conditioned by society.
Not everyone taking the course is a native speaker of English OR knows grammar terms in English. Jenny243542 probably did not have a lot of experience talking about grammatical gender in English (similarly, native speakers of Russian rarely know verbs of motion, and their knowledge of productive verb paradigms and verb conjugation barely scratches the surface).
2058
Tails637948
Forget about using Duo to learn to speak a foreign language. It isn't designed to do that so the little bit of attention given to it is feeble. There are programs that involve a lot of speaking which is essential to learning to speak the language. Dou isn't one of them.
Duo uses translation exercises to expose you some vocab, grammar and word order. It is all about reading and some writing. You will never, ever learn to speak a language using Duo. They don't try to teach you to do that.
The point of the vocal exercises provided by Duo is to warn you not to practice mispronouncing words in your head. The more accurate your efforts to say the word the better you will be able to read and spell it which is what they are teaching. But Duo devotes little time, money and effort into making the vocal part work well. It is not even a secondary consideration for them.
There are other programs on the internet that offer assistance with learning to speak foreign languages. Just know that if you are not in an immersion situation you will have to spend a couple of hours a day for years to develop any real speaking skills. Of course if all you want is touristy survival skill level that is much easier to achieve. ...Where is the post office, how much does that cost, where is the bus stop, where am I, help, My name is, Your documents?.... Get used to hearing and having to respond to that last one
Focus on learning to read and write the language and then when you are in a situation you consider practical to learn to speak it, you will already have done more than half the effort needed.
Turn off the mike and you can move on right away.
2058
Most examples do have that feature. However, some of the really, really simple ones like this one do not receive the extra programming needed to include the slow version. You will hear Gde many times in this course. Most of those examples will have the slow version available. Cirk is pretty easy to say for English speakers if you can pronounce the first letter correctly. You will hear that sound over and over in both fast and slow versions throughout the course.
So don't worry about the one example that is so basic it is pretty easy to get without enhancement.
I am not sure, really—some speakers of English say that "Where is a bathroom?" or "Where is a circus?" sounds weird while some ask how would you say that in Russian (the question does not make much sense to me). Personally, if I was looking for any object of the kind, I'd use "Excuse me, I am looking for a ****" , only in Russian (Извините, я ищу ... ).
Maybe something like "Excuse me, is there a .... here?", which is less normal in English (Извините, а здесь есть ... ?).
1016
Out of interest, bobylob, is yours a slavic language? I'm curious to know what other language has no articles. I'm learning Arabic, and it only has ONE article, the definite article. That's really complicated!
1016
But "where is circus" is not an acceptable sentence in English. We require the "the". If you hear someone say, "where is circus?" he is likely to be Russian.
2058
Charlitar
Someone did exactly that. It shows up immediately below your comment at the time you posted yours. It has been there for a year.
There are hundreds if not thousands of ways on the internet to find out how to pronounce Russian words. A very large number of them are free.
2058
Look it up on You Tube. There are lots of sites that show you different ways of acquiring the ability. It only takes a few minutes of practice to acquire the skill if done correctly. Of course, throwing it into the middle of conversation on demand takes a lot of practice.