33 Comments
why not "a guitar is there, in a taxi" ? , i mean how to distinguish whether there should be "The" or "a/an" ?
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I'd use a different word order.
- The guitar is there, in the taxi = Гитара там, в такси.
- A guitar is there, in the taxi - Там, в такси, гитара / Там гитара в такси.
Russians change the word order to emphasize different things, this is how we distinguish between "a" thing and "the" thing.
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Is the "в" pronounced at all here? I've listened to the robot voice like 20 times even on slow, but I only hear "гитара там, такси". Is the "в" silent or something, or is it not playing correctly?
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if you listen closely, there is a slight "v" sound before Taxi, it sounds like one word though
Is a beginner expected to have some trouble discerning the word в in speech? I usually can't pick out by ear alone (especially in real native speech) since it's so subtle compared to everything around it.
I swear it was saying a f sound instead and was trying to find a one letter word what sounded like F :P
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You're right, it does sound like f. It's the voiced/voiceless consonants thing.
Can someone explain why "The guitar is in the taxi" is wrong?.. I totally figured thatd be right, how do i distinguish this issue.
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Exactly the same as immediately above - you've translated "гитара в такси". You need to include "там" in the translation.
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Does the russian say the "в" so silent like this robot voice? It's really hard to hear, mainly if you are distracted
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As far as I know this is the normal pronunciation. Similarly in Czech (another Slavic language) voiced "v" (в) changes to voiceless "f" (ф) in situations like this one.
Note: Czech is my native language. In this audio I clearly hear "фтакси".
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In Russian I don't, so why are we being penalized for not knowing English? It is especially hard for me because my native tongue doesn't have articles at all. In German course I get a slight penalty for misspelling things in English but it isn't flagged as incorrect.
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The course is "Russian for English Speakers". If people who are non-native in English want to use it too, that's great, but I don't think that's a reason to accept incorrect English.
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Would "The guitar is in the taxi" be wrong because of failing to specify which taxi? Or is it a fair relative translation from the original Russian?
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I don't believe that "в" should ever be translated as "but". But you shouldn't expect Russian words to always correspond exactly with an English counterpart. For example "в" can mean "to" or "into" as well as "in".
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why "Guitar is there, in the taxi " is not correct ? I'm Italian and in my language is the same say "guitar is there or The guitar is there". Maybe not for english people?
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I got marked wrong because I wrote "The guitar is there in the taxi" without the measly comma. I guess I understand why, but I think it's a silly thing to be marked wrong for.
I always accidentally put "The guitar is in the taxi", can anyone explain why that's counted wrong?
