"They do not have water."
Translation:У них нет воды.
23 Comments
What is the declension of the final word "воды"? Is that genitive? Plural?
Two different points of confusion:
(1) Why is "they" in the prepositional here, whereas "I have" is written "у меня," with I in the genitive case?
(2) Why is the thing being owned in the genitive case? Word-for-word I would parse this sentence as "Water is not by them," and would assume "water" is nominative.
1) "Них" is genitive, too. Have you been confused by Н? It is added to pronouns starting with vowels when they are used with prepositions. Их - у них, его - от него, её - без неё, etc.
2) You use genitive in negations of this kind. У [someone, genitive] нет [something, genitive].
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Regarding your second point, is this a little like saying "[at _ is] none of __"? Where the of kinda suggests genitive perhaps?
(I'm not sure if the "at" is strictly the correct literal translation but I did some Irish before this and I think that's how their similar structure would be literally translated. Anyway, yes, I know it's equivalent to "to have")
You are right! Generally, "of something" in English corresponds to "something" in Genitive in Russian.
Is there a section in Duolingo that shows all conjugations. I eat , you eat, he she it eats....etc? Thanks
Now it sounds like nominative plural but should be genitive singular. Both are spelt the same with different stressing
Because as I've read in previous comments seems нет is the opposite of етсь. So нет and етсь don't go together
есть indicates the existence of something. Because we are indicating that something does not exist, we ise нет.
Why can't you say "У них есты воды" instead of "У них нет воды"? Are they not the same?
Они is not in genitive case. For this grammar structure, the noun who lacks possession (they) has to be in the genitive case. So we use них.
