132 Comments
I'm confused, the definition when you hover over извините is forgive me, though that's marked as a wrong answer?
"Excuse me" would be a much better translation in this case. Nobody stops people on the street asking "forgive me, where is the square?"
Yeah, but that still doesnt make "forgive me" any more normal in this context
In some cases, 'excuse me' and 'forgive me' can have similar meanings (just an uneducated guess, but it could be that in Russian this word might be used in any situation that you would use either phrase) there, but in this sentence you would use 'excuse me.' Another one you can use for this would be 'pardon me.'
You wouldn't say forgive me to ask some stranger about something, would you?)) excuse me is better to use in this situation.
Are you serious,Alex? Nobody asks the way begging for merci or asking forgiveness. Не знаешь английский , не морочь голову другим .
Ive heard it said and used it before. "Forgive me" and "excuse me" are very similar. You're not begging forgiveness for a horrible act, it's a common phrase that shows you ubderstand you may be intruding or inconveniencing someone. "I beg your pardon" is slightly more archaic but fits in nicely with both
Really? I've never heard it that way. Huh. You learn something new every day.
In American English, forgive me is just a slightly different way to say excuse me, in some cases. "Forgive me (for bothering you, but) where is the train?"
Yes you would. Its a sort of, forgive me for bothering you. Forgive me, pray tell where the bathroom is?
I have literally never heard anyone say forgive me, instead of excuse me. Mayhe its just the State i live in?
How is the word "площадь" pronounced? Not meaning to be crass, but all I can hear is "bullsh*t" and I know that's obviously wrong.
Pronounced - пло́щить (plo-shitь) At that, "tь" pronounced like "t" in the word "Tuesday"
I'd say you're right because "а" here is really "я" ("щя" is always spelt "ща" by convention) and "я" is reduced to "и"-like sound in unstressed syllables. Here's a nice website where you can get transcriptions of russian words in IPA or russian letters: http://easypronunciation.com/en/russian-phonetic-transcription-converter
You just received the first lingot I've ever given away. Thank you very much!
I'm late to the party, but I have long been looking for IPA transcriptions of russian words. Thanks, have a lingot :)
Could someone please spot me the difference between the sounds of щ and ш? Thanks in advance.
Not really. In modern Russian it sounds like a long and hissy SH with the middle of your tongue high up. "Shch" is just a transliteration that follows the letter's historical pronunciation and the pronunciation still used in Ukrainian.
The "shch" used to be widespread in St. Petersburg dialect...but that was in the 19th century: to encounter that pronunciation nowadays you'll have to find a speaker born around the same time as Chekhov or Lenin. Another option is to find a very particular village where a very particular dialect is spoken :).
I think you mean the Square near the Kremlin in Moscow, not the geometrical fugure. KoolKat09 gave you the translation of the geometrical figure. The name of the Red Square in Moscow is КРАСНАЯ ПЛОЩАДЬ.
FYI, площадь more or less means area. The implied meaning of square is more like a town square. The actual word for the shape of a square is квадрат (Sounds like Quad-rat, which makes sense for what it is).
You can even calculate площадь квадрата, which is the size of the area of the square)))) 
Well, they have the word проспект which is more or less a translation of avenue.
Im remember call of duty 1 "Come on comrades! We are retaking red square!"
Why not pronounced as 'ploshchad' instead of 'ploshchid'? I hear it like that
The pronounce here is very strange in the last word. Sounds like POSHID (I can't even hear the л ) instead of PLOSHAD
Practice will help get your ear used to the sounds of Russian, there's definitely an л in there. With regard to the second syllable - because the stress is on the first syllable, the second syllable changes. Unstressed syllables in Russian get "reduced", so they're not pronounced in full.
I've heard извините pronounced with a sort of "chye" sound at the end. How soft is this "T" sound? In Duolingo, it sounds harder than I've heard it before.
That's what it sounds like. Try pronouncing an Engish "T", only use the blade of your tongue instead of the tip, and try to raise your tongue (not only its blade) towards the roof of your mouth.
The woman this voice is based on uses palatalized T's a bit different from what I, as a younger speaker, use. These days T/D affricatization is more and more popular among common people as well as trained speakers. It means that "soft" Д and Т now have a slight hint of palatalazed /дз/ and /ц/— and it is not considered improper pronunciation at all! In fact, most well-paid actors pronounce it that way, too.
So I've noticed that the word for "square" (as in city square) and the word for "horse" are relativeoy similar. Is this a coinsidence, or is there some historical reason (like idk maybe the city square was a good place to keep horse stables back in the day)? Sorry if this is random, but it struck me as odd haha
Площадь eventually is related to, say, плоский ("planar") whereas лошадь was borrowed from some Turkic language a long time ago. So, I am afraid even their remote similarity here is random (I mean, "plosk" is not much like "losh", unless you are ready to give it a lot of leeway).
Why ,, excuse me where is the spuare?" and why not ,,excuse me where is spuare"?
It needs an article in English, "Excuse me where is square?" would be wrong in English.
Well my answer was "Where's the area?" and I thought that was true. Why? "площадь" also means "area", then why in this case, it means "square"?
Can anyone refer the russian letter <ь> to an english letter for me? I cannot seem to understand how to pronounce it
1038
The letter ь itself has no pronunciation, it just changes the pronunciation of the previous letter making it "soft".
This is not to be confused with the letter ы which is one letter although it is made up of two pieces. ы is like the i in fist.
Firstly, thanks for creating a Russian course - I am very excited to learn! I wanted to discuss the first lessons - I think that they're a little confusing. Perhaps if the first lessons dealt with absolute basics such as pleases, thankyous, how are you etc. the initial learning stage might be a little more suitable? Saying things like "He is this man" or similar are quite strange sentences to be using so early on (first unit early). Just my two cents.
Unfortunately, that is not how Duolingo works. We try to follow the overall structure Duolingo's courses usually have—and, personally, I would have completely excluded basic phrases had it not been for some demand for them.
Expressions like "Thanks" and "Good morning" do not make for great sentences; and it is beyond any doubt that Duolingo's built around sentences. Stock phrases would make sense in a dialogue. In the current structure, though, they make fro pretty repetitive sentences and very confusing ones at that because, as usual, set expressions do not make much sense, use all kinds of tough grammar and thus require a lot of rote memorization.
I said "Excuse me, where is the square?" and it said that I was incorrect but isn't "Pardon me" and "Excuse me" the same thing in Russian???
I clicked the words in order but they put them not in order and i got it wrong it was very confusing. Hopefully i just accidentaly glitched it and it will go back...
How is площадь pronounced? I cant figure out if it sounds like "❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤", "pvoshit", or "ploshit" excuse the crude language in my translation.. thats just what it sounds like to me.
Is my hearing just really bad or did she just pronounce изви́ните within the sentence, but clicking on the loose word made her pronounce it with stress on the penultimate syllable: извини́те?
How do you spell square in Russian using English letters? Whatever I try gets rejected
The female vokalist pronounces the sentence like this: извините где площить ? That is not what you want, but correct pronunciation is important.
Cannot type in Russian even if I had a Russian keyboard, which I do not have on this computer, as I am only a beginner who has not learned the Russian alphabet.
Are Ш и щ both. Pronounced the same?
no, "щ" pronounced as "sh" in words "❤❤❤❤" or "sheet", and "ш" pronounced as "sh" in words "english" or "fish".
you can say the word "площадь" as "plo-❤❤❤❤", it's a bit like the original pronunciation, just need to soften the sound "t", as in the word "Tuesday", because there is a soft sign "ь" in the word "площадь".
OMG WHAT how am I supposed to type in Russian im confused i dont have a Russian keyboard !!
Im not being told the meaning of words before being asked to translate them! Ahh this is hard
I'm so sorry, no offence. What I hear is '❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤' here not PLOSHAD like what I thought it should be. I'M SO SORRRRRRYYY!
I am fluent in Russian and извините fits best for it as in English it may sound weird saying forgive me but in russian that is equivalent to excuse me
I wrote "Excuse me, it this the square?" which IS the question I would ask, but I'm told it's wrong!
That's because the correct answer is 'Excuse me, where is the Square?' The question isn't asking if the place you're in is the square, but you're in fact asking where it is.
I so got this right but it says I didn't!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
CHEATERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Umm. It sounds like "Excuse me, where is the bullsh*t?" Can someone give me a latin phonetic pronunciation for the square?
