"No, our offices are not here."
Translation:Нет, наши офисы не здесь.
23 Comments
This may have been covered somewhere (so I may delete this comment after searching), but what is the difference between using genitive or nominative here? наших офисов здесь нет Vs. наши офисы не здесь.
I think genitive stresses the absence while nominative stresses the location (not here), but I'm not sure. Thanks for the help.
The intensity of this course just skyrocketed... Half these words and sentences I don't even know unless I click on the translation, and because I'm clicking on the translation I'm not remembering anything.
There's a DuoLingo companion course on memrise.com that focuses on building vocabulary. Check it out. http://www.memrise.com/course/378212/duolingo-russian-full-audio/
Can anyone tell me why it's "наши офисы"? I thought if something is 'absent',so to speak, it goes into the genitive?
Yes, нет forces genitive. I don't know why it isn't apparent in this sentence.
Saying нет at the beginning of the sentence does not affect the case. If you attach нет to a noun, as you would in English—that is a different story (e.g., "I have no time", "There are no buildings")
Ofcourse, my bad. I think I somehow "attached" нет to the object. So "our offices" are nominative in this sentence?
Yes, exactly.
There is another way to say someone or something is absent (more like "This place does not have it"):
- Наших офисов здесь нет. ~ There are no our offices here / We have no offices in this place and so on
- Здесь нет воды. = There is no water here.
- Её сегодня нет. = She is away today / She is not here today/She is absent today.
This structure, naturally, uses the Genitive. The past and the future forms are не́ было ("wasn't) and не бу́дет ("won't be"):
- Меня вчера не было. = I was absent yesterday
- Меня завтра не будет. = I will not be here tomorrow.
These may be interpreted literally under certain circumstances—but generally people will not assume that you were not born until today or that you will cease to be by tomorrow.
Не здесь is saying "not here", instead of the absence of something. Нету наших офисов would be correct if you were saying that there wasn't any of our offices.
duolingo is inconsistent on this, having a lot of sentences about the use of genitive for 'not here' rather than proper absence.
Why couldn't you also use Вот? My russian friend said Вот is if you are pointing at something and здесь is more general but how are we supposed to know the difference from this?
you are unlikely to point at the empty space saying "Where our offices are is right over not here, before your very eyes". Seriously, «вот» does not work here :)
In this course a sentence starting with a "Here is ..." is a sure sign of вот.
The literal meaning of "here" (this place) is perfectly expressed by здесь or тут (the latter a bit more colloquial, but generally they are nearly interchangeable outside set expressions).
I wrote "Нет, наши офисы не находятся здесь." Why is this incorrect?
Technically this is correct. But nobody says that :) In such negative sentences "находятся" is always skipped :)
So in an affirmative construction would it be stylistically acceptable? Like "Да, наши офисы находятся здесь"?
Shouldn't the plural of офис be офиса since it is masculine or is it irregular?
A regular plural of consonant-ending masculine nouns ends in ы (or и):
- отец → отцы
- стол → столы
- шкаф → шкафы
- мальчик → мальчики
- холодильник → холодильники
- лифт → лифты
- велосипед → велосипеды
However, quite a number of popular nouns use the stressed А ending. Some nouns experience a shift to this form even as we speak, so the list might grow over decades. For example, it is really hard for me to pluralize ве́ктор into ве́кторы, not вектора́. I know that the dictionary says ве́кторы but ... I majored in physics and I am now all to used to the other, slang-ish form not recognized in the standard language (it is recognized as professional slang). Same with сервер and драйвер.
Нас is the accusative/genitive form of мы; mostly, it translates to "us" whereas мы is "we."
Наш and наши both mean "our," but наши is used for plurals: Наш стол = "our table" Наши столы = "our tables"
Similarly, наша and наше are used for feminine and neutral nouns, respectively: Наша кошка = "our cat" Наше яблоко = "our apple"
