"my cat"
Translation:моя кошка
100 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Yes, but if you're referring to a male cat, then you should use "кот" and if you are referring to a female cat, then use "кошка".
Which of the two is used for general purposes, when you are not really looking to specify gender but just want to say it's a cat?
Like in Croatian we have "mačka" (кошка) and "mačak" (кот), but everyone mostly uses the feminine form for everyday uses, regardless of the cat's actual gender (unless they want to specify).
Кошка is mostly used as the generic noun, according to some comments in this lesson.
Yes! The first one refers to a female cat and the second to a male cat. Just like how (моя) is feminine and (мой) is masculine. Even things like 'table' have a gender so the difference is important.
That makes absolutely no sense how is someone going to know if it's male or female they are just talking about a cat so you should be able to use either word
That's right, and you cann use either word -- both мой кот and моя кошка are accepted.
Whichever word you pick, you have to use the correctly-gendered form of the possessive in front of it, of course.
In other languages (like my native language, Spanish) we do specify the gender almost everytime, so it has sense for me. It's just because you are not used to it
Spanish uses "gato" as a generic noun. If you see a cat on the street you say "un gato"; "una gata" is only used when the speaker knows that it is indeed a female cat. Other animals take the feminine form as the generic noun: cucaracha, ballena, paloma, etc.
The same occurs in French : when you see a cat in the street you'd say 'un chat' never 'une chatte'.
Its not that it doesn't make sense its that it doesn't tell us the gender of the cat in the question, so how are we supposed to know
You are not supposed to know. Both "мой кот" and "моя кошка" are accepted, so just choose the one you like and type it.
Did you use "мой" or "моя" with it? That's important, because while you are free to choose a word for a cat of either gender, once you've done it the possesive pronoun must agree with it.
Ps: I'd like to point out that "моя кошка" is the suggested answer, so it's obviously acceptable.
You must use "моя кошка" if you want to use the work кошка. I did go back and try both.
If there is a microphone symbol at the bottom of your keyboard, right next to it is probably a button that says EN for English. Hold that button down and add Russian as a format.
dude, use google for all your questions. Here's the online Russian keyboard that I've been using: http://russian.typeit.org/
If you have a smartphone, try the app. You can also change keyboards very easy! By the way, Im a Linux user aswell.
I think that's the first time in the Russian course that I see multiple answers being the right answer in "choose all the correct answers" question.
I was surprised and suspicious at the first glance.
This is the first time I've seen кот. I didn't realise before that "cat" is gender specific in Russian.
Not only “cat”, but most Russian nouns that denote animals are gender specific.
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How do you know it was referring to a male or female cat then when it simply says "my cat"?
There is no way to know, and most of the time native speakers of English don’t care.
As кашка is a feminine noun you should use моя. Мой кот as it is masculine.
Also, the word is "кошка", if you input "кашка", this is likely an additional reason why you got it wrong.
Technically, кот мой can be used as a form of address. Yet, the phrase is hardly ever used like that. The same phrase with the diminutive form - "котик мой" (sweetie) - is, though, used quite often as a form of endearment by some Russian women in talking to their beloved or to a child.
See the thread started by drakqe.
It can be either "моя кошка" or "мой кот".
What's not possible is "моя кот" or "мой кошка".
It’s мои which is plural — note the different last letter. Also, it’s two syllables rather than one (plural ma-ee versus masculine singular moy).
What is more common? Say кошка или кот? When you don't know the gender, or you just wanna point it's a cat?
Кошка is more common. Other animals that are female by default in the Russian culture include обезьяна (monkey or ape), горилла (gorilla), пантера (panther), лиса (fox), куница (marten), норка (minx), ласка (weasel), крыса (rat), мышь (mouse), лягушка (frog), жаба (toad), змея (snake), ящерица (lizard), черепаха (turtle or tortois) and every fish and bird whose name ends in -а. In Russian fairytales these animals are inevitably female.
Been using кошка the entire time and now its suddenly wrong I understand why it technically is but the english question just says 'my cat' How am i supposed to figure out the gender from that!
It doesnt matter, as long as you use the right corresponding word for 'my'.
"Мой кот" or "моя кошка".
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If you see a cat on the street, you don't know if it's male or female but you talk about it: look, that cat is so pretty! Or whatever... What form it's used? Kot or koshka? Is there a neuter form I don't know of?
When the gender is unknown or irrelevant "кошка" is the default name. Though if you read Russian comments under any cat video on YouTube, you'd see that people use both almost interchangeably with maybe a slight preference towards "кошка". They also use affectionate nicknames, like "котик", "котейка", "кошечка", "котяра" "котэ", etc. "Котэ" is gender neutral, but it's also the most slangy of the bunch.
Котэ is the diminutive form of the name Konstantin in Georgian language. It is therefore masculine even if applied to a cat.
It might be one a Georgian name, but that's not the origin of the slang term for a cat. They are not related, and therefore the gender doesn't have to align.
I had clicked all the possible answer, but all of it is wrong. What should i do?
Hey,what is wrong?!İ am really so nervous now.İ choose moya koshka say wrong,then i choeese moy kat say it again!
If you think that learning the difference between мой and моя will enable you to translate the word "my" into Russian, I feel sorry for you. One of the worst nightmares of many Russian learners is having to memorize 12 word forms for "my/mine" (or any adjective likewise). If we use capital letters N, G, D, A, I and P to encode the so-called cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental and prepositional, respectively) and small letters m, n, f for masculine, neuter and feminine singular forms, respectively, and pl for plural forms, then the list will look as follows: мой (Nm), моя (Nf), моё (Nn), мои (Npl), моего (Gm/n), моему (Dm/n), моим (Im/n or Dpl), моём (Pm/n), моей (G/D/I/Pf), мою (Аf), моих (G/Ppl), моими (Ipl). Am/n/pl = Nm/n/pl for inanimate objects, and Am/n/pl= Gm/n/pl for animate ones.
I'm a native English speaker, but studied German, which has four cases, all of which are also in Russian. With that, your post is actually intriguing and insightful, not frightening.
In German though, the gender of a noun is very important to learn as a part of the word, but I haven't seen that indicated when Russian nouns are introduced here. Is there a way to tell based on the ending of the noun whether it is masc/fem/neut, or some other way?
A few notes to add to the rule of thumb so wonderfully formulated by mizinamo:
The nouns юноша and старшина are masculine.
The nouns воображала, прилипала, забияка, задавака, задира, пройдоха, пьяница, убийца and maybe a few other nouns with similar endings can be either masculine or feminine depending on the gender of the person they denote.
Кофе is masculine.
Nouns ending in -ишко or -ище are masculine if they are derived from shorter masculine nouns (e.g. дом - домишко, домище) and neuter otherwise.
All nouns derived from verbs by replacing -ть with -тель are masculine (e.g. читать - читатель, учить - учитель).
Most abstract and uncountable nouns ending in -ь are feminine (e.g. кровь, боль, соль, удаль, лень, утварь, молодежь, речь).
Most countable nouns ending in -ь are masculine (e.g. корабль, корень, дождь, день, гвоздь, конь), but there are quite a few that are feminine, especially among the monosyllable ones: трость, кровать, вещь, рысь.
All nouns ending in -сть with the exception of гость (a male guest) and тесть (a man's father-in-law) are feminine.
All nouns ending in -жь, -шь, -чь or -щь are feminine.
There is.
The rules of thumb are:
- Ends in consonant: masculine
- Ends in -a or -ya: feminine
- Ends in -o or -e: neuter
- Ends in soft sign: could be masculine or feminine, usually feminine
There are exceptions, of course (e.g. neuter nouns in -mya such as vremya or imya), but on the whole it's a good rule of thumb.
"Cat " can be translated as both "кот " and "кошка " since the English word doesn't specify the gender of the animal. "Кот " is a masculine noun and therefore the possessive pronoun мой must be used with it; whereas кошка is feminine, so you need to use моя. Using either one is correct here, as long as the possessive pronoun agrees in gender with the noun it modifies.
No. In Russian, the initial к is pronounced before н, so the first syllable in книга sounds similar to “chni” in “technique”.
I thought кошка was a neutral form if you are unsure if the cat is male and кот is only if you know the cat is definitely male. Is this wrong?
The noun кошка has a feminine gender, but can be used not only for female cats, but also for cats of uncertain sex or as a generic name.
When there is no reference to male or female cat, shouldn't both Кошка and кот be correct?
When there is no reference to male or female cat, shouldn't both Кошка and кот be correct?
Sure, as long as you use the correctly-gendered form of the word "my" (the feminine form with кошка and the masculine form with кот).
Please read all of the existing comments; this has been explained a few times, with examples.
I quit. Doulingo teaches no grammar. At best, it might be useful to learn vocabulary. But with the computer generated voices it is very hard to get a realistic speaking of words.
Both кот/кошка should be accepted here.
But the phrase to be translated is not "the cat" but "my cat".
So you have to write мой кот or моя кошка, not just кот or кошка.
(And моя кот or мой кошка would be completely wrong -- the ending of the word "my" has to be match the gender of the following noun.)
it just baltently threw an impossible question at me after getting me to correct мои кошка to мой кошка. for "my cat" it turns around and gives me the same question with a different input method then tells me I'm wrong and and it's кот?
getting me to correct мои кошка to мой кошка.
Er, what?
кошка is feminine, so using the masculine мой before it is just as wrong as using the plural мои before it.
You need the feminine моя, as in моя кошка.
tells me I'm wrong and and it's кот?
мой кот is correct. моя кошка is also correct.
What won't work is моя кот or мой кошка.
If you are proud of yourself because you’ve learned the difference between мой and моя, I must tell you: it’s too early to celebrate. The full paradigm of ‘my’ can be picked up from the following examples:
Nominative: Это мой кот. Это моя кошка. Это мои коты/кошки.
Genitive: Здесь нет моего кота / моей кошки / моих котов/кошек .
Dative: Дай это моему коту / моей кошке / моим котам/кошкам.
Accusative: Видишь моего кота? (Acc. = Gen.). Видишь мою кошку? Видишь моих котов/кошек? (Acc.=Gen.; zero ending and evasive е in кошек).
Instrumental: С моим котом / С моей кошкой / С моими котами/кошками всё в порядке. (In poetry, моею is often used instead of моей).
Prepositional: Я расскажу вам о моём коте / о моей кошке (Prep.=Dat.) / о моих котах/кошках.
In all forms of мой and кот that have more than one syllable the stress falls on the second syllable and the о of the root is pronounced like a weak а (u in ‘cut’). In all forms of кошка the stress always falls on the first syllable.
Problem is, they don't tell you if it's a male/female cat.
That's not a problem. They will accept either "моя кошка" OR "мой кот".
Would've been nice to know this before hand but i guess this app isn't about perfect scores plus they'll teach this later (hopefully)
So, what I get from this comment section is кошка is female cat and кот is male cat. Now how I know to answer this question if they only ask to write russian word for "my cat" , I get literally no clue.
If we are not sure of the cat’s sex, we call it кошка, so it’s safe to write «моя кошка». Кошка is also the generic name for the animal. In a broader sense, кошка can be any feline. It is, therefore, correct to say, «Лев, тигр, леопард, рысь и пантера — кошки».
Is there a neutral way for cat then, in English, If we dont know the gender? Well, since there's no genre in English, in Spanish for example, when the genre is unknown, the masculine is used as the NEUTRAL (кот= male cat= gato, кошка= female cat= gata). Is 'Кот' acceptable then, when the genre is unknown? Cheers!
No, "кошка" is feminine by default. You use "моя" with it to match that.
Sort of dumb for when I translate "мой кошка" to "my cat" but translating "my cat" isnt "мой кошка".....
when I translate "мой кошка" to "my cat"
Where did you see the incorrect мой кошка instead of the correct моя кошка in a translation exercise? Do you have a screenshot?
You would think that somewhere in this app, it would explain the gender thing and which word is appropriate..
So can you assume that every animal has a specified gender? If you don't know the gender it's automatically female/male. in this case, do you say "кошка" when referring to a cat? hope this comment made sense
So can you assume that every animal has a specified gender?
Every noun in Russian has a specific gender -- whether the noun refers to animals, plants, stones, or anything else.
in this case, do you say "кошка" when referring to a cat?
Right. That's the default word for "cat", and it happens to be feminine.
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Why, why is it Кот here and Кошка every other time, there's no way to discern when to to use either, aren't they interchangeable?
But it's "кошка" here too. Generally, "кошка" is used both for a female cat and for a cat whose gender is unknown or irrelevant, whereas "кот" is specifically a male cat. Though people use "кот" for random cats too. So yes, they are interchangeable, unless you know the gender and want to specify it.
Let's go back a second? For me, the other word is in question. I'm having trouble with "my". I understand that it's conjugated differently based on the gender of the noun. What I don't understand is how there aren't just two in that case. What are the differences in "Мои", "Моя", "Моё", and "Mой", exactly? Two different words for "my" makes sense, but four? It keeps tripping me up.
The nominative singular forms are мой, моё and моя for masculine, neuter and feminine gender, respectively. The plural forms are not gender-sensitive. The distinction between masculine and neuter genders doen’t exist in cases other than nominative / inanimate accusative . The genitive/animate accusative form of мой/моё is моего (pronounced /мыйвó/), dative — моему (pronounced /мыйму/), instrumental — моим /muh-eem/, and prepositional/locative — моём /muh-yom/. The feminine forms other than моя include моей (genitive, dative, instrumental and prepositional/locative), мою (accusative) and the alternative instrumental case form моею which used to be common 150 years ago, but these days is used only in poetry. The plural forms apart from мои include моих (genitive, animate accusative and prepositional/locative), моим (dative) and моими (instrumental). So, all in all, there are 13 Russian wordforms for my/mine. I hope I haven’t discouraged you from pursuing your Russian studies.