67 Comments
I personally know that word because my dad always asks me to buy cigarettes from Russia when I go there. It is 5 times cheaper than in Belgium. The message that is written in the box is курение убивает (smoking kills).
@Kevinguy14, if is it so, try googling: "cigarro mensagens" , you will be totally pleased with what every cigarrette pack in brazil looks like in the back!
I especially like the one with the long drooping ash and it says something like: fumar causa impotência. LOL.
Here in Mexico the boxes of cigarettes depict things like premature newborns and dead rats.
They're really creppy.
In the U.S. there is a required warning about cancer and death and so on. Plus a sin tax.
Not in the USA. Just a detailed warning. But there are also strong laws which forbid smoking in most enclosed public places and within a limited number of feet outside those places. There is no smoking in restaurants and bars, even outdoor places, although the outdoor venues are not all observed.
Have you seen Australian cigarette boxes? Google it if you feel like some nightmares.
yup i am from Australia, they really do not want people smoking
1169
Is the "am I" part strictly true? I feel that asking "Where am I allowed to smoke?" and "Where is smoking allowed?" are very different. I.e. One indicates the speaker is a smoker, the other does not.
Exactly, for example the first one with "am I" would indicate that the speaker... and the other may be asking that he wants to get away from the smoking area.
Does this mean that, in Russian, "may" works as an adverb, and when asking permission you use the infinitive?
(If so, how do you ask permission on someone else's behalf, like if you're at a party and you want to know "can my brother come too?")
Можно мой брат тоже придет/ Можно я позову брата/ Могу я позвать брата/ Может мой брат придти
The translation "Where is it allowed to smoke?" doesn't make sense. It implies there is some outside object (not a person) that is requesting a place to smoke.
The translations, I believe, should be,
"Where can one smoke?"
"Where is one allowed to smoke?"
Not so. In this case, "It" is simply there to provide a subject just like "It is raining". "It is allowed." "Smoking is allowed". Just like "Where is it possible to smoke?"
We could also consider that it as the kind of abstract construction we use with allowed some times, eg, Why can't I do x? Because it's not allowed.
But i strongly recommend that you do not use transliteration, but rather the true cyrillic alphabet.
- 99
I was given the option to choose between three forms of курить. Is this just the correct answer because it needs to be the infinitive?
No, because in English that sounds like a noun phrase rather than a complete question.
The former is "to be able to" and the latter is "to smoke."
I'm not sure of the difference between уметь and можно, though, other than one being a verb and the other looking like an adverb. Maybe it's like "can/may" of "mother, may I..." versus "have the ability to", like "he can (i.e., has the physical ability to) lift an entire car on his own."
уметь means "to have a skill" of doing something: уметь ходить/ плавать/ писать и т.д.
можно means to be allowed by smth or somebody: можно курить/ плавать/ заходить и т.д.
The reason this wouldn't be accepted is because of the English translation. That sentence doesn't work in English. It sounds like you probably get the Russian meaning just fine, but for Duolingo to work, the English sentences should in theory make sense also. There are a number of ways I might say this:
Where is one allowed to smoke? Where is it permitted to smoke? Where may one smoke? Where is smoking allowed? Where is smoking permitted?
But in English, we'd never say "Where is allowed..." You MIGHT be able to say "Where is it allowed to... " but even that is a tiny bit awkward.
Shouldn't there be an "I" (я) or something on the russian sentence? The way it's written looks more like "where is it allowed to smoke" instead of "where am 'I' allowed to smoke".
Not really, no. One thing you'll learn about languages is that things don't always translate literally. Russian and English are very different languages, so they're going to use different constructions for a lot of things. That's one of the harder parts of learning languages, having to learn how things are supposed to be written when they don't translate word for word.
In this case the Russian sentence seems to be more general. Another way to translate it could be "Where are you allowed to smoke?" with the you being more general, or "Where is one allowed to smoke?" Perhaps the most literal way to translate it would be "Where is smoking allowed?"
I'm not sure if any of those translations are currently accepted, but they should be appropriate translations regardless.
- 564
An increasingly important and pertinent question in the modern, nanny-stating, ultra-pc world we live in. Think I'll take extra care to memorize this one. Let's throw in some for booze, gambling and other... extra-curriculars, shall we?
Cause that doesn't make a whole lot of grammatical sense. A better way to say it is "Where is one allowed to smoke?"
Also, it's best not to respond to questions like the one Tuxsanov asked as it's explicitly stated in many places that comprehension of the English language is a prerequisite for this course.
Downvoting questions like these from those who clearly lack English comprehension hides the bad questions and reduces the clutter for those of us that abide by the rules.
- 695
I missed where it said that there are prerequisites to this course; probably in the terms and conditions? Too long ago to remember.
I have made a habit of assuming that other people who use poor grammar from a lack of knowledge are on a reverse learning-tree. I myself plan to do the same: once I have completed the Russian for English speakers course, I will begin the English for Russian speakers course, for an added challenge. When I begin that course, I have no illusions about being fluent; instead, I imagine and fully expect that I will pose honest questions with accidental or simply unknowing bad grammar to Russian native-speakers. When I do so, I hope they don't downvote me, and I hope they abide by the rules of Duolingo's explicit guidelines:
> If someone uses incorrect grammar or has a question you think has an obvious answer, kindly and calmly help them out. Heckling and being straight up mean doesn’t help anyone learn.
Only if you're trying to sound unnecessarily formal. More naturally, "Where am I allowed to smoke?"
