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They are.
However, there is one point of overlap. If you mean a unit of volume frequently used in cooking (250 ml), it is a "cup" in English but a «стакан» in Russian. I am pretty sure it is because the "cup" I use looks just like the glass shown on the picture above. I wonder why is that :)
Yes they are because, when you say cup. It's "Чашка" and when you say glass, it's "стакан"
It does that every single time 'сок' or a derivative is in the sentence.
I wonder what it means (here) though... "glass ..."?
- material is стекло́
- a container is стака́н (depicted above), бока́л (for wine or beer), рю́мка (small, while still wineglass-shaped)
- spectacles/goggles are очки́ (always plural, just like in English)
- a mirror is зе́ркало
- a telescope is телеско́п
- a magnifier is лу́па
So, of all those words, which is most commonly used for a simple "glass of water" or "cup of water" to drink?
стакан is used for a medium-sized cylindrical vessel without handles.
чашка is used for a medium-sized bowl-shapeв vessel with a handle, the one associated with something you drink tea from.
I'm so glad the Italian word for juice and the Russian word for juice are similar enough for me to remember its meaning.
My native English is screaming out to put an 'a' or a 'the' at the start of the sentence. Dative case without context feels very wrong. Could someone please provide a few example sentences?
It seems to my ear that the н in стакан is silent. Is it just my untrained ear?
Yes, I agree. But looking back now I can see that my comment was somewhat ambiguous.
пью
The usual paradigm for non-past forms goes as follows:
- Я читаю, говорю / Мы читаем, говорим
- Ты читаешь, говоришь / Вы читаете, говорите
- Он читает, говорит / Они читают, говорят
есть and дать have slightly odd forms which should be memorized (e.g., Я ем , Он ест); хотеть mixes up "читать" endings in singular with "говорить" endings in plural; бежать is also slightly irregular.
It's unfair that "stakan risa" suggests an alternative to "a glass of rice" as "a cup of rice", though when you translate "stakan soka" as "a cup of juice" it says you should've used only "a glass of juice" answer.
As explained above, стакан is a glass, while a cup is чашка. This is a bit complicated though by the fact that the measurement called a "cup" in English is called "стакан" in Russian. It's more common to measure rice in cups, I guess, and nobody drinks rice from a glass, so "стакан риса" is probably "a cup of rice" but "стакан сока" is probably "a glass of juice".
I'll reference a perceptive comment of Shady_arc's in another discussion: one peril of reverse trees is that they sometimes accept shoddy (often read "too literal") versions of the language that their users are (notionally) learning from. That is likely best understood as one such case. Given that "стакан" is more defined by shape and "glass" is more defined by material composition, it seems the way to resolve the inconsistency would be to accept "cup of juice" here.
Because "стакан" normally means "glass", I guess. I agree with piguy though. Ideally "glass of juice" and "cup of rice" would be the recommended translations, but "cup of juice" and "glass of rice" would be accepted.
Americans use cups as a measure for cooking, in the UK people will use a more specific measure of weight or volume. So if a cup of rice is a correct answer, I don't see why à cup of juice isn't.
Not really, since it does not make much sense for both of them being right. You should have reported it—that way I could at least leave a comment on what the sentence really means.
In the US a cup is not some ambiguous measure. It is precisely defined, and happens to equal 236.588 mL (to which a Russian cup is a pretty close equivalent). To prepare rice one puts together a set volume of dry rice in a known ratio to a set volume of water. I.e. measuring them by cups - the volume measure - makes sense. Such use is not as common for juice, but shows up in things like maximum recommended amounts for a child to consume per day (although more commonly expressed in ounces, i.e. 1/8ths of a cup).
My russian wife tells me that стакан is used for those old fashioned glass samovar cups. Could we use more modern words?
Стакан is a generic word for a cylindrical glass usually made of glass, a vessel used for non-alcoholic drinks.
Like here or here, though mine is more like this. Mine is much less faceted, of course :).
There is no other word to call this type of drinking vessel (bar стаканчик). Кружка and чашка have a handle, and бокал/рюмка/фужер/стопка are usually for alcohol (and the shape is different).
Basically, yes. Some words have a strictly partitive form. The example one always seems to see is "чаю." Probably for good reason; it seems it's used more frequently than alternatives in relevant contexts: http://bit.ly/2sgedwX
