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- "Моя девушка не умеет готовит…
"Моя девушка не умеет готовить, зато она много ест."
Translation:My girlfriend cannot cook, but she eats a lot.
120 Comments
1377
"Chef" would be the word you're after, instead of "cooker". Unless, of course, he aspires to be a kitchen appliance.
Besides, how would being a kitchen appliance help if the girlfriend can't cook?
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Well, maybe the girlfriend can lives with her parents and they can use the "partner-cooker-kitchen-appliance" to cook.
(non-English speaker problems)
Hm. At least we can be sure that his girlfriend is not a cooker. Where you saw a cooker which eats instead of cooking.
A lot of these practice sentences are hilarious if you i agine the creatures as being super passive-aggressive :)
I'm relating to Slovak language, and I think 'though' should be right, too. For me 'although' sounds like marking the first fact: She eats a lot - and hasn't learnt to cook anyway. While 'zato' in Slovak means more like She can't cook, but she still eats a lot. The meaning is slightly different when you switch the order of sentences, at least for me. But maybe I'm completely wrong, could a Russian speaker explain us? :D
In English, "though", "although", "even though" & "however" are all interchangeable here.
Зато is more or less the same, and in this case I would translate it to "although" :-)
"Although" and "even though" would work better, but "though" should totally be acceptable.
Doesn't зато have a conciliatory tone? So couldn't it be translated as 'but at least she eats a lot'?
But you need to be careful; the english grammar often "requires" (though it is non-mandatory) a semi-colon there: "When you use however in the middle of a sentence to separate two clauses, it is usually separated with a semicolon and a comma (... ;however,…). Many modern writers use a comma instead of the semicolon, but the semicolon is still regarded as more correct." - http://www.onlinegrammar.com.au/however-commas-or-semicolons/
"But" seems to me like a better and simpler option.
Yeah the way the typed it makes it seem like "Man my girlfriend can't even cook but she is always eating everything" sounds like a complaint to me lol
Девушка - a young woman, maiden, lass.
Подруга - a girlfriend (a female friend).
Both words can be used in the sense of a date, lover, just as girlfriend can be used in the sense of just a friend, and more than a friend. Though девушка is used in that sense more often than подруга (unlike English).
I don't get why an inability to cook and a large appetite is a deal breaker. That could be a great way to bond with someone.
Wait so I thought that зато was used when you have a negative statement followed by a positive one that "makes up for" the negative statement. In this sentence, it's two negatives (well, I guess the second one is up to interpretation, but whatever lol) joined by зато. Is this just another usage of the conjunction, or am I missing something here? Thanks in advance :)
My Russian instructors translate it as "despite that". So here it would be "My girlfriend cannot cook, despite that she eats a lot.
Yes, but not in all cases. If she knows how to do (умеет) something it does not mean that she can do it (может) right now. For example, if she has a headache or if she's busy right now.
If she can do (может) something, then we can consider that she knows how to do (умеет) it.
Again, not always, может is also used in the sense - may, allowed, and might. So sometimes she may be allowed to do something, but it doesn't mean that knows how to. For instance, Мы можем здесь плавать, это разрешено, но мы не умеем плавать. (We may swim here, it's allowed, but we cannot swim).
Is the Г in много not supposed to be pronounced as "V"? A Russian I spoke with a while ago corrected me and told me to use "V" almost always if in the middle of a word
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Since no one more articulate in the tongue has deigned to respond to your query, Friend howlingmadpanda, I will attempt to assist. With the forewarning that I am not fluent in Russian and the ravages of senescence have left their mark on my powers of recollection, I seem to recall once reading the following rule regarding your question. If you encounter the letter combinations “егo” or “огo” AND the vowel preceding the letter “г” (in this case, “е” or “о”) is NOT stressed, the letter “г” is then pronounced as a “в”. Otherwise, the “г” is pronounced as a “г”. Once again, do not take this as gospel (i.e., an unquestionable truth), but in my limited experience it seems to hold true. I invite someone with a mastery of the language to enlighten us both.
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мно́го ‧ mnógo ‧ [ˈmnoɡə] ‧ forvo.com/word/много ‧ en.wiktionary.org/wiki/много ‧
немно́го ‧ nemnógo ‧ [ nʲɪˈmnoɡə ] ‧ forvo.com/word/немного/#ru ‧ en.wiktionary.org/wiki/немного ‧ ‧ ‧
его́ ‧ jevó ‧ [ (j)ɪˈvo ] (phonetic respelling: ево́) ‧ forvo.com/word/его/ ‧ en.wiktionary.org/wiki/его ‧
oh, wow, I was waiting to see what would be hard for English speakers, for instance Russian speakers often don't hear the difference between duck and dog.
I can assure you, she pronounces девушка really well, I would never think it was девочка.
That sucks for me, because I still seem to hear девочка rather than девушка hahaha
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The difference is something along the lines of Top vs Put, with the Russian о sounding like o in Top and the Russian у like u in Put. There's also a slight difference in that ч=ch and ш=sh
I translated as "My girlfriend doesn't cook, however she eats a lot." Marked wrong, though means the same thing.
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Sorry Friend Miketx, but I disagree. There is a big difference between “doesn’t cook” and “cannot cook.” They do not mean the same thing.
Quick question for russian speakers - can it be translated as: My girlfriend does not know how to cook, thats why she eats a lot?
Or more specific can we translate: зато - thats why
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"Зато" translates as "but." So the sentence translates as: "My girlfriend does not know how to cook, but she eats a lot." The word "зато" does not mean "that's why."
Duo accepted "My girlfriend does not know how to cook, but she eats a lot." 18 Aug 2018
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Уметь means "know to" or "be able to." It is the main verb in this sentence.
If the sentence were "Моя девушка не готовит, зато она много ест" (note the change from готовить to готовит!) it would be translated as "My girlfriend does not cook, but she eats a lot."
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All good day.I am Russian speaking and my answer is "My girlfriend does not know how to cook, even though she eats a lot" is it correct?
Agree with blackbabyj andlucasSherluck. I think better use 'at least' or 'meanwhile', or 'instead'.
I would think that "..., but she eats a lot on the other hand" would be accepted. Is there a reason it's not?
my advice, don't move words around without strong reason, it's really hard for just a few people to add all possible combinations
Just a few people? Who are we talking about here? How many people operate duolingo? How do they make money?
Very few, there is a small team of developers who work on the technical side of all courses, there are less than 50 of them. And then there are incubator teams of volunteers which develop language courses, normally less than 10 people per course. As much as I know in terms of money Duolingo still doesn't bring any profits. They tried to sell translations, now they sell language tests.
So is "много" pronounced "mnogo" or "mnoga" ?? The way the duolingo girl says it, it sounds like the latter but here it says to pronounce it as the former (as well as my inclination...)
Many Russians would tell you that you read Russian just as it is written, but it is so untrue. Yes, Russian is not French, but still there are tons of deviations from the written text. That's why it's actually so hard for Russians to spell all the words correctly (I know as I've always had troubles with it) and they are tested on that in school regularly. If you try to read everything as it is written you would sound very unnatural. Plus, the way you pronounce different things reveals where you're from in Russia (just as there are different accents in the US, UK and so on).
All you say, Larisa, is true, but Russian is spoken MORE like it is written than English. Russian has rules to govern how things are pronounced, whereas English has somethings that are totally mysterious. Read, read--thought, etc.
as о at the end is not stressed here, then naturally it slides into а (the robot pronounced it exactly right)
That happens very often in Russian. For instance, we pronounce кАрова though we write кОрова, we pronounce мАлАко, though we write мОлОко (because of that kids even memorise a rule that they must write оло and оро combinations via о, and still people make mistakes in writing).
спасибо!
So is that basically the rule? If the "o" is stressed, then pronounce it as "o," but if not, say it as an "a"?
yes, in some regions people still say о (we say that they Окают), and in some regions they really pronounce strong а (Акают). Most people, though, just say something in between. There is the same thing with Е, when not stressed it tends to slide into И. So some people even write едИт instead of едЕт, which is a mistake.
Ah ok. So in general, would you say the Duolingo voice is correct in how it pronounces it's O's as A's ?
Lastly, and going along with my above question, should I generally always say "A"-na (instead of "O"-na) for "она" and "A"-nee (instead of "O"-nee) for "они"?
Very useful- Thank you very much!!!
p.s. I am French-American and I see you are trying to learn French and English, perhaps? These are my first 2, native/primary languages so feel free to ask me anything!
Yes, at least here her pronunciation is absolutely correct.
Yes, ана sounds more natural than clear Она, just make sure not to emphasise the sound. the same with а-ни, сА-бака, пАдруга and so on.
Unf, I don't have much time to learn languages these days. I've lived in the U.S. and U.K. for 7 years now, so don't need to actively learn English any more (but while developing the new English for Russians course, I do it in any case). Studied French for a while - really loved it, but as I have no use for it now, had to pause.
An excellent tool for checking pronunciation of individual words is forvo.com. You simply copy the word and paste it into the search box to get recordings of actual native-speakers saying the word.
Sometimes it's quite interesting hearing the variety of ways that different people say the same word. I don't think it's quite as remarkable as the difference between New English American English and that of the Deep South, but still there can be some interesting distinctions.
Here's много at forvo: https://forvo.com/word/%D0%BC%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE/#ru
As I understand it, a девушка is a young woman (between about 18-25), and a девочка is younger (between 6-18). As a non-native Russian speaker, I wouldn't answer unless I was very certain of my information. I hope someone will correct me immediately if I am mistaken.
Sounds about right. Also, девушка can mean girlfriend (which would also imply that she's a young woman, probably in her 20's, etc.)
Because девочка refers to a little girl, but девушка is a young woman.
Hello, is "my girlfriend cannot cook even though she eats a lot" not acceptable?
I believe that хотя (и) is needed for "even though", not зато. I'm not sure when you use и with хотя, so I put parentheses around it.
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умеет why not doesnt know how to instead of cannot? because cannot means she has no arms or something else, thats impossible for her to cook
There actually differnt types of "can" in Russian. Умееть is akin to knowing how to do something.
This literally is the funniest translation, next to Jenny's problem of leaving the luggage in the taxis.
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I put "doesn't know how to cook" but it was marked wrong. Умееть is to know how to do something so this seems like it should be accepted, no?
It should be My girlfriend does not know how to cook, Eventhough she eats a lot
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This part of the course "conjunctive" has a flaw. It stops because in one question, it's not possible to use a keyboard, thus not possible to answer. This has to be fixed, I tried many times!
Not only does that not make any sense here, the whole concept of "homosexual propaganda" is just… odd. What does that even mean?
Read the comments before asking again something that has been answered before
