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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.
125 Comments
1407
"Chef" would be the word you're after, instead of "cooker". Unless, of course, he aspires to be a kitchen appliance.
1352
Well, maybe the girlfriend can lives with her parents and they can use the "partner-cooker-kitchen-appliance" to cook.
(non-English speaker problems)
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
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.
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 :)
184
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.
580
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 ‧
184
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.
1044
"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."
1044
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."
420
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?
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.
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).
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).
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
381
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
366
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?
41
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!