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- Topic: Russian >
- "Иван хочет знать, где Анна."
24 Comments
What's the rule for comma placement, specifically? It seems similar to German usage. Between all indepdent clauses? Do they actually represent a pause in speech, or is it an orthographic thing?
It is punctuation convention, a kind of markdown that helps you see what the structure is. Independent clauses are set off by commas; conjunctions like а, но usially have commas before them even if they only contrast words, not clauses.
Lists are punctuated pretty much the same as in English but without an Oxford comma. "Both ... and ..." structure и ... , и ... has a comma before the second «и» and all и's that follow, unless the whole phrase is a set expression. This goes for «ни ..., ни ...» and «или ..., или ...», too.
Commas and dashes do not, as a rule, correspond to any pauses in speech. Intonation, maybe? After all, the structure of a sentence affects intonation.
Am I the only one who struggles to hear the difference between Анна and она? Suggestions/advice?
I don't know if I have any good tips but for она the а is stressed, for Анна the first А is stressed.
We accept both here but they are not the same (just the meaning overlaps in this case). «Узнать» is "to find out, to learn". Essentially, it is the difference between "to sleep" and "to fall asleep". «Знать» describes a state and, as such, does not even have a true perfective form.
узнать is a perfective verb that means "to find out, to learn, to come to know" (a different meaning is "to recognize").
It obviously makes sense in a lot of sentences with the verb "know". And yet it does not mean "to know" as such.
:) It's ФБР /фэ-бэ-эр/ in Russian (stands for федеральное бюро расследований).
Note that Э and З are different letters. One looks like a round E, only mirrored, the other very similar to 3 ("three").
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In the audio, sometimes its Анна, and sometimes it's она. How can you know which one is correct? They sound the same.
