- Forum >
- Topic: Russian >
- "У неё есть дом?"
58 Comments
The pronoun is in the genitive case (to show possession or a connection between 2 things)
An –Н– is attached to Его / Её / Его / Их
since they start with vowels and they are preceded by a prepositions –У–
So is H only added if Его / Её / Его / Их is after У, or is there other cases like that?
They are added in all oblique forms of он, она, они, оно after almost all simple prepositions.
When его, её, их mean "his", "her", "their" (when the word is a possessive modifier), NO itinial Н is ever added.
So is there some kind of rule of thumb? Like does this always happen when the preposition before Его / Её / Его / Их ends in a vowel?
It does not matter what the preposition ends in.
Russian does, however, has some longer prepositional phrases, akin to "according to", "thanks to", "including" etc. These are not included. However, the vast majority of all "beginner's prepositions" require an initial Н here. Of short ones, only "вне" (outside, beyond) is not used with него, неё, них —and it is not a very common preposition, though not a rare one either (~40 instances per million words in the spoken speech corpus)
I am just warning you that the rule of initial Н will not work for every single preposition. A good reference table is found here.
Really appreciate Shady_arc pointing us to a reference table on which prepositons add the "н" and which don't. If you're Russian isn't that good, it may help to have the English side by side. Keep in mind that the translation is compliments of Google Translate, so it is a little rough in parts, but, until your mastery of Russian becomes stronger, you may find it useful just the same.
The image is too small to see at a 100% view in this post, but if you enlarge your view to 300%, you should be able to see them side by side. You can also right click the image and save it as a .JPG or .bmp file in a folder of your choosing on your computer to reference as needed. Most image viewers should allow you to adjust the view to whichever settings work best for you.
Hope that helps.
On my mobile device the option to select doesn't seem to work, is there a link to the page where it came from? (One Plus One)
Should we know these words already from Duolingo? I'm keeping a list, and these are new to me
Brand new words are shown in a yellow highlight. Newer words are still underlined with a slightly faded dotted line. In both these cases, hovering your mouse over the word will give the translation. Old words that you should know are not specially marked and do not have a translation when the mouse hovers.
Thanks, yeah - got the new words, but I was confused by the apparent knowledge of everyone about the words above, "An –Н– is attached to Его / Её / Его / Их" etc. I've learned He, She, and various other forms, but I hadn't encountered these until now. Still sort of wondering if I've missed someting. No worries. The more info I can get, the better and thanks again.
Should be yellow. Frequently they are not. Names are never yellow. A little annoying. But since they are clickable it is ok.
Падежи в русском языке это тяжело.
Я - у меня есть - дают мне - обвиняют меня - довольны мной - думают обо мне.
Ты - у тебя есть - дают тебе - обвиняют тебя - довольны тобой - думают о тебе.
Он / оно - у него есть - дают ему - обвиняют его - довольны им - думают о нём
Она - у неё есть - дают ей - обвиняют её - довольны ей - думают о ней
Они - у них есть - дают им - обвиняют их - довольны ими - думают о них
Вы - у вас есть - дают вам - обвиняют вас - довольны вами - думают о вас
Can this mean "Does she have a home?", as in a place to live, or would we understand that this means a house, as opposed to a flat?
Ok, thanks. So how do we ask "Does she have a house?" (And not a flat / apartment)? To me, it seems a very different question.
It is the Genitive of она. Note the initial Н that gets added after most simple prepositions (the bare Genitive form is её).
Hm. You can say that in Russian you usually say "By me, there is a house" instead of "I have a house".
In English you can say that a thing is somewhere:
- There is a dog in the house.
- There is a box on the table
- There is a book on the shelf.
- There is a room in the building.
You can do this with places but cannot do this with people. Russian lets you use у + Genitive to convert a person to "pseudo-place" and then talk about things that are found "there":
STEP 1: convert a living being to a place:
- я → у меня, ты → у тебя
- мама → у мамы, собака → у собаки
STEP 2: say that a thing IS in that place:
- У меня есть собака.
- У тебя есть мама.
- У мамы есть телевизор (TV).
- У собаки есть хвост (tail).
It also works with objects if you are describing their parts (A door has a handle, A chair has a leg, A display has a button), though with buildings and interiors, you usually switch to normal в because these are physical places.
Since all of these are to-be sentences, Russian makes an additional distinction here by including or omitting есть depending on what you mean. If the existence of such object in one's possession is the core meaning, you should say есть. If, on the other hand, you are talking about properties of an object (I have a pretty good PC), body parts (I have blue eyes) or illnesses and conditions (I have a fever), you should not use есть. Especially with the latter. It also works when you are talking about the identity of an object (He's got a gun!) rather than its existence.
Naturally, you also omit "есть" when saying WHO has a certain object. Since "The dog is in the car" will be "Собака в машине", "MOM has the dog" will be "Собака у мамы". These sentences work in a very similar fashion.
Because the 'dots' over 'ё' are more often omitted than not. No confusion arises from that because words with 'ё' and 'e' do not overlap: there are no (or so few that I can't recall any right now) words with their meaning depending on whether there is 'ё' or 'e' in them.
It's like, okay everyone knows "неё" goes with 'ё' and there's no such word as "нее" at all, so I'll just leave it without the dots as "нее" to save my time and ink and everybody will easily figure out what I meant anyway.
However, at schools kids are taught to put the 'dots' over 'ё' as required, and 'ё' is there in the books/texts for kids/learners. It is useful for proper stressing: 'ё' is ALWAYS stressed.
Good answer! Thanks. Still a bad habit though. I wouldn't dare writing something differently than it should be written just because the context makes it unanimous. Not in my mother tongue, not in any other language. I would consider it rude towards others.
Well, in Russian it is really your choice. Ё did not really taken off at the time of its creation; it has always been mostly printed as Е in books, and not enforced at school either.
It is only recently that some people insist everyone should consistently use ё everywhere. Switching to this use may take quite some time.
501
As an Afrikaner I keep hearing "O nee joh jy's dom"(Oh no jeez you're stupid) whenever this comes up
Cant it be a statement instead of a question?? I thought it looks like "she has a house"
In Russian the word order is the same for questions and statements, you'll have to use the question mark in writing and the intonation in speech to know it's a question.
I cannot continue my Russian lesson because when for "merging" I say utro it is not good ...I don't anderstand
why неё and not она? what's the difference between the two, and when do i use which?
The reader's intonation doesn't seem to mark the question to me. In any case a foreigner should get into the habit of recognizing and using clear yes/no question intonation.
I always get this phrase...it never askes if someone else has a house lol its always "her"
Dear @Martin633120
You were right about the grammar! Thank you for the explanation. I learned Russian and English today. Have a nice day :-)
Why ((does she have a house?), We say (does she have water?) For у неё есть вода?
Why using have, If she - need to using has . I have We/You/They have He/She/It has
