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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.
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.
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.
It is the Genitive of она. Note the initial Н that gets added after most simple prepositions (the bare Genitive form is её).
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.
Cant it be a statement instead of a question?? I thought it looks like "she has a house"
I'm surprised nobody translated this as "Does she own a house?" DL doesn't accept it, I think it's an acceptable translation.
I think they were getting at the she has --> she's contraction. I think this may be used in some parts of the US but not where I am from.
Hmm yes I tried that in my head before I posted the comment. The only way I could remotely pass it off is if one were to say it with a tone of voice as if a question was being asked. Really in the end tho all I hear from that particular sentence choice is somebody asking the equivalent of "she is a home?"
У неё есть дом? - "У неё" tells me that this sentence is going to be in the "Genitive" Case. (There are six Russian cases). In the genitive case "Неё" means She. "Него" in the genitive case means "He".
So I was right? Also do you know if there's a way I can learn about these cases
Hi Alisha. Understanding Russian cases is one of the most difficult concepts for native English speakers to grasp. Your going to need some coaching help. Watch the video and send her an email. Sign up for a few language coaching sessions and find out how much you have to learn. https://youtu.be/rYXnPNH6i8M
Why is the "у" used i. this sentence? I thought it was started with "я" and it was incorrect.
I chose horse because it looked like house at a glance. Well played Duo, well played.
This was kind of difficult on the tongue to pronounce with 'неё есть'. I was saying 'yeast' somehow, lol.
As a question.... Does she have a house? As an answer.... She has a house.
How "have" is being used all the time with "she" ? What kind of logic is there ?
e is the Russian letter pronounced ye. ё (notice the two dots above the e) is pronounced yo. so you hear nyeyo. Looks like you might need some help with the alphabet and syllables. Check out the free ebook at russianpath.com
No, I can read the Cyrillic alphabet. I'm just curious as to why the creators of this course didn't...transliterate the letters more accurately.
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"has" becomes "have" when used after a pronoun in a 'Does(n't) he/she/it...' or 'Do(n't) I/we/you/they...' type of sentence, though "Has she a house?" might be an acceptable translation in some forms of British English.
