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- "прошлая неделя"
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Not "FALSE" friends with Serbs ;) We also say "недеља” for the week ;) and even almost the same ”прошла недеља” ;)
But we do also say the same for Sunday :) where Russians say "Воскресенье - Sunday." what is in our (Serbian) case Easter ;)
No wonder. Воскресение also (and primarily) means "resurrection", "rising from the dead", hence it is used for both Easter (Светлое Христово воскресенье) and Sunday. Before Russia was Christianized, the word седмица ('a set of seven days') was used for "week" and the word неделя (which comes from "ничего не делать" = "to do nothing") meant Sunday.
Can anyone explain why this is in the lesson on possessives? Do the forms of these words somehow connote possession?
They have to introduce new words all along the course, so annoying people don't complain about the repetition of words. Now, we are able to see phrases like "my last cat" or "your week" soon.
I'm not sure I'm getting the pronunciation right... I have неделя figured out, but прошлая is a conundrum. that final я, seems to usually have a "ya" pronunciation. I don't hear it here. Is it perhaps they are sounding it so fast?
Я following a vowel is only pronounced "yah" when it is stressed, e.g. in words моя, твоя, маяк, змея, струя and the like, but in adjectival endings it is never stressed, so the last syllables in прошлая are pronounced close to "-shley" in Ashley. In a fast speech the words прошлая, прошлое, прошлый and прошлые sound the same.
I CANNOT FIND HOW -OE in ПРОШЛОЕ (masculine) turns into -Я ПРОШЛЯ (feminine). Could someone explain the rule to me ?
One phonetical feature of the Russian language is the so-called reduction of vowels. It means that in an unstressed syllable O sounds the same as A and E is no different from Я. Unless the unstressed syllable precedes the stressed one, any of the four letters in it stands for the shwa sound with a hint to /j/ (as 'y' in 'you') consontant before it in the case of E and Я following another vowel. Thus there is not supposed to be any difference in pronunciation between ПРОШЛОЕ (the neuter form) and ПРОШЛАЯ (the feminine form) except in some northern dialects. In an unstressed syllable preceding the stressed one О and A are both pronounced as 'uh', whereas E, И and Я are pronounced as 'e' in 'economy'
It shouldn't if properly articulated. However, unlike 'sh', 'ш' does not have a slightest palatalization. The tip of the tongue should be pointed much higher in the mouth - its position is similar to the one you put your tongue in while pronouncing 'r' in English. Or, you might as well think of saying 'sh' and 'h' simultaneously
Does неделя have the same root as делать? If so, is it etymologically connected to doing things?
You’re right. In old Russian, неделя meant Sunday - день, когда можно ничего не делать. With the advent of Christianity to Russia, the word воскресение (resurrection, or rising from the dead) was adopted for Sunday, whereas «неделя» changed its meaning to “a week”. In most other Slavic languages, the word similar to неделя still means Sunday.
Feminine vs masculine gender (both forms are nominative case singular). Each Russian full adjective can take 13 different endings distributed between 6 cases, 3 genders (in singular forms only) and two numbers — singular and plural.
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Makes sense. Based on my calculations, in Russian each adjective has 357 different forms...
It is usually 12 usual forms, 4 short forms and 1 comparative. Superlatives, though... They are usually formed analytically (i.e., by adding "most"), but there are 2 options for adding affixes: just -айший/-ейший or same, but with наи- at the beginning (e.g., длинный→длиннейший, наидлиннейший). These are fairly bookish and are bookish even in books.
Here is the listing of forms of лёгкий:
- 12 gender/number/case forms: лёгкий, лёгкая, лёгкое, лёгкие, лёгкого, лёгком, лёгкому, лёгким, лёгкую, лёгкой, лёгких, лёгкими
- short predicate forms: лёгок, легка, легко, легки
- comparative: легче
- superlative: (наи)легчайший. Or самый лёгкий / легче всех / легче всего
последний also means last, does this mean last as in final? Or could I use последний in this phrase?
The word прошлый (прошлое, прошлая, прошлые - depending on the number and gender of the following noun) is used with nouns век, год, месяц, неделя and ночь to mean "last" (no article). It can also be used with days of the week, for example, "в прошлую среду" = "last Wednesday". Последний means "the last" as in "the last time" (which is not necessarily final).
In unstressed syllables Russian vowels are so weak that one can hardly distinguish between прошлый, прошлая, прошлое and прошлые. Unstressed endings -ая and -ое sound slightly more open than -ый or -ые.
