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- "Где лежат продукты?"
103 Comments
It literally asks "where do the groceries lie?", right?
edit: grammar edit2: grammar again
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Sorry, friend, but you are confusing the verb "to lay" with the verb "to lie." To lay is a transitive verb, meaning to put something down, and requires a direct object, as in, the chicken lays a egg. To lie, meaning how something is situated, is an intransitive verb and does not use a direct object. The proper usage here would be, "...where do the groceries lie?" Confusing lie and lay is probably the most common English usage error to be found today. But better usage here would be simply... where are the groceries?
And to make things even more confusing, "lay" can also be the past tense of "to lie," as in, "When I lay down last night..." And this is not to be confused with "laid" as in "I laid the groceries on the table."
Right, but when speaking in English, you can't use any translation of the verb. It has to make sense. Stan is right; you need an object if you use lay, even if it's an assumed reflexive pronoun (I lay down at night = I lay myself down at night).
[Original obsolete] I think it should be "Where do the groceries lay".
[EDIT:] The original post was edited, so my comment makes no sense now. Also, I got it completely wrong and used "lay" as if it were the present tense of "to lie down", which it is not and is completely wrong.
Folks, no, groceries are the subject. Hence it is where do the groceries lie -- intransitive.
I'm confused about when we need to use лежать verses just saying где продукти
In fact, I can't think of a situation where I'd prefer to say "Где лежат продукты?". I think I'd always say just "Где продукты?".
Depends on the situation. In general, both phrases are interchangeable, but "Где продукты?" has a wider meaning. For example, if you came home and found all food are eaten (by somebody), you can wonder "где продукты?", or "где все продукты?". But if you just can't find them, you also might ask "где продукты?", or "где лежат продукты"?
Could it be thought of like this:
Где продукты? Where are the groceries?
Где лежать продукты? Where were the groceries placed?
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I feel like I would translate it colloquially as "where are the groceries at" (as in, someone bought them but you don't know where they set them down) vs. "where are the groceries" (as in someone was supposed to buy them, but they came home empty handed).
In another example I saw лежит instead of лежат. What is the difference? Or is this simply a glitch in the course?
'Goods' should be accepted too. This is only one sentence and it's hard to find the right translation, because 'продукты' are not only groceries, they can also be fruits, vegetables, materials, any kind of products, I suppose.
I agree with olimo. In this context 'goods' and 'products' are not interchangeable. 'Goods' are more like "товары", "продукция" (which is different from "products"), "материалы".
In other words, in Russian if the word "Продукт" is not specified (i.e. "продукт производства", "продукт переработки" etc), it's almost always a grocery product.
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No, "produce" as a noun in English is more specific than groceries. There is a produce section in large grocery stores that sells food items that are perishable. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Produce for a longer explanation.) Groceries also include non-perishable food items.
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For me, as an American, produce means fresh fruits and vegetables and is particularly opposed to meat, dairy products, drinks (juice etc.), and boxed and canned products. Thus, non-produce groceries include perishable as well as non-perishable food items.
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Opposite to "produce" (as a noun), "merchandise" is more broad than "groceries". "Groceries" refers to food items while "merchandise" includes goods that are not food items (such as clothing or electronics). Also, "merchandise" isn't really used outside of a business context, and not generally when someone is speaking of their shopping.
In British English (real English!), shopping is the best translation. Goods tends to mean something more industrial or in bulk, or a slang term for contraband
Someone refresh me...Is there a spelling rule against the plural of продукт ending with и, or is this just how it's spelled?
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For the nominative plural, words ending in a consonant (masculine) most commonly take ы to be plural.
Words ending in a consonant can also take а or я, but I have in my cheater chart, "Less common." As far as I know, I have yet to encounter a masculine consonant-end noun in the Duolingo course which has taken а or я to be plural.
However, words ending in г, к, х, ж, ч, ш, or щ always take и to be plural.
Do not worry, you will certainly encounter masculine nouns taking a stressed -а/-я as the ending. From the top of my head, I can name a few:
- дом → дома́ "houses
- а́дрес → адреса́ "addresses"
- лес → леса́ "forests"
- учи́тель → учителя́ "teachers"
- до́ктор → доктора́ "doctors"
- профе́ссор → профессора́ "professors"
- про́вод → провода́ "wires"
- по́езд → поезда́ "trains"
- дире́ктор → директора́ "directors, heads of companies"
- глаз → глаза́ "eyes", рог → рога́ "horns", берег→берега́ "shores, banks" (has to do with former dual number forms)
In professional speech, ве́ктор→вектора́ is common (for science guys), you can encounter до́говор→договора́ (in the speech of lawyers and accountants; до́говор is itself non-standard—догово́р is the usual form people use). Also, бухгалтер→бухгалтера́, тре́нер→тренера́.
Much as I know what the standard form is, it is hard for me to use векторы as the plural because I never heard anyone use it—and I heard so many who use вектора!
Друг, брат, стул, муж, сын are sort of irregular and also end in -я in plural: друзья́, бра́тья, сту́лья, мужья́, сыновья́ (note that the stress is not on the ending for some of them).
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This is helpful; I had not realized that дом becomes дома. Thanks for the list of examples, including the irregular nouns.
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How is, "Where lie the groceries?" wrong
There is nothing technically incorrect with the way you have phrased it. However, it does sound quite archaic, so I would not expect Duolingo to ever accept it.
When forming a question about the location of something or someone, I would recommend something along the lines of, "Where is x [lying]? Where are y [lying]?"
When forming a question about the current state of an object or person (present continuous), I notice that in English, we frequently use "is" and "are" as helping-verbs to the main verb of the sentence. When forming a question about something that habitually occurs (present simple), we frequently use "do" or "does" as helping verbs.
- Present continuous: Where are they going [right now]? Present simple: Where do they go on Mondays/Tuesdays/holidays? Archaic-sounding: Where go they?
- Present continuous: Who are they talking to [right now]? Present simple: Who do they talk to in IT [when they have a question about how to reboot their computers before calling IT]? Archaic-sounding: several possible versions including, Who speak they to?
- Present continuous: Why is she singing [right now while I'm eating?] Present simple: Why does she sing [so often - is she preparing for a career in music]? Archaic-sounding: I can't even mentally form this without disused versions of "you" and "sing."
There will of course be exceptions - sometimes we use "do" and "does" when we refer to something that is occurring or could be hypothetically occurring in this present moment, such as with thought.
"I don't love you anymore." "Gasp! What do you mean?" (Note - I myself would never use the present-continuous verb "meaning" - "What are you meaning?" - this sounds very strange to my ear, and I am struggling to think of an instance where I would ever say that, even when speaking in a rush. For whatever reason, "What do you mean?" is the best-sounding use of this particular verb in a question-sentence. I reserve the word "meaning" for use as a noun, as in, "The meaning of the Russian word щи in English is pure, unadulterated joy in a bowl.")
"What does Mom think about hang-gliding from the kitchen roof? Would I be in trouble?" [Answer for the curious: yes, and she will tell Dad. :( ]
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"Love" is a stative verb, which is why "I am loving ..." is generally not correct (McDonald's notwithstanding).
Because this is not the way a native speaker of English would say it. I know, you are working on learning Russian, you aren't working on your English right now. So it doesn't feel fair that you got marked wrong for a problem with your English grammar when you understood the meaning of the Russian sentence. But the staff at Duolingo have to enter every alternative sentence into the program database in order for the sentences to be accepted. And no one is going to enter sentences that aren't good English.
I feel like i would have actually said "where did you put the groceries?"
Whats the connotative difference betwedn стоит, лежит, and --- (is or are). They seem somewhat interchangable.
The verbs стоять and лежать are literally "stand" and "lie".
Стоит is generally used for "standing", for vertical position (including an object leaning against something). It is also used for stable, upright position if an objects is designed to have one—basically, if it has a base or legs (e.g., chairs, plates, cups, microphone stands, boxes). So a plate can "stand" on the table and also "stand" vertically in a cupboard.
Лежит is used for "lying", for upset or random orientation. If an object has a stable "preferred" upright orientation but is positioned otherwise, we also use "лежит". For example, a plate or a bowl put upside down can be described as "тарелка/миска лежит" (plates are rather stable even upside down but aren't indended to be used that way). A book can "lie" flat on a desk or "stand" vertically on a shelf.
The verb лежать is often used for objects "kept" somewhere (though, upright orientation will trigger "стоять" for things like milk or cups).
Вопросительное слово - вспомогательный глагол - подлежащее - сказуемое. Where are the groceries lying?
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How would you say "Where are there groceries?" Is that a synonym? Maybe it's just from the "there is" assumption, but they seem similar, though with slightly different context. Without articles, it's difficult for me to know (yet I suppose) when things are talking about specifics (e.g. "the groceries I know of") and something more open ended ("where can I find groceries?")
This is a good question. Also, how much does inflection change sentences like this? Inflection can make "there are" into "are there?".
As far as i know and from what i can tell through google it is the same in both. I'm natively Swedish but grew up with canadian english and learnt brittish english in school.
Nope, I live in England and grocceries is never used. "Shopping" or "The shopping" is used instead.
I grew up in England. "Groceries" was the word we used when exclusively food shopping was meant. "The shopping" refers to the bags resulting from any shopping trip, and could, for example, be bags of clothes. In Scotland, the commonest word for the grocery shopping is "the messages". However I have never heard the word "messages" used in that way outside Scotland.
Well it's regarded as a uk english word in several well renound dictionaries and seems to have been used since the 15th century stemming from the french language.
IMHO If we take into account that Duo teaches us 'everyday' language and not scientific, technological, chemical etc. the word продукты reflects edible products.
Couldn't it be just Где продукты? I'm just asking because I typed in "Where are the groceries?" and it was marked correct.
Он лежит (singular)
Они лежат (plural)
See the complete conjugation below:
http://cooljugator.com/ru/%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B6%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C
Anyone else not have audio for this? Other parts to this lesson work just fine, but there seem to be a few where there is no audio. I tried multiple different browsers and two different computers, and I have no audio...
By now we all know how much Russian likes to cut out words, so why not just say "где продукты?", since the answer doesn't say that the groceries are actually sitting/laying anywhere.
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Whats the difference between?:
Где лежат продукты? and Где продукты?
Please and thank you.
Where are lying the groceries? Где лежат продукты? Where are the groceries? Где продукты?
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Without 'the' it is a question about groceries in general. I suppose it is grammatically not wrong, but it seems unlikely that anyone would ever ask this question.
Why don't russians use лежают here? "Где лежают продукты?" "Они в сумке."
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It's not a verb that follows that more typical conjugation pattern that you've suggested.
Just throwing in "set' or 'setting' as another translation for this sentence. I understand лежит means 'to lie' but I more often would say set for this in English.
