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- "Это мужчина?"
66 Comments
Actually, as an American in Russia you are an alien, in another sense of the word :-)
That is correct. Just as an American is an alien/foreigner in Russia, an extraterrestrial being is an alien/foreigner on earth. Hence the modern meaning.
I'm not sure if you mean "Is", instead of "It", but "It this the man?" is not proper english.
I translated the sentence into 'is this a man' and it shows that i am correct but it also shows another translation as 'is that a man' how would I come to know if the word suggests 'this' or 'that'.
I know there are different ways to spell the "same" sound in any language, but can someone explain why мужчина and жеищина have the same sounds but are spelled differently?
From my experience the "ч" and "щ" have two different sounds. "мужчина" should sound like "moo-she-na" while "жеищина" should sound like "jze-chin-nah". The "ч" sound is like the CH in cheer and requires a light tongue, the "щ" is like the CH in chin and requires a heavy tongue in the back of the mouth.
If you know how to pronounce separate sounds then "мужчина" is pronounced as "мущина" and "женщина" => "женьщина". Why are they spelled differently? There is basis of the word "муж" in "мужчина". "чин" is a suffix. I believe that some time ago it was pronounced the same way it is written at least in some territories but due to some simplifications it was modified. Even for me, native speaker, it is weird that such a popular words are so complex and long.
Is it O.k. to pronounce "ж" and "ч" separately when they are back-to-back?
There is almost no words with "жч" combination and all except "мужчина" are extremely rare. It is pronounced as "щ". The exceptions are words with prefix "меж-" (inter-) like "межчелюстной" (intermaxillary). Here "ж" and "ч" are pronounced separately as they are but I doubt you need all these rare words. Just remember how to pronounce "мужчина".
How do you say “this is a man” vs “this man” ? do you say Это мужчина in both cases ?
Multiple issues (for me this was in practice where I only heard the audio)...
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From that pronunciation/intonation (the current male voice), how was I supposed to understand it's a question? Is there some dead giveaway or something like... it has to be a question if it's constructed like that?
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I'm sure "Is this a man[?]" is equally correct, no? Here, the 'this' or 'that' is not in a literal sense indicating a particular man, it's purely an expression (in English). One more thing I'm not so very sure about but definitely crossed my mind is that the Russian sentence could have many more meanings depending on context and intonation (is it a question or is it not! What if the question mark wasn't there? or you couldn't clearly hear the raising stress on MUzhchina? where the stress BTW should be IMO, on the first syllable. Please do correct me if mistaken).
What do you guys think?
If "Это" is for neuter gender, why is it being used with "мужчина" (which, I presume, is a masculine word)? Wouldn't "этот" be the correct form?
There's a handy guide to using "это" here:
Would it be incorrect to pronounce ж an ч separately here, or anytime these two are together like this? Would it be acceptable anywhere in Russia?
506
Yes, it would be incorrect. The only instance when it might be OK is when you use this word ironically and want to emphasize it by pronouncing all the letters distinctly and slowlier than usual.
How would i have known that this question asks "Is that a man?" Instead of "Is that the man?"
"Человек" is a person/human, it's not gender specific. "Мужчина" is a male human.
How would мужчина sound if it were spelled мужина? I still dont understand the significance of "ч"
Actually, мужчина is pronounced like мущина. I don't know why, and I don't know if it occurs every time you see the letters жч together, but I know it's not a very recurrent letter sequence
I wrote "is this man? Like for an identification, but it is not correct, why?
i was thinking the only differance between them is the use of the definite article. Thanks.
- 1033
I am using the website for this and I obviously dont have a Russian keyboard. I need help with this and other exercise like it because it wont accept the latin alphabet equivelent
Bite me Duolingo, "Is that a man" is most definitely not the only translation of "Это мужчина?" Fix it.
- 745
I didn't realise this was a question, if it was not a question then would этот мужчина "This man" be a valid translation?
Why not the answer is ' is this a man?' . what is exact meaning of мужчина
- 517
I've tried to speak the phrase but it seems that the mic is not doing its job simultaneously
"Этот мужчина" would mean "this man". "This is" is always "это" and doesn't reflect gender.
A lot of correct answers are considered as false. I can not go further !!! How to solve that problem ?
- 745
Not 100% sure but i think этот is for when there is a noun straight after (eg this man) whereas это is for when there isn't (eg this is a man)
