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- "Извините, молока нет."
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Sometimes it feels like Russian just wants make the sentences as short as possible.
Actually, Russian sentences are usually longer because the words are longer, too. But with short sentences, yes, they tend to be shorter because we don't use auxiliary verbs and articles.
У меня нет молока, или, у меня молока нет, but never "у меня не молока".
Same here. Is there a way to differentiate between 1st person singular and 1st person plural in any context of this sentence?
Wouldn't you have to add нас in there. For it to be "we do not have milk" wouldn't it be "у нас нет молока"
"У нас нет молоко" is a correct translation of "we don't have milk", yes. This sentence is simply "there isn't milk".
"Sorry, there's no milk" usually implies you're either a shopkeeper or a host, so it would mean the same. But strictly speaking "we have no milk" would be «у нас нет молока»
i have 3 questions : izvinite also means excuse me, or not ? because that' what I wrote and DUO says it's wrong/ I also said : excuse me, no milk. since english is not my mother tongue, maybe you don't say that when you don't have the product ? in French, we do. : desole, pas de lait ! it's colloquial but correct. Finally, how do you do it when you want to come back to some questioin and yiu cannot because they send you back to square one and you have to start all over again ! Thanks
How do you know it "sorry, we have no milk" as opposed to "sorry, there is no milk"
It is usually implied because you're generally going to be using it as a host or as an employee at a store, as mentioned by RuudVerb here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/11572685$comment_id=13154225
I got the impression this was a response to someone offering a drink. "Excuse me, no milk(for me)"
That seems strange to me - in both English and Russian, actually. "Excuse me" in refusing an offer of a drink? I'm not a native speaker, but sounds to me far more like a response to a request for a drink - "can I have a glass of milk, please?" "Sorry, there isn't any milk".
If you are offered something and want to respectfully decline you would say "Нет спасибо." No need to repeat what was offered.
What if you're only refusing a portion of what was offered?
This answer seems okay for a beginner but I tend to prefer conversational specificity.
- In a restaurant setting, where they brought you milk but you didn't order it, you could say something like - Я не просил молока / не заказывал молоко.
- If it's a situation where they're offering, for instance, milk and sugar for your coffee (Хотите ли вы молоко и сахар к кофе?), then - Только сахар пожалуйста[, без молока].
I don't know if that answers your question though, if you can think of other situations then maybe a more precise answer could be given.
There is none in the Russian sentence. However, a subject is required by the English grammar rules, and you have to come up with something that doesn't contradict the meaning of the original sentence, which is what you are likely to hear if all the milk the shop had has already been sold out.
Can someone please explain why молоко has suddenly become молока? I get that is something to do with genitive case, but that's the extent of my understanding!
@BelindaWil20 - It's because of the negation rule (here, through the use of the word нет). You can read more about genitive and the most common situations it's used for here: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Russian/Grammar/Genitive_case
How about when someone is serving you a cup of tea, and just when the person is about to pour milk over it you say "sorry, not milk." Would "извините, молока нет" be an adequate response in Russian (besides "не надо")?
I noticed that "sorry, not milk" has not been accepted as a correct answer to this translation exercise.
This is Russia. People will not start to pour milk in your tea. At least in Kazan, I can't speak about elsewhere, but there, people may not even think to offer milk.
Not a native speaker, prone to the occasional error, but if you're saying you don't want milk in your tea, I'm pretty sure it should be "без молока" rather than "нет молока".
Ok, my english is not so good... But the translation should be: "Sorry, there is no milk" ( there is no indication who is saying this - neather I nor we) pas de lait. "Izvinite, nema mleka" - "Verzeihung/Entschuldigung - es gibt keine Milch" (Entschuldigung - keine Milch.) U nas moloka net U minja moloka net
The recommended answer I see when I load this conversation has your suggested translation already.
I don't understand your comment? (können Sie evtl. auf Deutsch antworten? Danke)
Sie haben gesagt, dass “sorry, there is no milk” als eine Übersetzung gelten sollte, aber das ist genau die Variante, die Duo vorschlägt. Es gibt kein “we“ oder “I” da, weder im russischen noch im englischen.
Nicht ganz richtig - ich habe das als Antwort eingegeben und duolingo erkennt das als Fehler. Richtig sei: We have no milk ... oder I have no milk - jedenfalls verlangt das Programm bei mir ein Personalpronomen. Aber danke
Извини is the informal (familiar) imperative, what you'd say to a friend or family member or child, Извините is the formal (proper or plural) imperative, what you'd say to a boss or teacher or stranger. They are both conjugations of the verb Извинить. They both mean "sorry" or "excuse me".
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Google translator is that friend that always gets me in trouble, no matter how many times, I keep going back. Thanks for the response keinemeinung.
"Нет" always means "no", but sometimes it requires a bit of rephrasing. E.g., "I do not have X" = "I have no X" = "У меня нет Х"
Also "не" always means "not".
HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT HAS "WE" IN THIS SENTENCE????? CYKA RUSSIANS
You are not, because, as you can clearly see, it is not there in the Russian sentence. That's the point of skipping the subject: then it can be anything and your imagination is your only limit. Could be aliens as well (because, sorry, but presumably they have no milk either, or at least no milk the way we understand it).
But then there is this problem: the subject is required in English, so there has to be one. Now, what would that be? Aliens? No, that you will never guess. So, it's "we".
Relax, it's just a placeholder.
This is in the genitive lesson. So, something must show or have posession. It could be me, you, us, or even Jenny or Anna (haha!). But, since "we" was the only option, it must be that one.
Genitive case is not only about possession. The best indicator of Genitive case to be used in Russian is when you use "of" in English, and that happens in a lot of situations. ;)
Having zero of something is just one of them.
Ummm... yes. And about 10th century it was that, just with a different word order: "Не есть."
"Не есть" then merged into "несть" and finally became "нет".
So:
У меня не есть молока = У меня несть молока = У меня нет молока.
@Necro_L - That is a sentence fragment (incomplete sentence) in English that does not have a clear meaning.
I sometime think the speaking exercises are random. Sometimes it say 'correct' when i clearly messed up in pronouncing. And other times it say cant recognize what i just said even if i speak extremely slow and loud and clear. For example i been saying ee-zen-nee-teed (1st word) as slow and clear as possible but still cant be understood by the app.
Why it's not "Sorry, there isn't any milk" or something like that? If it's not correct grammatically - I'm sorry, 'cause I can't speak English very well...
I think the "have" is implied by being in the "genitive case" lesson. And so, you have to say that //something// or //someone// doesn't have it. If it wasn't genitive then you could just say, "Sorry, no milk." But, this is a genitive lesson.
This sentence is kinda stUpid because theres no "we" in the russian sentence, so why not translate it into "there is no milk left" ??
@NotTaliAtAll - Saying there's no milk left means that at one point there was milk. But, we don't know here if that was ever the case.
I do agree that "we" is a bit restrictive - simply "there is no milk" should also work (I don't know if Duo accepts that or not though), and of course other pronouns like "I" or "they" perhaps.
