"Женщина здесь?"
Translation:Is the woman here?
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Why is "is a woman here" wrong? What part of this sentence specifies that it's talking about "the woman" rather than "a woman"?
What exactly does 'Is a woman here?' mean?
In Russian, же́нщина is placed in the beginning of the sentence, so that's why it refers to a known woman. However, I can't say whether this can correspond to 'Is a woman here?' or not because I don't really understand the English sentence. What does it mean?
For example, if (as a man) I were a janitor going into a ladies restroom, I might ask "Is a woman here?" before going inside to clean.
Thanks, your answer clarifies it i think. "Is a woman here?" refers to any/ unspecified woman
Sounds a bit picky to me. One could also stress that a woman should be at that place. Think of Life of Brian. (Are there any women here? = Is a woman here?)
No, this would be expressed with «Здесь есть женщина?».
You can drop «есть» when existence/presence is not the piece of information you’re trying to convey. In «Женщина здесь?», the main piece of information is given by the word здесь and женщина is someone you and the listener already know (so it’s not the new information). You already knows that there’s some женщина, and you want to know where she is.
In «Здесь есть женщина», the main piece of information is the presence of the woman in a given location, the most important piece of information is есть женщина and здесь just sets the background for the question.
I know my explanation is not ideal, but I can’t explain it better, sorry.
The word order also works similarly: we usually put the most important words in the end (or sometimes in the beginning of the sentence; most notably the question words, but sometimes other words too).
However, word order is tricky because it can be overriden with intonation, so the word order doesn't always help.
Can someone please explain to me what difference it makes to a word when it ends with ь?
It's not too simple to explain because English doesn't have this distinction!
Basically, most consonants in Russian have 2 variants, soft and hard.
Hard is assumed by default or shown by 'non-softening' vowel letter (с /s/, са /sa/, сэ /se/, сы /sɨ/, су /su/, со /so/). Soft is shown either by Ь (сь /sʲ/) or by a 'softening' vowel letter (ся /sʲa/, се /sʲe/, си /sʲi/, сю /sʲu/, сё /sʲo/).
You might want to see YouTube videos about this distinction, or something.
Why is "is here" translated as "там" in the previous unit's example "Мама там", which it said means "Mom is here"? Why are we now using здесь for what seems to be the same usage (except that this is a question)?
how exactly am i supposed to pronounce that second word? cause i said it everyway possible but i still cant pronounce it
It's impossible to get the difference between an interrogative "is the woman here?" and the declarative "the woman is here" just by listening! Dix!
Для того, чтобы звучал вопрос "Женщина здесь?" НЕОБХОДИМА ВОПРОСИТЕЛЬНАЯ интонация! Это в английском, немецком и т.д. можно порядком слов придавать предложению вопросительный характер. А в русском - нужна соответствующая интонация. Нужен другой аудиофайл с нужной вопросительной интонацией. In order for the question to sound, a QUESTIONING intonation is NECESSARY! It's in English, German, etc. you can give the sentence an interrogative character by word order. But (!) in Russian, you need an appropriate intonation. You have to make another audio file with the required interrogative intonation.
I dont even have the option to make the sentence. It didnt give me the correct words or typing prompt.