"This is a cheese knife; this is a fish knife."
Translation:Это нож для сыра; это нож для рыбы.
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I feel like they should have either provided a much better dictionary hint or change the English sentance to "This knife is for cheese; this knife is for fish".
This knife is for cheese would be "этот нож для сыра" but when it's это it's correct like that I think.
They could say "this is a knife for cheese; this is a knife for fish"
I understand that sentiment, but then again, you have to take it from the other side of the coin, a fish knife? A knife that is a fish?
I am english native speaker, and i can understand why they left it as is
Yes but here the literal translation should not be preferred because it's less natural.
I'm a native english speaker and it's perfectly natural to say "this knife is for cheese"
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I can think of plenty of situations where one could say "this knife is for fish." There are usages where it could be used.
What's wrong with 'This knife is for cheese; this one is for fish'?
Having spoken English my entire life, it would be perfectly natural to say "this knife is for cheese." In fact, I once caught my wife using my fillet knife for cutting open some boxes!! I had to firmly say, "This knife is only for fish." I then gave her a box cutter and said, "This knife is for boxes." So yes, you are correct in saying "this knife is for..."
It's not wrong but it doesn't reflect actual English usage. We call it a "cheese knife" not a "knife for cheese", the latter is a description, not the term used for the object.
Not really. The only situation in which you would need to specifically use the phrase "Cheese knife" is when you were differentiating between a knife FOR cheese, and a knife MADE of cheese.
Indeed, but the hints in this chapter are really incomplete and/or misleading. It makes learning the new material very hard because we students have almost no clue about what we are doing.
I wondered the same thing... Except for perhaps an adjective implies a 'cheesy knife" or "fishy knife" instead of a knife that is used for cheese or fish, which для brings out clearly. But thinking "in English" these seem OK to me.
But a google shows this form can be used, it seems: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сырный_нож
I am a very beginner and I just don't understand your point because I miss a lot of knowledge. So I guess that it's an other form of the noun, an adjective form for the noun "cheese". I look for some rule but I didn't find anything which convinced me. Anybody can help my comprehension ?
Вообще мне хотелось так ответить) формально ты прав, и если ты так скажешь, то тебя поймут. Сырный нож не слышал, а вот рыбный нож, да
I was doing these as strenghthening excercises. The programme would not accept following answer:
это сырный нож, а это рыбный нож
It is very hard to predict what kind of answer is needed
"Сырный" and "рыбный" are adjectives that sound more like "cheesy" and "fishy"... to describe the purpose (I think that's the word...?), in Russian you have to use "для" (+ genitive). [Or at least that's what I understood!]
"Сырный" and "рыбный" are merely the adjectives derived from the respective nouns. Рыбный нож receives a mention under the fish section of the Russian cutlery page on wikipedia (ctrl+f if you have trouble finding it) and сырный нож even gets its own article. IMO either translation should work for the English sentence. See discussion under Biglev's comment (in Russian) further down the page.
"Это нож для сыра а это нож для рыбы" should be accepted, no? I think using "a" in place of the semi-colon carries the same meaning
More random word practice without any preceding study or explanation. "Для" has never been discussed before. Why do stupid things like this?
Is a semi-colon ever used in Russian in this way like English to connect two independent clauses together without a conjunction, or is this simply a literal (and at the same time unnatural) translation?
Yes. Here’s my ad hoc translation of the paragraph from the rules (available here or here):
§ 130. A semicolon is used before two independent clauses, joined together in a complex sentence without using the conjunctions, especially when such clauses are extended and have commas (about the comma between independent clauses, joined together in a complex sentence, see §§ 137 и 138), for example:
Ме́жду тем чай был вы́пит; давно́ запряжённые ко́ни продро́гли на снегу́; ме́сяц бледне́л на за́паде и гото́в уж был погрузи́ться в чёрные свои́ ту́чи, вися́щие на да́льних верши́нах, как клочки́ разо́дранного за́навеса. (Лермонтов) / Meanwhile the tea was all drunk; the horses, harnessed long ago, were chilled on the snow; the moon was hanging pale to the west and was ready to dive into its black clouds, suspended on the far peaks like the scraps of a torn curtain. (Lermontov)
Всё вокру́г засты́ло в кре́пком осе́ннем сне; сквозь серова́тую мглу чуть видны́ под горо́ю широ́кие луга́; они разре́заны Во́лгой, переки́нулись че́рез неё и расплы́лись, раста́яли в тума́нах. (М. Горький) / Everything around was frozen in the sound autumn’s sleep; the wide meadows were hardly visible under the hill through a greyish haze; they were cut by Volga, leaped through it and got blurred, melted in the mist. (M. Gorky)
Why can't you say "Это нож сыра" to mean "This is a cheese knife"? Nor can you say "Это нож рыбы" to mean "This is a fish knife" ?
This would sound extremely strange, as if Cheese and Fish are some people's nicknames and they own some knives.
What is the difference between за and для? This row of lessons throws way too much at users all at once.
Для is "for" in the most common sense of "to the benefit of". за is "for" in the sense of situations like "thanks for", "responsible for" etc, and it also has other meanings.
Это is used to mean "This is a " ot "These are s" for all genders and for plurals.
«Это кошка» «Это хлеб» «Это масло» «Это лошади» all use это because they're all just stating what things are.
You use это/эта/этот/эти when you are saying something about a specific thing, not just stating what it is.
«Эта кошка ест» «Этот хлеб вкусный» «Это масло тает» «Эти лошади любят есть»
But in this specific case, seems like the literal translation in English should be "This knife is for cheese..." and thus the russian should be этот instead of это.. it's much more complicated than the examples you gave
This makes perfect sense. It at least makes more sense, then not using the literal English translation. "This is a knife for cheese" - "Это" as well as "This knife is for cheese" - "Этот" should absolutely both be equally acceptable. Especially when "cheese knife" clearly isn't specifically one or the other.
I've spoken Russian for more than 30 years and I must say, this explanation makes no sense. Care to elaborate?
Olimo has already written a nice text about it: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/11536858
Well, I'd say this particular sentence suits quite well for the other interpretation, too. You're comparing or juxtaposing two knives saying that one of them is meant for performing one function, the other for another.
(Although, in the way people actually speak, I've never noticed anyone making that difference. Most Russians I've met would use этот and это here quite equally. Might be regional differences or smth.)
As an originally native speaker (who admittedly has forgotten a lot of grammar with lack of recent practice), swapping это for этот in this sentence changes the meaning subtly. In the default version as above with это, you're just saying "this is a cheese knife, this is a fish knife" as a basic explanation. If you swap to этот, however, you'd be emphasising the difference, like if you had to explain a second time because someone misunderstood or did it wrong.
Yeah, well, but I'd say you can also easily understand the English sentence in that way. (At least I did.)
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Формально - да, но так никогда не говорят. "Сырный пирог" и "рыбный пирог" более уместно, но в основном все же "пирог с сыром" и "пирог с рыбой".
ни разу в жизни не использовала фразы "нож для рыбы/сыра". для меня это звучит слишком длинно. сырный нож, рыбный нож, хлебный нож. единственный нож, который приходит в голову - это "масловый нож" - вот это, действительно, звучит очень не по-русски, остальные же варианты "ножей" - крайне приемлемы!
"a cheese knife" means a style (with a curve and 2 points) not a purpose (for cheese). "нож для сыра" sounds like "knife for cheese". Does it really mean a style, or just means "for cheese"?
«Рыба» is the nominative singular noun for 'knife.' Words acted on by the preposition «для» take the genitive case, which in this case (genitive singular) is «рыбы» because all feminine nouns ending in «а» are replaced with an ending of «ы».
Is there a difference in how you would say, "this is a cheese knife," versus "this knife is for cheese" in Russian? Would the latter be "Этот нож для сыра"?
Why should we be learning this at this level? This vocabulary is practically useless to us
Why would we memorize this sentence.. probably useless. But are we memorizing sentences in this course? No, were learning vocabulary and how grammar changes these words as well as word placement. Here's what's useful: Do you eat fish or cheese. Do you ever start a sentence with "This is? Is this?" Do you usually eat with a fork, knife or spoon? Do you need practice with putting correct endings on words with different cases and genders? Do you know what prepositions take what case after them? Did you know the the word "for" in English has several different meanings and different words in Russian as well as different ways to express them? If you don’t use the sentence, why not use all the above to say something useful to you? I'll start.. Привет Анна, ЭТО Тим, мой парень. У нас много СЫРА хлеба и РЫВЫ НА обед. Ты хочешь есть? ЭТА тарелка ДЛЯ тебя! ДЛЯ меня? Спасибо ЗА обед!
"for" has several meanings in English that we don't even think about but these get separated into different words in Russian. для is used when "for" roughly means "to the benefit of". In other situations you will use на or за. It's difficult to explain exactly when to use those. If you can identify the difference between для and not для situations that will significantly help.
Agree! I didn't get a clue that I had to use "для" + GEN in this sentence, but well, that's the way it is! :D
Using вот would work if you wanted to say "here is a cheese knife," as if you were handing it to someone. The sentence you need to translate doesn't apply this context, instead comparing the two knives.
Would it be correct to leave out the second "knife" and say Это нож для сыра; это для рыбы? In the way you would say, this is a knife for cheese and this one is for fish? I realise that the literal translation includes repeating the word but I'm asking if it would be correct in general.
Maybe instead of hints they should be called potential options or? Anyone can think of a word for options both right or wrong?
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Wouldn't it be natural to use а between the parts to show the contrast? А doesn't have an exact translation in English and I think would often be translated by a semicolon.
So i guess with из would mean that the knife belongs to the cheese or it's made of cheese? "Это нож (из) сыра"
Yes, with "из" it would mean the knife is made of cheese.
To say that the knife belongs to cheese we'd have to take out the preposition entirely: "Это нож сыра"
I kniw there was a typo! Bur рибы was not in the proposed words and there was no writing it by myself. Could you correct?