"Я знаю английский."
Translation:I know English.
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Would a native Russian-speaker ever say "Я знаю английский" ? Wouldn't it be "Я знаю английский язык" or "Я говорю по-английски" ?
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All is can be in russian. Все три варианта правильны и используются. "Я говорю по английски" - "I can (onli) speak English", its not correct translation "Я знаю английский".
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Sometimes Duolingo looks for a literal but awkward translation, and sometimes it doesn't.
But I believe you don't say I know English in English. Maybe you say, I am not a native speaker, I am not sure about that
True, but "I speak Russian" is also accepted as an answer on a similar exercise...
I agree with you domhorse. I understand how the sentence translates to I know, but it means I speak too.
You are correct: in English "I speak XX" is a far more common way to say it. "I know XX" is totally valid, though.
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For the audio exercise for this sentence, they're using the relatively new (to me) male voice and he swallows half the word английский. I find he pronounces a lot of things strangely. I don't know what kind of accent he has. I notice that for words ending in ть or дь, he tends to pronounce it as "tch"
How would one distinguish between this meaning and "I know English people?"
There is an another word used to designate English people: англича́нин (Englishman, English person, nominative singular), англича́не (English people, nominative plural). Example: Я хорошо знаю англичан.
No, because язык is a masculine inanimate noun it doesn't decline in the accusative.
But я знаю английский язык is grammatical.
In another excersice they translate "Я знаю.." To "I speak".. why not here?
Я знаю is "I know"
If you wish to say I speak, you need to use "Я говорю".
Perhaps it was a slight error in the system?
You're mixing two different transcription systems there. It's best to just use the Russian keyboard.
If you must use an English keyboard, I think that "Ya znayu angliyskiy" might work. Perhaps...
Is Duo letting mistakes slide or is Russian lenient with spelling? английсский (two 'с') was marked as correct without any indication as to it being английский.
IF I want to say "I know some English", could I use Partitive Genitive and say "Я знаю английского"?
I know English language is not some food or drink, but if this structure works with more abstract things as knowledge, that would be nice...
Is it normal in Russian to slur words together? For some reason, the audio will combine the beginning of one word and the end of the previous word.
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TextxToSpeak on Duo is not so good. You can use other sources for learn. In this TTS very often wrong stress, no such intonation, disabed pause.
It's probably normal for most languages to slur words together when spoken.
"по" is used when speaking in a language. When it's just the direct object of a verb like "знаю", "по" is not required.
