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- "Дайте лука, пожалуйста."
51 Comments
Wait, I'm confused. Isn't it plural nominative? (which is why they give the translation "Give me some onions, please" Onions being plural)
"Лук" means both "onion" and "onions". It is a kind of an uncountable noun in Russian. Like, say, "bread" in English.
Not exactly, genitive case makes it partitive, "some onions" or maybe even "some onion"
All those years trying to figure out whether to use the genitive or the partitive in Finnish, then I have to get used to the fact that the genitive is the partitive in Russian...
I would say "Дай(те) мне (одну) луковицу"
So is there any occasion where you would use the plural nominative for onion (луки, is it?)
It's not a thing. Луки is the plural if лук when you mean bow (like bows and arrows), not onion.
Btw, if you need "countable onions" you can use the words "луковица" or "головка лука".
Мне нужна одна луковица/одна головка лука.
Мне нужно пять луковиц/пять головок лука.
RomanRussian . . . your comments are SO helpful!!! Thank you so much for your huge contribution.
Even as a non-native speaker of Russian I have found dozens of words that have been mispronounced. Frustrating!
As I know already, onion is singular even it can be some onions. Nevertheless why "give me an onion" is rated wrong. In my opion this is also a valid translation, or is there a special Russian expression to say that I want to have ONE onion?
Further, if you click лука it says "onion," but if you type onion, it's marked wrong. :/
Alright, so... The noun in nominative is лук, it is a normal masculine noun. It can mean both "an onion" or "onions" as a collective noun. In here, the clue is that the word is лука. Since it's an inanimate object (not a person or animal), the tip-off is that it it's in genitive case. Since it's a collective noun (like bread or tea), and it's in genitive case, that means it HAS to be "some". Dajte mne luk, without a genitive ending, would be more ambiguous in my opinion.
673
It's not about the hints. Nothing here indicates the number of onions involved. My translation app says that the singular "onion" would be the same. So either should be accepted.
I've given up on trying to wrap my head around these cases at this point. I just plan of practising so much that I'll start to feel when it's right and not.
One thing duo is extremely bad at is teaching these cases and the differences between all the different versions of each word. You're not alone.
- 1660
When you say "bad", I wonder why you're being so kind. Duo is absolutely wretchedly terrible at teaching cases. And so many exceptions being taught first, before the rule is given good examples, with so many weird usages put forward without any explanation. But it's free. And Rosetta Stone is worse.
I agree with Cumeon above and think it's best to accept that there are multiple verstof words in different situations and through practice slowly fill in which to use. Don't stress!
When is it alright to leave out the indirect object (мне)? Could this sentence also be translated as "give us/him/them onions"?
With no context it implies "мне" by default. But let's put this phrase in some context:
- Что я должен дать вашему другу? - What should I give to your friend?
- Дайте лука, пожалуйста. - Give (him) some onions, please.
- 1240
Ударение на лукА по прежнему звучит. Это не правильно. Должно быть лУка. Послал Report a problem
- 1660
In English, "pass the [food]" is very limited in context. It most often applies when people are seated at a dining table, and you ask someone to give you a dish of food located too far away from you for you to obtain it yourself. It could also apply to some few other situations, but basically involves the same idea: you can't reach it, the person you ask can reach it, so you ask that person to "pass" it to you - to pick it up and give it to you by hand.
Asking someone to give you the/some onions doesn't involve any particular context of ready access by the person asked. The food may be located else where, and the person will have to travel some distance to obtain it. Asking someone to "pass" you a food item when it is not near that person does not make any sense in English, but asking them to give the item to you does make sense, even if they have to go somewhere to obtain the item.
Because лук is uncountable. The plural луки means "bows".
You don't say "give me breads", then you also don't say "Дайте луки"
"some onion" is the answer to "some of what?" therefore, genitive
It's a collective noun (so it means "many" even if singular) and it's in genitive (partitive).
What case is лука here? I thought that after дайте (мне) would be accusative, but that does not appear to be accusative as far as I know.
- 1240
Here is the genitive case (лука). It depends on the implied question (if it is an uncountable object):
1) Give me what I see. What I see? I see onion. Here is the accusative case. Дайте мне лук (молоко, воду, еду, хлеб, мясо, бензин, песок).
2) Give me something that I do not have. What I do not have? I do not have onion. Here is the genitive case. Дайте мне лука (молока, воды, еды, хлеба, мяса, бензина, песка).
Both options are correct.
It doesn't have much to do with absence of something, it's just partitive genitive (when you have "some" of something). Agreed with the accusative case though.
- 1240
Unfortunately, I don't see your native language in your profile. I don't understand what is the "Partitive genetiv" in Russian. In my opinion it is something from German.
Посмотрел "Партитив" на википедии. Кажется понял, что это такое. Тогда было бы не "лука", а "луку".
То есть может быть на самом деле не два, а три варианта:
1) "дайте лук" (дательный падеж)
2) "дайте лука" (обычный родительный падеж)
3) "дайте луку" (второй родительный или партитив)
http://russianmentor.net/gram/mailbag/topics/gen2.htm
The partitive ending isn't always specifically used (that site claims it's because of "lazy youth", but really it does seem like it's a way of just streamlining and simplifying the language).
- 1240
Thanks for the link.
I agree. Лука and луку are the almost same. They are two options of Genetive.
Is it correct, that it is important for the partitive genetive that it must implied the some certain amount of an object or objects, for example of onions?
Я пытался найти интуитивное понимание различий между " Дайте лук" и "Дайте лука". Как носитель русского языка. Но в любом из вариантов подразумевается или некоторое количество лука или весь лук. Даже если сказать "дайте лук", то не обязательно весь лук. И даже если сказать "дайте лука", то не обязательно, что только какую-то часть. Может и весь.
Поэтому, как носителю языка, мне достаточно знать только отличия вопросов, на которые отвечают существительные в этих двух разных падежах (хотя вопрос "кого?" в них один и тот же). Я вижу четкую разницу между "дайте лук" и "дайте лука" только если поставлю падежные вопросы полностью:
вопрос родительного падежа = Кого (чего) нет?
вопрос винительного падежа = Кого (что) вижу?
Именно так нам объясняли разницу между этими двумя падежами, когда я учился в школе.
Поэтому я сразу и предложил своё интуитивно понятное мне отличие. Если у меня нет лука, то дайте мне лука. А если я вижу лук, то дайте мне лук. И не важно, часть лука или весь лук. И для этого понимания мне не нужно было знать о "разделительном родительном".
Я понимаю, что "разделительный родительный" можно применить только если объект делимый, особенно если он выражается русским существительным единственного числа. А любой множественный объект, выраженным множественным числом существительного, заведомо делимый. Поэтому нельзя сказать "дайте мне атома" (можно только "дайте мне атом"). Но можно сказать или "дайте мне атомы" или "дайте мне атомов". И не важно, все атомы или какую-то их часть.
Итог: делимость объекта лишь разрешает применить "разделительный родительный", но не позволяет выбрать между ним и винительным. Оба варианта (дайте лук и дайте лука) означают одно и то же. Разница только в подразумеваемом вопросе падежа. О чём я и написал сразу же.
Exuse me for the Russian part of my answer. I hope you will can translate and understand it.
I'm just trying to explain that semantically, there is zero sense of negation or implied absence of something in the sentence. The use of genitive here is specifically because of the rule dealing with partitive nouns.
It doesn't imply an explicit amount of onions, just... "some" onions.
- 1570
Why is "give me the onion please" marked as wrong? Even if I tap on лука it says onion, but the answer needs to be onions
Alright, so... The noun in nominative is лук, it is a normal masculine noun. It can mean both "an onion" or "onions" as a collective noun. In here, the clue is that the word is лука. Since it's an inanimate object (not a person or animal), the tip-off is that it it's in genitive case. Since it's a collective noun (like bread or tea), and it's in genitive case, that means it HAS to be "some". Dajte mne luk, without a genitive ending, would be more ambiguous in my opinion.
It doesn't seem to accept, "Give me some onion, please." It absolutely should.
That would be shrek except him screaming and without the "please" part in the sentence.
