"На камне муха."
Translation:There is a fly on the stone.
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Why does it always give me a wrong notice when i say "On the stone is a fly" ? Did I miss something ?
I think that this is just a matter of how English speakers tend to speak. It's more natural to say "The fly is on a stone", even though the sentence translates almost directly to "on the stone is a fly". The latter just sounds a bit awkward to me as a native English speaker.
This seems to be true because my version "A fly is on the stone" was accepted. I am not a native English speaker but already in my school time, we were taught this S-P-O rule as one of the most important rules.
Rules in English are more often then not vague suggestions. More as, there is almost definitely some way to circumvent almost all of them on any given sentence.
The problem is you used proper grammar! Native speakers have a bad tendency to end their sentences with prepositional phrases. Working around many lawyers, I can tell you, that's such a grammar causes a lot of issues. It can be misinterpreted easily, and as often ambiguous. It is much better to start the sentence with the prepositional phrase.
I reported this, as your translation should be accepted.
I wonder the same thing. This language has a lot of gaps. I can not understand why English is difficult got Russians. It's nice using one word to guess 5 other meanings, but practically with English it is annoying.
I wonder the same thing. This language has a lot of gaps. I can not understand why English is difficult got Russians. It's nice using one word to guess 5 other meanings, but practically with English it is annoying.
Oh, it's fly like an animal. I was so confused, I thought it's saying that a stone is flying.
So, is there a rule when adverbial addition are put in the front? Is it for extra emphasis?
No. Russian tends to place known information (topic) in the beginning of the sentence, and the new information (commentary on the topic) in the end. English usually marks known information with the, and the new information with a.
So, «На ка́мне му́ха» would mean «There’s a fly on the stone». By placing «ка́мень» in the beginning, you mark it as something the speaker knows about, the stone. And by placing му́ха in the end, you mark it as new info, something new introduced: a fly.
«Му́ха на ка́мне», on the other hand, would be translated The fly is on [a/the] stone. By placing «му́ха» in the beginning, you mark it as something known (the fly). And new information is that it’s «на ка́мне». (It can mean both a stone or the stone because even if it’s on a known stone, it would be still new information.)
Please note that the word order is not the only way to mark topic and commentary. You can use intonation for that. So, technically «му́ха на ка́мне» can mean There is a fly on the stone. if you emphasise «му́ха» with intonation: «Му́ха на камне». However, we usually don’t mark intonation in writing, so this word order is avoided in written texts.
Thank you for your long answer. That is linguistically really interesting (luckily I'm studying it). :) So, it is a strict following of the thema-rhema-process. And since the articles can't be used syntactially to mark thema and rhema the word order is used. That's really logical and interesting. Thanks =) But in the sentence "На ка́мне му́ха" the overal intonation and stress lies on "му́ха", right?
> But in the sentence "На ка́мне му́ха" the overal intonation and stress lies on "му́ха", right?
I believe usually «му́ха» would be a little emphasised, but the emphasis is much weaker than in «Му́ха на камне».
I taught in English and Russia for 2 years. Russians know more about proper grammar than most of the teachers that were teaching at my school! On the stone, there is a fly, is, for this sentence, proper grammar.
I taught in English and Russia for 2 years. Russians know more about proper grammar than most of the teachers that were teaching at my school! On the stone, there is a fly, is, for this sentence, proper grammar.
Ok, so this sentence would be, "On the stone, there is a fly." I can see that. If I were to say, "На камне есть муха," would that be "There is a fly on the stone"?
Since this wasn't the correct answer... How would one say "the fly on the stone"?
From the way it was presented, my unrefined American brain thought it was On stone fly
Why <в городе есть смей> and <на камне муха> ?
I was expecting <на камне есть муха>.
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How are we supposed to know that the prepositional form of "камень" is "камне"? I'm pretty sure the tips before the Prepositional section says if there is a "ь" at the end, replace with an "и". This is not replace with an "и". This is perform surgery on "камень" and add "не" at the end.
That reminds me of a Tokusatsu called "Kamen Rider". I wonder if it was aired in Russia and had its name changed for not sounding like "Stone Rider" hehehe
I think I'm starting to see that it is the use of the prepositional phrase first - "На камне" - that determines that it is a "There is/are" statement more than the use of "есть". What is the distinction in nuance when one says, "На камне муха" vs. "На камне есть муха?"
In Russian, you drop the verb to be in these cases (in others, you would have a "-" working as the verb to be). Also word order is a bit weird sometimes as it is more flexible, so you need to read the whole thing before trying to get some sense out of it.
I feel like "Есть" is used when you want to stress the fact that something exists like in "у меня есть ...". In this exercise, you are stressing the location of the fly.
It's been 11 months, but I'd still like an answer if anyone has one. All other versions of this sentence - "There is a cat in the tree", for instance, use есть in this construction. Can anyone explain to me why this particular version does not?
Is there really no one that can answer this for us? This has to be the most commonly asked question here, and after at least a year, it is not getting answered. Can no one explain this?
It seems to me that if you are saying "There is a fly . . . " you are stressing the existence of the fly and already know the location - on the stone - as opposed to "The fly is on a stone." The location in this sentence is known, though. It's what is on it that appears to be new information. This doesn't seem to be any different than all the other sentences that say, "There is a cat in the tree" or "There is a snake at my house." All of the other ones have "есть" in the official answer. I don't see why this one wouldn't either unless it is just a matter of semantic preference.
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I wrote: There is a stone on a fly... but how could she survive ? Sometimes im stupid, i didn't think to swipe words...
" On the stone is a fly / On a stone is the fly / On the stone: a fly" and other declentions are absolutely fine: it's just extremely tedious for the poor coders to fit in all possibilities -to perfection, no code is bounded;)
"There is a..." are 3 words that we pull out of nowhere to create translation of Russian in to English sentences, and that begs the question what is the longest English phrase of word cluster we write in translation from Russian we pull out of the air to make a sentence in to English? This can't be the limit or is it?
Here Latin English alphabet needed to increase the number of words from the 3 words of Cyrillic Greek Russian alphabet up to 7 words to make such a simple sentence make sense in English. So assume the same thing has happened many times before in translation of books like the Bible to current English and it is no wonder smart people like Russians see the whole game of translation as unreliable at best.
"On the stone is a fly." Was marked wrong. I dont get it. Isnt that what the words literally translate to with the added articles!?
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"The fly is on the stone " was not accepted. Is it because I said "the", instead of being more general about a fly? And what would the wording be for "the fly"?