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- "У мальчика есть карандаш."
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"Caran d'Ache was the pseudonym of the 19th century French satirist and political cartoonist Emmanuel Poiré (November 6, 1858 – February 26, 1909).[1] "Caran d'Ache" comes from the Russian word karandash (карандаш), meaning pencil, which in turn comes from the Turkish words kara taş, meaning black stone." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caran_d%27Ache
No, it's not an exception. «Ма́льчик» is masculine, so the usual genitive ending is -а (ма́льчик 'boy' — ма́льчика, стол 'table' — стола́) or я after soft consonants (учи́тель 'teacher' — учи́теля).
The ending -и is used for feminine words with stem ending in soft consonant or к/г/х/ш/ж/ч (да́ча 'dacha' — stem is дач- — genitive is дачи). Some masculine words can belong to feminine declension (notably short forms of names, like Ви́тя — stem is Вить- — genitive singular is Ви́ти), those words are exceptions. But «ма́льчик» is not.
спасибо, i think i'm confusing myself w/ the genitive plural rules. But there's a different set of rules for the genitive singulars? Is there just two cases like you mentioned in the first sentence?
No, there are 3 cases in total. :D Russian has 3 declensions:
- feminine a-declenstion (words engling in -а and -я in nominative singular; include some masculine words), e.g., вода́ 'water', во́ля 'freedom', свеча́ 'candle',
- masculine/neuter declension (words ending in consonants and -о or -е in nominative singular), e.g. слон 'elephant', гусь 'goose', яйцо́ 'egg', со́лнце 'sun',
- feminine i-declension (feminine words ending in soft consonant or шь/жь/чь in nominative singular), e.g. рожь 'rye'.
Masculine declension can also end in soft consonant, so it's sometimes difficult to distinguish between a masculine declension and a feminine i-declension.
Native speakers also find this difficult: at school, we paid speacial attention to remembering the correct gender of the words like гусь 'goose (masculine)' and на́дпись 'inscription (feminine)'. Also, they have a different gender in different languages (e.g. in Belarusian), so this suggests they have been a source of confusion for a while.
Also, sometimes words have a declension that is different from its gender. E.g. «па́па» 'dad' has a feminine declension, but it's masculine. Most short forms of names have feminine declension.
спасибо ешё раз! However, I don't think I was asking the right question. I understand there are 3 genders in russian. I believe my mistake was with the 7 letter rule, that only -и could go after them but didn't realize -а and -у can as well.
I typed "u malchika est karandash" and got it wrong. I'm not sure why it is wrong because the Ь character doesn't make a specific sound. Please show me what the correct answer would be if written with the latin alphabet. Thanks
Ь (') doesn't make a sound in itself, but it changes the pronounciation of the previous sound. You can try to get this difference by comparing similar words: стол / stol — столь / stol', гол / gol — голь / gol'. I know getting the distiction might be hard, but with some practice you'll understand it.
In fact, in your sentence it changes the meaning! «У мальчика ест карандаш» means '[Something] is eating the boy's pencil'. Creepy!
How can you decide whether "y" is translated into "the", when it is translated into "this", and when it is being ignored (like in "у мамы нет сестры")?
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I'm no Russian expert, so take this with a grain of salt.
У is never translated into 'the' or 'this'. 'The' simply doesn't exist as an independent word, and 'this' (and 'that') are taken care of by ЭТО and its variants. The У simply serves to remind you that the noun following, here МАМЫ, is in Genitive case, for it could be mistaken for Nominative plural.
So I actually discussed with my Russian teacher, and she says that you can use either "a" or "the" (but not this) since the concept of "the" doesn't exist in the language and so both sentences are translated to be the same sentence in Russian.
Thanks for your reply!
With «есть» 'there is', you use nominative. With «нет» 'there is no', you use genitive.
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What would it be called if it were a question? (Does the boy have a pencil?) Is there a differance?
When do I have to use карандаш and when to use карандаша? I know that it's silly of me to ask it,but I am confused. PLEASE HELP ME.
