"Девочкам пора домой."
Translation:It is time for the girls to go home.
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It is a noun used as an impersonal predicate word (the noun means "time" as in "a period of time or a suitable time for something"). Modern descriptions usually describe such predicates as a separate class: category of state words.
The noun itself is not particularly common. However, it is quite common in certain structures or derivative expressions:
- Dative + пора + infinitive ~ It is time to do something (as in the the sentence in the title)
- до сих пор ~ up until now, before now (note how both сей and пора are not common words this day—but the combination is)
- до тех пор, пока... ~ until (a compound prepositional phrase, literally "until the time when")
- с тех пор ~ since then
- порой ~ occasionally
- до поры до времени ~ for the time being, until some time in future.
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The moderators of the English-Russian tree are indeed doing a great job maintaining the course! It's quite exceptional.
The common use.
If you say something like "Папе пора спать" it means dad is still awake and, in fact, is not even in bed.
If you omit the verb and state a destination (special case), like "Папе пора на работу" it means that dad is still not at work and, in fact, does not seem to have done anything to be at work. So he needs to get going.
Same here. If you mean that it is high time for someone to show up you do not say it like that—you rather say «Девочкам пора быть дома» or rephrase it to «Странно, что девочки ещё не дома» ("It's odd the girls are not home yet") or any other sentence that expresses your feelings good enough.
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Thank you for that explanation. I always found it confusing when Russians drop words, and say things like "Ты куда?" It makes more sense now!
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I think the (erroneous) pronunciation пОра is always used by DL. I just say it right to myself, but correction would be appreciated
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Yeah, there are some words that the text-to-speech simply isn't able to produce correctly (like велико with the ending pronounced, etc.). I use text-to-speech to create Anki vocabulary cards for myself, and I have no idea how to tell it which syllable is stressed, either :(
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Correct solutions:
• It is time the girls went home.
• It is time for the girls to go home.
As a result, went = to go?
English doesn't have a separate verb form for subjunctive. The only verb that has one is "To Be" and that form is "were". For all other verbs English can can express subjunctive using the infinitive or the past tense.
In this situation there is doubt whether the girls would agree they should go home and/or whether they would actually leave. "It's time the girls went home" therefore uses the past tense to express subjunctive. We know this because "is" is in the present while "went" is in the past, therefore you know "went" is demonstrating something other than just the simple past tense.
Another version of this should be: "It is time the girls go home"
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In your last example, there's no subject in the sentence. I wouldn't have expected себе to be used. ?
It is a bit more complicated than subject/non-subject. The grammatical subject is not the only entity that can control the reflexive. In fact, the agent in a passive sentence ("by whom" the action is done) can serve as a "subject" for reflexives if need be.
An experiencer in the Dative, the person who experiences a state or a feeling, can easily be a reference for свой, сам or себя. For example, you can say "Ей нужно поговорить со своими друзьями" or "Ему самому холодно".
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Thanks. I guess that last sentence would be "He himself is cold." Right?
If reflexive can refer to the "by whom" in a passive sentence, it seems that could cause confusion, since there could be a subject in the sentence also.
Yes. For example, if you mean "(Even) he, himself, is feeling cold".
In theory the use of a passive agent might cause confusion. In practice, it is fairly rare—e.g., in "This software was developed by our team for itself" there is realistically only one thing "itself" can refer to.
However, there indeed may be a situation where себя or свой can cause confusion. For instance, imagine a sentence similar to "Alice was hired by Carol because of her former colleague's advice"
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Why not "Girls need to go home?" Meaning is the same. I dont velieve translation ing language word by word is good approach.
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Flexibility is one thing, a totally different sentence with a similar meaning is another.