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In case anyone else is wondering, cooked eggs are perfectly healthy for cats.
Shouldn't both "Our cats eat eggs" and "Our cats eat egg" be correct?
I think it should. You should probably use the 'Report' button next time you get this sentence: is’s often easier to reach the course authours by using this button, as the comment can get lost among lots of other comments.
Also it should be used only in need, because the more reports it gets the later it can go out of beta and added to mobile apps.
Hm... I don't think it helps anyone if a course that still has problems goes out of beta.
I'm using it on Android right now. Just because it's in beta doesn't mean it can't be used. Really it's just a label saying "Please bear with us, this is still imperfect."
It just means that the Russian course is not fully developed and stabilized yet. After it is, it will be released "out of beta" and be declared finished and perfect for use.
Thanks. Is this a term used in American English generally? So far I find this Russian course very good indeed - a vast improvement on the Italian course, where there are so many unresolved problems (with the English, not the Italian).
Thanks for the undeserved minusing. What couldn't be understood about not reporting something unless it's really needed? "Goes out of beta" is maybe not the proper term, but i think it's something obvious, it's no longer in beta, on Duolingo it's defines as 'graduated from Beta'.
Oh dear, you must be American? Do you really use "to minus" as a verb? Since your last posting I tried Mrs Google, and found a passing reference to the stages of development of software - could that be what you are referring to? I have never heard of anything being "in Beta" - if you don't know the term it isn't in the least self-explanatory.
Yes, that's what he's referring to. A software project starts in "alpha" which has to do with working out and fleshing out the main features and design, goes to "beta" when it's mostly done but is being tweaked and slightly added to, and ends up "released" (or "gold") when the project is finished, other than bug patches, etc..
They're very common both within and without the software development community, so it's not like he's using some obscure jargon.
As for Jenkiz92's choice of verb, "to minus," is a perfectly fine use, and I doubt (though it is possible) that he meant "to misuse." It follows the rules of English word formation and is totally unambiguous in meaning, regardless of one's choice of British or American English. I might not recommend it for use in a formal paper (though I've seen far worse!) but, in circumstances like these, it's absolutely fine. This does come from a native speaker, by the way.
No,as to say that cats eat eggs in general ,you should use plural кошки едят яйца. If you say кошки едят яйцо,it means they eat one egg.
This is not a general statement though, because these are "our cats". Thank you for the singular form of egg.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%8F%D0%B9%D1%86%D0%BE#Russian
I think the hint is confusing because it says "egg" as well as "eggs" and it would be nice if they put the case in parenthesis "egg (genitive)" so we would know that it is only this form for singular in that case.
The solution with: "our cats eat the eggs" should also be right, shouldn't it?
No, because the demonstrative adjective "эти" wasn't used to identify which eggs the cats eat. Were they these eggs, those eggs, or THE eggs we all know about? No, we just know that our cats eat eggs, either right now or will be in the future.
"The" is not a demonstrative adjective, it's an article. Therefore, it can be used for an English translation.
I am pretty sure this construction is supposed to show the habitual aspect as opposed to a single event.
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наши кошки едят яйца = Our cats eat eggs.
What is the difference between saying, Our cats are eating eggs right now, or in general. Our cats like to eat eggs, but they are not eating eggs at the moment. ?
Because of how verb conjugation in Russian works, this sentence really has both meanings. If you want to clarify you have to add words, such as сейчас for now, or обычно for usually, or amplifying phrases.
Not really. As shown in this chart (http://www.public.asu.edu/~deliving/russgram/how-to-form-nominative-plural.html), only neuter words have unique plural endings. The plural ending will only tell you if the stem is hard or soft.
You can look it up on wiktionary and it will usually show you the singular form that you can then click on to get the full declension table. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%8F%D0%B9%D1%86%D0%B0#Russian You can click on the declension table on this page here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%8F%D0%B9%D1%86%D0%BE#Russian
"my cats are eating eggs" and "my cats eat eggs". These sentences have different meanings but here both sentences are correct. I'm confused. pleae someone explain? thanks
Russian present tense can refer both to habitual actions and to actions in progress right now. Russian doesn't generally make the distinction between "are eating" and "eat", so this sentence can be understood in two ways depending of the context.
Well, meaning? «Ест» is '(he/she/it) eats', «идёт» is '(he/she/it) goes' (mainly on foot).
Did you mean to ask about the difference between «ест» '(he/she/it) eats' and «едя́т» '(they) eat'? Russian verbs have 6 forms: for 2 numbers and 3 persons:
- я е́м 'I eat',
- ты е́шь 'you eat' (informal singular),
- он ест 'he eats', она́ ест 'she eats', оно́ 'it eats', ко́шка ест 'cat eats', па́нда ест 'panda eats' (used with all singular nouns),
- мы еди́м 'we eat',
- вы еди́те 'you eat' (plural or polite),
- они́ едя́т 'they eat', ко́шки едя́т 'cats eat', па́нды едя́т 'pandas eat' (used with all plural nouns).
How is it that in the plural, the first two letters of ЯЙЦА are pronounced differently from the singular ЯЙЦО is there a specific rule ?
This depends on the stress. In nominative plural, the stress is on я́: я́йца. In other forms, stress is on the ending: яйцо́.
Russian stress is generally unpredictable. You could look at https://www.duolingo.com/comment/12202471 , but this is more about reading the stress information in dictionaries, not about guessing it.
Thank you very much for your prompt reply. Russian is definitely a difficult language !
Depends how you look at it......my annoying french teacher used to say "but it's easy.....even little children speak it. ....!"
I'm having a hard time hearing the pronunciation of "eats". Can someone clarify it for me?
I'm having a hard time hearing the pronunciation of "eats".
This sentence doesn't have the word 'eats' (ест). Maybe you meant the pronounciation of 'cats' (кошки) or 'eat' (едят)?
I'm not sure if the transcription is of any help, but here it is:
- ко́шки 'cats' is /'koʂkʲɪ/ [ко́шкь]
- едя́т 'eat' is /jɪ'dʲat/ [јиᵉд’ат] (or /ɪ'dʲat/ [иᵉд’ат])
- ест 'eat' is /'jest/ [јэст] (not present in this sentence)
Yes, sorry I meant eat. Thank you, that does help. I was having trouble with the syllable on the end, I wasn't sure if it was a "t" sound or "d" sound.
In the end of the word, д and т are not distinguished, both are devoiced to /t/. (The same is true for б/п, в/ф, г/к, ж/ш, з/с).
I'm having a hard time hearing the pronunciation of almost everything Russian!
It also accepted "Our cats are eating eggs." Would this be a different translation in Russian being that the cats currently performing the act of eating eggs? The way this is worded in englinsh is just generally describing what the cats do instead of what they are doing.
Russian does not distinguish between the two, without context either is a possible translation.
Yes: я́йца is the plural form, so it has the plural meaning.
To express singular meaning, you'd need a singular form яйцо́.
яйца is only used as singular for the genitive case. So, the hint is not completely wrong, but I wish that it would put "egg (genitive)" to specify that it is only singular for that case.
Can anyone help with the pronunciation? I can pronounce the words individually, but when listening to all at once, it sounds like the "и" in "Наши" and "кошки" are silent. Is it silent?
Hello! No, it's not silent. However, it's not stressed (in на́ши ко́шки /'naʂə 'koʂkʲɪ/, а and о are stressed), so they are reduced: they are shorter and pronounced less clearly.
Also, the «и» in «наши» is not actually «и». Ши is pronounced as шы (/ʂɨ/ when stressed, /ʂə/ when unstressed), so you might not hear it well because you're expecting a different sound.
Also, «и» in «кошки» is followed by a very similar sound [j] (since «едят» is pronounced [jɪ'dʲat]), and the combination /ɪjɪ/ in /'naʂə 'koʂkʲɪ jɪ'dʲat 'jajtsə/ might be hard to distinguish since [ɪ] and [j] are similar sounds.
So, while it's not silent, those sounds are hard to hear because they are reduced, because the first «и» is actually pronounced as «ы», and because the second «и» is followed by a similar sound.
So when we have more than one thing you would use наши? And when you have one thing you use the one ending in e?
http://www.russianlessons.net/grammar/pronouns.php Please review the section on possessive pronouns (though all the information in those charts is great). "Наш" is "Our". It declines based on number, case and gender of the thing it is attached to - in this case "cats" (кошки). If it were just "Our cat does X", then it would be Наша кошка. Or if it's a male cat - Наш кот.
It is есть, but conjugated for the third person plural subject (они, in this case, кошки). Take a second to review the conjugation chart at Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C
Because «ко́шки» is plural, and you can't usually translate a plural noun with a singular.
It might be slighly complicated because Russian nouns have several cases. In Nominative case, singular is ко́шка and plural is ко́шки. Nominative case is used for someone doing the action, the subject:
- На́ши ко́шки едя́т я́йца. 'Our cats eat eggs.'
- На́ша ко́шка ест я́йца. 'Our cat eats eggs.'
But in genitive case, ко́шки is singualr and ко́шек is plural. Genitive is used to express possession (следы́ ко́шки 'cat's footprints') or with «нет» to express absence or not having:
- У нас нет ко́шки. 'We don't have a cat.'
- У нас нет ко́шек. 'We don't have cats.'
So, ко́шки can be both nominative singular, or genitive plural. You'll eventually learn which constructions require genitive, and which require nominative, and won't confuse these two.
Honestly im not sure how often i would use this phrase lol
"Наши кошки" is plural, therefore would always be translated as "our cats".
"Our cat" singular would be "наша кошка".
It is plural because here it is in the Nominative case and is used as the subject. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%88%D0%BA%D0%B0#Declension_2 "кошки" is also the Genitive singular form.
True. "Our cat" in Gen Sg would be "нашей кошки", though, i.e. wouldn't match the sentence in question.
And I forgot to mention, that the verb is plural too.
Not quite related to russian but shouldn't the english translation be "our cat eats eggs" instead of "eat"
No, because it is a plural subject (our cats - наши кошки). "Our cat" would be наша кошка or наш кот, depending on the gender of the feline in question.
