"Наши кошки едят яйца."
Translation:Our cats eat eggs.
89 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
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.
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.
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
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).
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.
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.
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)
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).
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.
Yes: я́йца is the plural form, so it has the plural meaning.
To express singular meaning, you'd need a singular form яйцо́.
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.
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.