42 Comments
Can someone please break this sentence down? I do not see 'he is away' or 'he is not here' at all.
Нет essentially means "is not" so if someone asked you "Is Mr. Johnson there," this would be a perfectly normal response, translated literally.
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«Нет» is not just 'no', it's also used to express absence, like 'there is no'. So, «его нет» literally means 'there is no him'. This is not something we would say in English, so that's why it needs to be re-phrased as 'he is away'.
Why didn't DuoLingo explain this. It should've been in the notes so we know this stuff. You get a lingot
Duo does not believe in explanations. You are expected to learn by example alone.
Surprisingly enough, I've found that the things i remember most are the things i have to figure out on my own.
1272
I understand "Извините, его нет" as "sorry, he is not here", but the translation says: "I am sorry, he is away", this should not be: "Извините, он делеко"? (or something like that) or it is correct for both cases?
No, that would be «Извините, не он» (or, depending on the context, it might be another case).
- 390
How would you translate: a) Is he at home? Sorry he isn't. b) Is she doing her homework? Sorry she is not.
a) — Он дома?
— Нет, его нет [дома].
б) — Она делает домашние задания?
— К сожалению, нет. / К сожалению, не делает.
When I first saw this sentence, I took it to be a short-hand form, with something like дома or здесь elided, as in его нет [дома/здесь].
Wow, my inner existentialist translated this to "I'm sorry, he is not". I'm astounded at my own stupidity.
I also translated this as "I'm sorry, he is not,"* but not as a existential thing. It's a common wording for correcting an assertion someone has made about a third person:
"Ivan Ivanovich is the eighth winner of the Such-&-Such Award."
"I'm sorry, he is not. The Awards were canceled last year and there was no winner, so that makes Ivan Ivanovich only the seventh winner of the award."
(*I was marked wrong for this on 13 August 2018, and have reported it.)
I’m afraid this is not a possible translation.
It might teoretically work if you use nominative («он — нет»), but even that doesn’t really sound natural in your context. I’d say «Извините, это не так» ‘Sorry, it’s not true’ or something.
how would you say, "it is not his"? (as in, it is not his book or whatever)
«Э́то не его́».
It's kind of like in Spanish how you can say that someone "no está" or "isn't" and it means that they aren't here/ aren't around. At least that's how I understand it. Hope this helps someone.
Он is nominative case. You need to use the genitive form, which is его (look it up on a declension table of pronouns).
Genitive is necessary because of нет. The word order is backwards from English - if if the word order were tuned to English, then it would be нет его, and you have to use genitive for words negated by нет.
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- 102
A more direct translation would be "He is not here." The word "here" is sort of understood or implied.
Извините mean i am sorry or Excuse me so why duo didnt let me pass when my anser was excuse me
