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And it is the same logic as in the German "Haustier"... Пока Сонтаран!
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Ditto in French: "animal domestique". There is also "animal de compagnie", which is closer semantically but less used than the former.
Also in Italian we say "animale domestico", although sometimes the English word pet is used, especially in shops or magazines/blog about pets... that lack good taste! :-P
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In my (native speaker) opinion, no. That's not the point of this sentence. A "domashnee zhivotnoe" is a domestic animal. That is NOT the same thing as a "domesticated animal" by any stretch in Russian or English. A domesticated animal is a wide genre - cows, sheep, dogs, foxes (this is a Russian course, after all ;)). However a domestic animal is just an animal that lives inside the home - a cat, a dog, a rabbit. Not a cow.
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Domesticated animal and pet don't really mean the same thing, though.
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Domesticated animal is "одома́шненное животное". Such as a cow, sheep, bee, shepherd dog, sometimes even an elephant. This is a broader term. Obviously, most of these animals are not usually pets (дома́шние).
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To me, the cat is a pet, rather than a domestic animal. They both mean much the same, but "pet" is a much more familiar term. I would never call my cat a domestic animal. He would be offended - it sounds too formal! I think duolingo does a marvellous job in distinguishing alternative translations. In this, though, I think they are wrong to accept "domestic", and not "pet". I agree with the distinction you make between "domesticated" and "pet", though..
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well I think if it's a cat involved it is better to call it a pet. Dogs may well be domesticated but not pets. But a cat? Why else would it be domesticated?
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животное (animal) is not an adjective, but a noun in its own right. It has its own gender. Many nouns that describe things that are actually male or female have two forms, one for each gender, but animal does not. животное is the only form, and its gender is neutral.
The adjective домашнее is applied to животное, so it agrees with that, rather than with the subject of the sentence (which is feminine).
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I would expect это in the middle. Or would that change the meaning?
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No, it wouldn't. You can easily say "Koshka, eto domashnee zhivotnoe." From my understanding, that's sort of the meaning of the hyphen.
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The pronunciation of животное sounds like жавотное to me. Is this correct, is there a mistake in the audio, or am I just imagining things?
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I think that is just the effect of vowel reduction on the syllable before the stressed one.
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Well, the question is if we are learning English or Russian. I wrote, "cat is a pet" and it was accepted, but it is a terrible English sentence. I just took the Russian and put it into English--as you did, Jin Lee. Both your sentence and my sentence translate the Russian correctly, but both are also NOT correct as far as English is concerned.
IMHO, both your sentence and my sentence should be rejected because they are not proper English. What might be accepted is level.zero's offering, "Cats are pets." This sentence is perfect English and absolutely natural. BUT, it is not a good translation of the Russian.
I suppose this is the problem that comes from trying to merge two languages.
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Because both кошка & домашнее животное are singular. The cat is a pet.
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Couldn't "Кошка — домашнее животное." mean that all cats are pets? "A cat is a pet." means the same thing as "Cats are pets." in English.
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That's true, but in English it sounds alright to say "Cats are pets", unless you're talking about a specific cat. I had to hit backspace a dozen times because of the urge to type "cats are pets" for this sentence :\
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That's a false equivalency.
That would be like saying У меня кошка is the same as saying У меня кошки because it's perfectly fine to say "I have a cat" or "I have cats".
They're, very clearly, saying different things.
Questions like this help you tune yourself to declensions.
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Your example is a false equivalency... "У меня кошка" clearly means you have one cat. "Кошка - домашное животное" is either... "The cat is a pet" (talking about a specific cat). "The cat is a pet" (talking about the cat species in general); in this case, you can acceptably say "Cats are pets".
Like many lessons on DL there isn't enough context and so therefore either one should be acceptable.
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I can't reply to your latest comment but it goes back to what I said. I have a cat or I have cats are both acceptable in English but that's not what the Russian sentence is.
Translate what's in front of you, don't try to introduce other things.
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Your example is a false equivalency... "У меня кошка" clearly means you have one cat.
Are you sure?
Because, as kpferdeort said:
кошка домашнее животное are singular
And singular would clearly mean one cat.
If you want to talk about many cats you'll need to use the plural:
Кошки - домашние животные
Кошки - plural for cat (singular in this sentence = кошка)
домашние - plural for domestic (singular in this sentence = Домошнее)
Животные - plural for animal (singular in this sentence = животное)
String the singular forms in parentheses together.
Singular + Singular + Singular != Plural is Plural.
This is one of the few times where you don't need context at all. It's extremely clear, every word is taking a singular form and none of those forms could remotely be confused with the plural.
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The problem here is, there's another 100% acceptable way of expressing and translating this thought into English. Even though in Russian it is in singular, you can translate it into English in the singular or the plural and it will be correct. I'm not saying context is necessary to understand and translate it, but without context there are multiple ways to correctly translate it.
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I mean I don't want to sound rude to the non-native-English speakers who are learning Russian through here because it's not available in their language, but I'd like to point out that it is "marketed" as a "language course for English speakers", and an English speaker would either say "The cat is a pet" or "Cats are pets", and the meaning would be the same. It's not introducing anything new, it's not changing the meaning of the sentence and in fact it further solidifies the person's understanding of the language if that's how they would normally express that thought. Your example of "У меня кошка" does not relate - while it has the same word count, you can not make the same argument for the multitude of meanings that the statement possesses when compared to the sentence being discussed here.
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I mean I don't want to sound rude to the non-native-English speakers who are learning Russian through here because it's not available in their language
Can't tell if assumption about me or just introducing more unnecessary complexity.
Just in case it's the first - native English speaker from an English-only country checking in!
And further to that:
and an English speaker would either say "The cat is a pet"
I would say "the cat is a pet" or "a cat is a pet" or "cats are pets".
That said, I'm clearly not changing your mind.
I find it weird that you're level 12 and you think of this as a contextual oddity of Russian. You might struggle later. This is one of the clearest questions/sentences I've encountered. (I've completed the tree)
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Ой впечатляющим!
Нет смысла продолжать разговор.
Да, я думаю, что я это уже говорила.
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an_alias and keinemeinung--I'd give you a draw on this fine bit of intellectual sparring. Compliments to both of you for trying to present your arguments clearly and not resorting to virtual fisticuffs.
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Я не задавал ни одного вопроса, просто согласился с теми, кто тоже считает, что разные переводы в этом случае правильны.
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But 'the cat is a pet animal' wasn't accepted. It seems to me that it should be, English being my native language.
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Honestly, "The cat is a pet animal." doesn't sound natural at all to me. I guess our experiences are vastly different.
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"The" is also used in a more formal register to make general statements, particularly about species / classes. "The eagle is a bird of prey." "The wheel was a Neolithic invention."
If I leave the response: A cat is a domestic animal (pet); what is actually wrong with the answer?
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A domestic "animal" could be a farm animal--pig, cow, etc. A "pet" is an animal that people keep around for pleasure.
I wish the hints would define each of the latter terms individually instead of as a single word. A recent question did just this, and I translated it incorrectly because of it but I still need to be able to recognize the words.
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I can see why that's frustrating but I don't think there are too many instances of this in Russian.
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'the cat is a pet animal' should be accepted. I know you don't have to put 'animal' into the sentence, but it certainly sounds ok in English to do so.
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David, to me, such a sentence sounds extremely awkward. There is no need for the word "animal" because pet already means animal. "I'm eating hamburger food" sounds similar.
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I agree it's not needed, but it doesn't sound awkward to me - it rolls off the tongue easily enough. Language can be a pretty flexible tool, particularly in conversational situations. I just don't think it should actually be wrong, but I guess it may be a minor cultural thing. Of course we can refer to the "teacher's pet", which would refer to a person. I think?!?!
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"Teacher's Pet" is 100% idiomatic. It makes no sense if you look only at the meaning of the words.
I respectfully disagree that "The cat is a pet animal" rolls off the tongue easily. In my world at least, such a sentence grabs my stomach and pulls it out of my mouth with discomfort.
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Looking back at earlier comments, it looks like we have had this discussion before. I guess we should just admit that we are different people with different experiences and leave it.
In fact, I was trying to think of a tactful way to ask if you are a native speaker of English, but last year about this time, you wrote that you are.
Where are you from?
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Hi yashamax. Yes, you're right, and it's not a vitally important point. I'm from New Zealand. I think our brand of English is tilted a little more towards UK English than American, but we all understand one another pretty well. There are bound to be minor differences in our usage, which makes it all the more fascinating, and I think duolingo does a pretty good job at covering all the bases. But there are interesting discussions to be had!! interesting .
