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- "Я не понимаю её."
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1671
Not to remove any of the alluring feminine mystique, but I have about the same amount of trouble understanding a lot of men, especially men of the opposite political persuasion.
Or perhaps it's not a question of understanding - that's actually easy to do, because men in general lack subtlety - but comprehending what they do and the excuses they make for doing it.
PS I am a man.
- 298
Why is её placed after the verb? I always thought that the pronouns should be put before the verb
Well, Russian is usually an SVO language, just like English. Every Russian course ever teaches the language to you that way. In SVO languages, you have to place only the subject pronoun before the verb; (её is the object here)
- SVO I don't understand her. (fixed English word order)
- SVO Я не понимаю её (ordinary Russian word order)
Yet Russian word order is flexible, as it allows SOV sentences, as in Turkish. That means you may put the object pronoun before the verb also. Yet you shouldn't play around with the word order much, and stick with the SVO for now.
- SOV Ben onu anlamıyorum. (fixed Turkish word order)
- SOV Я её не понимаю (Also possible in Russian)
I'm russian and I can say that you right. How about funny examples? All of them transleate like "I love you" and right. I mean russian peoples use all of them nowadays.
1.Я тебя люблю. 2.Я люблю тебя. 3.Люблю я тебя. 4.Люблю тебя я. 5.Тебя я люблю. 6.Тебя люблю я.
Actually each of them use in special case, but you can say without them.
Спасибо Лера! May I ask you to elaborate which form is used in what situation? I have been reading that the word order affects the emphasis, however I haven't found a clear example like this one.
It can. For example, if её refers to задача (a task), "I don't understand it (the task)
Or book, книга. Я не понемаю её (the book). I had exactly the same question
I think in that case one would probably use это or something, right? Я это не понимаю = I don't understand this (it)
In the notes for the lesson on genitive case, it says:
"Genitive of Negation
If you use «нет» to say that there is "no" something or you do not have it, the object is always in Genitive:
У меня́ есть я́блоко → У меня́ нет я́блока
Здесь есть рюкза́к → Здесь нет рюкзака́."
I don't think this rule applies more generally to negation of any verb, so I would say that её is in the accusative case here.
I'm not certain, though. Hopefully a native speaker can confirm this?
MarkCurtis9, I'm not a native speaker (neither of Russian or English), but I think your answer is right. «её» is the direct object here, then it is in the accusative form. (Although the genitive form of "she" is also «её»).
This table might help:
Cases conjugation sheets for nouns, pronouns, adjectives - Russian Language Forums
It can be both. Very often one can use both Genetive and Accusative in negative sentences like that
- 1671
Его/Её serve two functions:
- They are Accusative and Genitive case forms for the personal pronoun "him/her/it":
я вижу его/её = "I see him/her".
When one of these pronouns is the object of certain prepositions, you have to add н. One of these prepositions is у, which we have seen a lot in "having" something: У него/неё есть кошка = "He/she has a cat".
I believe that another such preposition is на when referring to location (without motion involved). Not all prepositions seem to require the added н. And the +н applies to other forms of "he/she/it/them":
На нем есть шляпа = "There is a hat on him" [please excuse the syntax]
- Его/Её are also the Russian translations for "his/her" possessive pronouns:
его сестра = his sister
её брат = "her brother"
I do not believe the +н applies to possessive articles attached to nouns that are the subject of these same prepositions:
у его сестры есть брат = "his sister has a brother"
