"мои столы"
Translation:my tables
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A table in a restaurant is usually «столик», unless you mean it in the most literal "piece of furniture" sense.
It changes depending on the subject : мой -> masculine моя -> feminine моё -> neuter мои -> plural (all genders)
thanks. i sorta figured that out, but it still confuses me sometimes. The only thing holding me back with language is genders
Russian genders are easy. If the word finishes with A or YA, it's clearly feminine. If it ends with O or YO, it's Neuter. If it ends with other consonants, it's Masculine.
This is much more easier than genders in difficult languages, like German or French.
It's general rule. Words thata are masculine in meaning are masculine, and words that are clearly feminine are feminine.
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This is still quite simplified though. Vanya etc are masculine, soft sign usually means feminine etc
No LJijieshvili it's not true, in german masculine words end mostly with er, el yet there are feminine that end with el and er but you can count them on your hand, neutral names beginn mostly with ge. Feminine end mostly with Heit Keit Schaft, e, Ung,
Is there a way to help remember or is it just hard flash cards and staring until your eyes bleed?
In general, stereotypical feminine nouns you find in Russian end in -А(Я), typical masculine nouns end in a consonant (including Й), neuter nouns end in О/Е (Ё) and at least some classes of nouns have plurals that end in -Ы(И).
моя-мой-моё-мои seems to follow that scheme pretty closely, too.
Because the list here is for the nominative case, and мою is only used in other cases, such as the accusative.
From the context its impossible to know if it wants the singular or plural
If you got this sentence in a "fill the gap" exercise and you had МОИ then it was clear that you had to select the plural form (СТОЛЫ) because МОИ is plural. If it was singular, it would be МОЙ.
good to know for grammar, but is the letter "ы" epresenting an observable sound when heard? i struggle to hear a difference, usually hearing the letter before it, so I've been getting by treating it as a written observation to just learn as opposed to a spoken one.
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What do you mean? The difference between стол and столы is quite massive. Ы is a vowel, and in this word it is stressed, so is especially easy to hear.
Sometimes "Мои" read as 'moy' and then 'may' ... Any rules or grammatical laws about this? 'coz in English we all know that "the", in every noun which is pronounce with vowel words in the first place, will be read as "the" = 'di'. Else, started with consonant, just usual "the" = 'dè'.
Мой = moy because the curve means it is a diphthong (one syllable). Мои = ma-ee because no curve means it is 2 syllables, with accent only on the second syllable, so the unstressed о sounds like а
Is the "moii" sound garbled only on my computer? I played it several times and the recording felt very unclear, particularly about the pronunciation of this word. I can usually tell when a human speaks it, lol :) But then, there's also context.
I got choices to choose between table and tables. Both could be right, my table and my tables. Then why this sentence is only right?
Lol that it offers 2 correct answers. Basically tables and desks seem to be used almost interchangeably in Russian.
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Why does the stress here move to the last syllable? Most other plurals I've seen in this skill so far have the stress on the same syllable as the singular. Is there any rule about the stress? Or is this one irregular?
That can happen. Newly acquired words typically get a fixed stress but that can change. As for the established words, you have to memorise the stresses with the word. Fortunately, the number of possible schemes is finite. Zaliznyak has classified all Russian nouns into 6 main stress patterns:
- A: stem stressed everywhere (e.g., мама, актёр)
- B: ending-stressed everywhere, provided there IS a non-zero ending (e.g., стол)
- C: like A in the singular, like B in the plural (e.g., город)
- D: B in the singular, A in the plural (e.g., звезда)
- E: like C but the Nominative plural is also stem-stressed. (e.g., мышь)
- F: like B but the Nominative plural is stem-stressed. (e.g., волна)
D and F have some variation, with the Accusative singular also stem-stressed (e.g., река, рука, доска)
The system is fairly stable. For example, the standard recommendation is to use ве́ктор as a fixed-stress noun with the plural ве́кторы (pattern A), but I prefer вектора́ (and thus a stressed ending in all plural forms, pattern C).
Could Столы apply to tables in the more figurative sense of "charts and tables" or does it only apply to pieces of furniture?
It can only mean furniture. English "table" originated as an extension of "tablet", "flat board". In fact, it already had the meaning of "list" in Latin. The Slavic word, on the other hand, meant some kind of furniture all along.
A chart is табли́ца.
I thought "Ы" was one of the "silent" Russian letters (I could be wrong about that), and yet here it clearly makes a sound. Can you explain this please? Also, "Ы" sounds more like the English letter "i" in "this" or "it," or even better, ther French verb "est" ("to be" verb in the 3rd person singular), not "ee." Thoughts?
The simplest way to learn to produce a reasonably good ы sound is as follows:
Step 1: move your jaw forward as far as you can without having to call for a doctor to bring it back.
Step 2: while holding your jaw in that position, try to say "ee" like in "tee."
Step 3: remember that sound and try to reproduce it with your mimics remaining socially acceptable.
My first Russian teacher, Orin Frink, at Iowa State, said that I should imagine I had just spilled a bottle of ketchup on the front of my shirt. The sound I make would be similar to the ы sound.
Hmm... that Orin Frink guy must have had strange accent. I imagined the picture, but the sequence of sounds I produced had too many consonants to count for an 'ы'... must be my poor imagination.
Я не уверен, но я думаю, что Фринк из Филадельфии. Не смотря откуда, он хороший учитель.
No, ы is not silent letter (you might be confusing it with ъ or ь). And it sounds much deeper and thicker than English i in it. There is no identical sound in languages like English, French, German, Spanish and all learners should take time time practicing it. You will have to use it quite frequently: in some Russian personal pronouns (мы ты вы), while forming plural (with some nouns) and in some singular adjectives in masculine gender (красивый). If you do not say this sound properly not only you will have a rather bad accent but also you can be misunderstood. I was born in Russia and lived there for some 25 years....:), so I know what I am talking about. Good luck!
thanks for the info=-)
P.S:you are the main source of my answers shady arc
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"Mine tables" does not make sense in English. The word "mine" can never be followed by a noun, while "my" is always followed by a noun. This is because "mine" is a possessive pronoun, while "my" is a possessive determiner.
You could say "the tables are mine", which would translate to "столы — мои", I believe.
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Is it right that the pronunciation of стол is like 'stol', and of столы like 'stali'? Or am I wrong
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Yes, correct. The stress shifts to the second syllable.
If you're ever unsure about the pronunciations on Duolingo (admittedly, the voice on here DOES make mistakes fairly frequently), I find Wiktionary to be very useful for checking pronunciation guides to see where the stress falls. (E.G. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/столы )
Just marked wrong for putting мой стол when asked to supply the second word. How can this be wrong?
So what you are saying is what I put is correct. I was asked to fill in a blank after MOI (sorry English keyboard) so I put the correct singular and was marked wrong because DL requires us to be psychic when it will only accept the plural.
I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, Ron. To me, the audio sounds like "myee stahlee" which is exactly мои столы or "my tables." What does your computer say to you?
In other lessons, desk and table are used interchangeably it seems, whats the difference between them, if there is one?
They are not interchangeable in English. A desk is used for work or study and usually has drawers. A table is a much broader term, but it's usually not used for work and usually doesn't have drawers. It's just that Russian doesn't differentiate between them and uses the word "стол" for both. That's why Duo allows both as the translation for "стол".
I see, the reason for my asking, though, was because when I used one in English, it marked it as incorrect, despite both "desk" and "table" being correct here. That was the reason for my confusion, I wasn't sure if I was wrong or if I should report it as an error.
