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Actually, it's likely that his name was originally not Lev / Лев but Lyov / Лёв. The translations that were published back when he was alive use Lyoff as his name. But е/ё weren't distinguished back at that time, so nowadays everyone says Лев even though it's technically not his original name.
Interesting, yes interesting indeed. In Sweden, Björn is a common name but also the Swedish word for ‘bear.’ People don’t happen to be called ‘Медведь‘ in Russia?
We don't have such a name nowadays. But it was used in the past.
In fact, the family name Медве́дев is likely to be derived from this name. Family names are often derived from the name of a famous ancestor using the -ов/-ев suffix (e.g. Ивано́в is derived from the name Ива́н, Петро́в is derived from the name Пётр, Ла́зарев is derived from the [rare] name Ла́зарь, etc.).
Is the family name, ‘Медведев’, popular in Russia today?
Regarding the formation family names, isn’t -ов/-ев also the accusative plural suffix (for animate masculine nouns) and also the genitive plural plural suffix (for all masculine nouns)? That explains why my mothers birth name was Еле́на Его́рова and my grandfather’s name (on my mother’s side) was Фёдор Его́ров, from the name Его́р, a shortened form of Гео́ргий (George). I wonder who was named Его́р in my family... Then, when she married my half brother’s father, her last name became Зенко́ва. My brothers last name is actually still Зенко́в.
popular in Russia today
I don't have statistics, but I guess everyone has heard it because of a former Russian president. :)
isn’t -ов/-ев also the accusative plural suffix (for animate masculine nouns) and also the genitive plural plural suffix (for all masculine nouns)?
Yes, that's true.
Technically, yes, but you learn the Russian word for "lion" in this lesson, so you should know it's "lion" you need to type.
есть is the infinitive and means "to eat". ест is the third person singular of the verb and means (he) eats. You would never say "The lion to eat" but instead "The lion eats". есть can also mean "There is", but есть sounds different from ест.
This depends on the speed of your speech. If you make a pause between «ест», then it will be /f/. But if it's pronounced together, than it stays /v/ because it's followed by a sonorant.
Я бы поспорила. "Ест" begins with a consonant sound "й". But even if it is a vowel (лев обычно ест мясо), I pronounce "лев" as "леф".
"Ест" begins with a consonant sound "й".
My bad. I've edited my message.
I pronounce "лев" as "леф".
I don't insist on this, but I wouldn't consider /v/ a mistake here.
How do you hear the difference between "The lion eats" and "Is there a lion [in the zoo]?" Ест and есть sounds very similar to me, and intonation doesn't work with the robot voice. Russian is more or less indifferent to word order, so ...
To native speakers, the difference between ест /'jest/ and есть /'jestʲ/ is audible. I know it might be difficult to learn to distinguish the two, but I think it just comes with practice.
Yes, I do. Just compared https://www.duolingo.com/comment/12015492 and this sentence, I definitely hear the т—ть difference.
Can it not also mean "I have a Lion.", as an answer to "Do you have a lion?".
Есть (with soft sign) is the infinitive the verb To Eat. Ест is the third person singular (он/она/оно) conjugation of the "to eat" verb.
- Я ем
- Ты ешь
- Он/она/оно ест
- Мы едим
- Вы едите
- Они едят.
Есть is also present tense conjugation of "быть" (to be)
Есть (with soft sign) is basically two verbs - "be", and the infinitive for To Eat. Ест is the third person singular (он/она/оно) conjugation of the "to eat" verb.
- Я ем
- Ты ешь
- Он/она/оно ест
- Мы едим
- Вы едите
- Они едят.
Your comment is great, but I have a little correction: when есть is a form of 'to be', it's not the infinitive.
"Lion eats" / "Lion is eating" should be accepted given the fact that Russian doesn't involve articles like English.
When you translate into Russian, you don't use articles because Russian doesn't use them. When you translate into English, though, the point is that you translate into correct English, which involves using articles.
Indeed. Actual correct translation involves using the rules of the target language. You /can/ do a word-for-word translation even if it makes no sense at all in the TL, but that is only to study the sentence. We do it a lot in linguistics research, and it is called glossing.
I learned about it, there are voice and voiceless letters and if a word finishes in a voiced letter, this will sound like its voiceless equivalent, in this case "в"->"ф"
львы́ Also you can see the declensions for this word at Wiktionary: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/лев#Russian
Unless "Lion" is someone's name, you need an article in English to make it a complete sentence (A lion eats, or The lion eats).
Есть is the infinitive (to eat) and ест is the third person singular conjugation (she/he/it eats).
It would also be Лев ест. However, in English, this would be a sentence fragment (an incomplete sentence). You can say that "Lions eat" (plural subject without an article), but if you have a countable subject (in this case, "Lion"), you would need to use an article ("a lion" or "the lion"). The exception would be if it were a proper noun (someone's name, like your cat's name), then you could just say "Lion eats".
