"You are women."
Translation:Вы - женщины.
55 Comments
Another quick question... Are "Ты" and "Вы" (and the correct usage thereof) related to gender? Or is there some other difference between them? (In other words, why is "Ты женщины." incorrect here? Thanks again :-)
Ты is the second person singular pronoun and is considered to be an informal way of addressing a person. The formal way to address someone is using вы, which is also the second person plural pronoun used when addressing multiple people. Since in this sentence you are speaking to multiple people (you can tell because the word women is plural), you use вы.
"You" is the second person singular pronoun in English. English doesn't have a separate pronoun to indicate that the subject is plural, the way that Russian has вы. First person pronouns are I/We (я/мы) and the third person pronouns are he/she/it/they (он/она/оно/они).
When do you use женщины and when do you use женщини? I notice that both are given as 'correct translations' when I mouse over the word in the question. The lesson overview states that both are accepted. Does this mean I can randomly pick which one I use at any given time, or are there rules here as well that may not be so obvious?
Nominative: же́нщинa (же́нщины); Genitive: же́нщины (же́нщин); Dative: же́нщине (же́нщинам); Accusative: же́нщину (же́нщин); Instrumental: же́нщиной (же́нщинами); Prepositional : же́нщине (же́нщинах)
I'm not sure I remember seeing женщини yet (although I'm not mega far through the course myself) and I can't see it in the table above (plurals in brackets) taken from the Master Russian website. However, in answer to your second question, no, you can't just randomly pick endings. Each ending gives an indication of that word's purpose within the sentence. For example, in the phrase: "У женщины есть собака" (the woman has a dog), "женщины" signifies a woman, whereas, in the phrase above ("Вы женщины"), "женщины" refers to women (i.e. the plural). The reasoning behind this difference is that "У" takes the genitive case because it sort of means "with" (i.e. in this case, "with the woman", so she is possessing it (and the genitive case is sometimes called the possessive case)). "Вы" (you are) does not indicate possession in the same way, and therefore does not require this construction (so it uses the nominative case).
Ok, so that probably seems quite terrifying, but when you get the hang of it you'll realise it's really quite beautiful, and very logical.
Enjoy :-)
Brain.. melting.. D8
Okay, it helps that I was expecting something like this. I guess I'll have to just do the same thing I did when I studied German in school. Repeat, rehearse, rehash and repeat. Argh. :) This is going to take some effort. Right. I can do this. I'll just have to take it one piece of information at the time.
Thank you for taking the time to write that all out!
(Why did I think this'd be easy again? XD; rolls up sleeves Back to it!)
Haha. If it helps at all, forming the correct ending for each grammatical case is entirely “rules” based, so once you understand where/when to use a certain case, all you need to do is follow the “rules” and Voila!
You’ll be fine. Это легко, я обещаю (“It’s easy I promise”). [ Bear in mind that could be incorrect, but if so it’s hopefully near enough :-) ]
As i saw in a comment above: "Ты" is second person singular, but the sentence is referring to multiple people: the women.
As with many other languages, there is first person, second person, and third person pronouns, and also the singular and plural forms of those pronouns. For example: First person singular is "I", and First person plural is "We". Third person singular is "He/She/It" and Third person plural is "They".
But in English, the same word is used for Second person singular and plural, the word "You" can be referring to a single person or many people. In Russian, there is a distinction. "Ты" is second person singular (you are a woman = referring to a single person) and "Вы" is second person plural (you are women = referring to many people).
I'm not very experienced in Russian, but i hope this helped.
You are right, but "Вы" is also the second person singular in a formal way. "Вы - женщины." = You are women; "Вы - женщина." = You are a woman (In a formal way); "Ты - женщина." = You are a woman (In an informal way). I hope to help.
I am not a native speaker (or greatly experienced myself) so I can't be sure, but I have a feeling that девушка has a kind of "friendly feel" to it. If we think of it in terms of English, I might say that my sister (who is 40) was "going out for the night with the girls", but I'd expect a stranger to refer to her as "a woman" (unless they were significantly older than her, at least). Similarly, a group of men on a night out might describe a group of ladies they had eyes to chat up as "girls" or "lasses" (and reciprocally "boys" or "lads") but they would probably describe the same ladies as "women" in a more formal context (such as at work). I have a feeling that Russians probably make the same distinction (or a similar one) between девочка, девушка and женщина.
Hope that helps.
Mr_Russian! Please, take a complement from a native speaker! You feel the difference well! :)
Девушки are girls. Woman is женщина, not a girl. ...or you can say young women (молодые женщины) for девушки.
can I do this without a russian keyboard? or is there a way to get one? I have tried the advised way
Do you use a laptop, desktop, tablet or phone? What is the 'advised way' you tried and failed to get to work?
And you can always go to Google Translate, select Russian as the input language, and use their OSK, provided as an option below the input field. It is not the fastest way, and I would recommend not using the timed practice option, if that is the case.. There are probably other websites where you can use the Russian keyboard as well, just google it.
The most efficient way is still to install it through the language options on your preferred device, and then to switch to the language in question where necessary. (Perhaps, if you've installed it, that is the only thing you're having trouble with? Getting it to show as an option?)
I was advised to install it through 'updates', but the option wasn't available. I have tried to google how to install several times, with no joy. I hadn't thought of googling for a Russian keyboard - will try that anyway, although I would prefer it to be installed as a language option, but so far that doesn't seem to be available to me.
Ah, if you are using a desktop, try these steps, instead;
As per https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/258824;
Windows XP/7:
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Click the Start button, type intl.cpl in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER (or manually go to your config screen and look for language settings there, where you can edit your keyboard);
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On the Keyboards and Language tab, click Change keyboards;
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Click Add;
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Expand the language that you want. In your case Russian;
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Expand Keyboard list, click to select the check box for this language, and then click OK;
You can then close the window and go back to your normal screen. If you want to change the input method/keyboard language, all you have to do is press the alt button and the shift button.
If you are using an alternate device, I am going to require more specifics on said device before being able to give other suggestions.
thank you, Dimidov. That's great - I now have the Russian keyboard option. Problem is, I don't know the layout. Where can i find a printout of the layout?
Assuming this website uses the standard layout (which I can only assume it does), then there's a picture at the top of this page :-)
Хорошего дня.
I figured that might be it. You're welcome. :3
Mikey has a link to a keyboard which seems to match up pretty well with mine. Remember the difference between 'э' (eh) and 'е' (je) and note that the 'ё' (jo) can be found under the tilde (~) in the upper left corner of your keyboard, below the esc key. I sometimes hit the esc when I want to hit the ё and this may cause Duo to think you're done typing before you actually are, hehe.
Also, if you wish to place a ' , ' while using the Russian keyboard, don't forget to use the shift button for it.
The best way to get used to it, though, is to just start randomly hitting the keyboard until you get used to the keys being where they are. Alternatively, find some stickers and paste them onto your keyboard to help you remember and find the letters more easily.
let there be russian virtual key board like french as many translation is difficult to represent exactly in english and the machine comparison turns out to be falls. this may discourage many new learners
Please ..what is the name of the russian keybord ..i can't find it .. and i have problem when i write ть I can't find "i"
So I'm a little confused do you conjugate verbs or is just nouns and how do you do this?
I can't whrite the 3rd letter with my keyboard ..please what his name exactly
What the f!!! I dont have Russian on my phone I try to tipe it in my way and it should fing work!!!
Здесь есть ошибка: You are women-- "Вы женщина", а не женщины, правильный также вариант "Ты женщина"
