"This is mashed potato, and here is a pizza."
Translation:Это пюре, а вот пицца.
103 Comments
One of the choices was "Это пюре, а вот цирк пицца," and now I really want to know what a circus pizza is! I just strikes me as funny.
In Russian, "цирк пицца" is complete gibberish. "A circus pizza" (whatever that means) would be "цирковая пицца". "A pizza from the circus" is "пицца из цирка".
Why would "и", which also means "and" be implausible for this sentence? Can someone clue me in?
the english sentence could be taken either way and both answers should be accepted
"а" is used when you name things one after another, like - "это мама, а это папа" - notice the presence of "это". "и" is used when you combine two things and count them as a group - "это мама и папа" notice - there is no second "это" because dad is not a single object anymore. To say "это мама и это папа" is incorrect
I wrote "и" because there's no contrast between the two clauses. Apparently it's not correct, but I think it should be.
Why is it so? Does it have to do with вот? Would "Это пюре, и это пицца" be alright?
You have to use "а" because you oppose potatoes to pizza. This does not depend on "это" or "вот".
@Matt2411: Your examples are correct. There are sentences with two different clauses, when you would still use "и", though.
I'd suggest you a simple rule of thumb: if you can replace "and" with "but" in English and it won't sound very wrong, use "а" in Russian. If you cannot, use "и".
These are potatoes, but that is pizza - odd, but not too wrong → use "а".
I have a book but a chair - nonsense → use "и".
You are a teacher, but I am a doctor - not too wrong → use "а".
@zpark3: they are different, so you sort of oppose them. You never use "и" in sentences like "This is ..., and this/that/here is ...".
@olimo: Making a generalization, is it correct to say it has to do with grammatical clauses? If I said "these are my things: a book and a chair", then I'd only have one clause, and in russian I'd use "и". When you have two different clauses (as in "this is a book, and this is a chair") in that case I use "a". Am I right? Did I figure it out?
But they aren't opposing. It just states that "This is mashed potatoes, and here is pizza." In English, if someone mentions that two different things exist, no one thinks they are referring to some form of opposition. Please clarify your reasoning for using "y" instead of "a".
*I can't type Russian characters.
I have the same confusion. Im guessing because its two different items of food. For example if the sentence was "this is mashed potato and i like them" then "и" would be used?? But because it is two types of food like listing them they use "а". Like a dinner lady is telling what there is but its unlikely you would have both...?
@olimo is right. They are opposing because they're both their own subjects in the sentence. You are presenting the two in the sentence as their own as opposed to listing them off, therefore а would be used in place of и.
Its weird that пюре only means pureed potatoes... is there another word for mashed potatoes or is it only this one? Why is the word for potato omitted? (Пюре картошка?) How do you explain other pureed items that are not potatoes?
В большинстве случаев (часто, в основном) мы (русские и русскоязычные) говорим "пюре" и подразумеваем (имеем ввиду) именно "картофельное пюре", так как (потому что) другие пюре встречаются в повседневной жизни редко. Если ты или кто-то говорит, например, о фруктовом пюре, то в начале говорим - "яблочное пюре" (сразу уточняем тип, вид этого пюре), "фруктовое пюре" (фруктовое - это несколько фруктов в нём (в пюре) или любой фрукт без уточнения), а как только говорили о яблочном пюре, то потом в этом разговоре (обычно сразу по ходу речи) говорим "пюре" и понимаем, что это тот вид пюре, который только что обсуждали. Думаю, что так у большинства языков мира, поэтому в этом курсе лучше не писать просто "пюре" иначе не понятно о каком пюре речь. Но в жизни скажете "пюре" в первый раз и в 99% подумают о картофельном пюре. :-)
Извините, но мой английский не очень хорош и нет времени сейчас переводить :-(
Не знаю... по-моему можно было бы это хотя бы в список правильных внести, а там пусть кто хочет пишет полностью или не полностью
Полностью согласна, что надо внести хотя бы в список правильных перевод именно "картофельного пюре", т.к. в предложении уточняется какое именно пюре. Пюре бывают разные.
They must be wrong about this. Пюре means puree, just puree. Mashed potatoes should be "Картофельное пюре". It's important to explain what kind of puree you're talking about.
Not sure on how to spell it but my mum always pronounces it mahtee картофела. Is that just a thing she does or an acceptable term?
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So "mashed potatoes" and "puree" are the same words? ... the puree threw me off, I thought another word was used for mashed potatoes.
I can tell you that there are the "purê" in portuguese and it has the samr pronounce as the russian or french/english.
In spanish we say 'puré' which means 'smash/smashed' (depending on the situation). We always have to put the vegetable/fruit/etc after it (a literal translation would be 'smash of potato/potatoes' for smashed potatoes, and would be 'puré de _'). I believe in russian the way 'пюпе' adds the meaning of 'smash/smashed' works like that too, like in 'картофельное пюре' meaning 'potato puré/(smashed)' -картофель meaning 'potato'-
Is there a difference in meaning between "This is" and "here is"? I'm a native English speaker but I can't figure it out.
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I'm just a student, but I would say one is labelling an item ("this is a chair") whereas the other is pointing out where it is ("here is" could be interchangeable with "__ is here").
We more often say mashed potatoes (plural) in my location than mashed potato (singular). Where do they say mashed potato? I'm curious.
картофельное пюре is mashed potatoes and duolingo gives me wrong this sentence
My answer was "это пюре, и пицца здесь" and can't figure out why it wouldn't be accepted. Is there something I'm missing here?
I wrote здесь instead of вот. Can someone explain why this is wrong?
Does anyone know the correct keyboard to use on a android phone so i can type in russian for the app? Thankyou kindly
Go to your keyboard settings on your phone and add a language. There will be a way to swap between them when typing then.
I mean I know the assumption is that everyone here is a beginner, but this was kind of obvious.
I typed in "Eto niope (No russian aphabet on my keyboard) a bot pizza." (Pizza in russian requires the letters not on the keyboard) But I don't know how I got it wrong because it says I used the wrong word, I'd never even seen in the lesson pyure pitstsa.) Is it writing pizza like that so that it can be written with the English aphabet?
Also, is there any way to type in russian on a standard keyboard?
You have to either choose the Latin alphabet or Cyrillic. You can't combine them. You wrote niope and pizza in one line so you're expecting this app to recognize when you want 'p' to mean 'p' or 'r'. Or when 'n' means 'n' or 'p'. In the Latin alphabet they will always use the Latin version so for пюре you need to write pyure or something like that. Cuz niope reads like ниёпе and that makes no sense
Your first approach cannot work, since a 1:1 correspondence between Russian and Latin phonemes and thus letters just isn't there. The two basic (sane) alternatives are writing transliterated Russian (which Duolingo seems to default to), or to answer your last question, yes and it's dead simple. Go to your OS settings and add the Russian Cyrillic keymap to the list. You can switch back and forth any time you want... the hard part is learning the completely different layout!
It is doable though, I've done it, after 2 days I was able to type Cyrillic quite comfortably without even looking at the keys. At first you'll probably want to web search an image of a Russian keyboard so you'll have a reference or even tape/draw at least part of the Cyrillic letters beside the Latin ones right ON the keys. It's quite the paradigm shift but it was a neat motor exercise for me. Once you get used to it, you will NOT want to go back to typing transliterated (the real thing is much faster and you get the exact letters you want, directly).
I've put "eto purre, a bot pizza" because for me it sounds the same, but... WELL... didn't work (I'm a spanish speaker)
This reminds me of my first boyfriend, he would buy frozen pizza- the veggie supreme kind with onions and bell peppers, then top it with instant mashed potatoes and eat it like that- it actually wasn't bad.
Русский seems easier to appreciate and grasp, if you master the Spanish language.
This is one of many incidents, but they are quite confusing... around 50% of the time when my (typed) Russian answer is accepted it still says 'There are typos in your answer'. However they are rarely pointed out, so it's difficult to understand how exactly something is supposed to be typed and what "mistakes" does the parser understand. It's often unclear: was there a typo or wasn't there?
My answer (after a couple of attempts) for this one was exactly the right one, it was accepted but it said there's a "typo". I have no idea where, since in this case the right answer is shown in cyrillic. Also, I tend to think that forms such as "pjure" or even "piure" should be accepted, the same as with 'ya' and 'ja'. (Native/expert level speakers are very welcome to clarify if there's actually a real reason why those forms COULD NOT be accepted... advice is much appreciated).
I also want to point out that I am not out here just to complain or be a pain in the neck... I think this is a great piece of software that just happens to have a HUGE amount of unrealised potential because of the bugs/peculiarities/etc. I (and others) have mentioned. I sincerely appreciate the app and only hope that the problems will be sorted out. Unfortunately I have brief experience of the IT world myself, so I can assume it's not easy :)
"Eto pyure, a vot pitstsa."? Seriously Why on earth is pizza spelt like that That was the correct answer!
I do not have a keyboard with russian characters, so what do i do? The question said to type this out in russian.
It seems I could not guess the right word, mistake got to be the right teacher.
I'm typing Russian with a German keyboard, but no matter if I type "pizza" or "picca", it's always wrong although "picca" would be the correct transcription for "пицца". Any Ideas? Thank you!
Try "pitstsa". Yes, it looks kind of ridiculous in this particular case, but the software does recognise "ts" as "ц" in other exercises, so why not here?
I find this sentence very descriptive, why would I need to ever you this sentence?
I see, if i directly translate into English its wrong. But if they do its fine.
Funny enough "пюре" is pronounced and has the same meaning as the french word "puré"
Whats the difference between и and а just explain without using grammaticly words.
I do not have the Russian symbols to write the word and so I keep getting it wrong and I cannot bypass although it allows me to skip but it brings the same thing back over and ovwer. Frustrating!
I would like to ask, how do you type in russian? I have to use google translate to copy and paste.
That would be quite different... I was wondering why it isn't simply 'пица'!
'питса' would also work very well if you'd ask me. Russian seems to have the most inconsistent/unpredictable vocabulary of the languages I know (long history and what else...) In some other languages (older gen) loanwords are very diligently molded and shaped to fit in, in such a regular way that it's almost impossible to make a wrong guess :)
Sorry but the meaning of "Bot" is not "here", the word "here" in Russian is translated with "здесь". I ask you ,what type of Russian you pretend to teach us?
