"No, I want juice."
Translation:Нет, я хочу сока.
26 Comments
Not typing the "я" is acceptable in russian, but NOT for this lesson. You seem to be more advanced than the student this lesson is meant for)) Good luck with everything, friend!
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Ok on this screen I see сок but on the lesson I see сока...So which is it? And the rest of the sentence is the same.
Russian nouns (words naming things, phenomena and living beings) have several forms called cases.
Noun case determines how the word behaves in a certain situation. For example, the 'doer' of the action is usually in the nominative case (linguistically speaking, the subject is in the nominative case). Here, «я» 'I' is the nominative case. 'I' do the action of 'wanting'.
When quoting the noun in dictionaries or elsewhere, you use the nominative case. Сок is the nominative case, so that's what you'd see in dictionaries (and probably in hints on this site; although the hints are auto-generated and unreliable).
The thing affected by the action is called 'object'. Actions may have several objects, but the most important one is called 'direct object'. Russian marks direct objects with one of two cases: accusative or genitive. The accusative of «сок» is also «сок» (it's same as nominative), and the genitive is «сока».
The exact distinction is a bit blurry, but accusative is usually used for things as a whole, and genitive is used for partial things. For example, you're more likely to use «Я выпил сок» 'I've drunk [the] juice' if you've finished the juice, and if you only had a glass of juice and there's something left, you're more likely to use «Я выпил сока» 'I've drunk [some] juice'.
In «Я хочу сок/сока», both options are possible, and it doesn't change the meaning much.
In other sentences, Duolingo makes an artificial distinction: сок = juice, сока = some juice. I'm not sure why this exact sentence doesn't follow the same convention.
N. B. «Выпил» 'drunk' is the masculine form. I'm assuming you're male since Bill is a male name. The corresponding feminine form is «выпила».
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<<In «Я хочу сок/сока», both options are possible, and it doesn't change the meaning much.>> I'll probably regret arguing, but there is a difference, ie I want the juice and I want some juice, ie partitive genitive. Another example: Дай хлеб and Дай хлеба = Give me the bread and Give me some bread. Can somebody please confirm.
I've covered this in my message, please read the paragraphs above and below the text you've quoted:
The exact distinction is a bit blurry, but accusative is usually used for things as a whole, and genitive is used for partial things. For example, you're more likely to use «Я выпил сок» 'I've drunk [the] juice' if you've finished the juice, and if you only had a glass of juice and there's something left, you're more likely to use «Я выпил сока» 'I've drunk [some] juice'.
In «Я хочу сок/сока», both options are possible, and it doesn't change the meaning much.
In other sentences, Duolingo makes an artificial distinction: сок = juice, сока = some juice. I'm not sure why this exact sentence doesn't follow the same convention.
You're absolutely correct that it's a partitive genitive. However, you normally don't drink the whole juice in the world, so partitive genitive is acceptable in almost any context. Because, well, no matter how many you drink, you're never going to drink all the possible juice. You're still going to drink 'some' juice.
If there were some modifiers (like «твой сок» vs. «твоего сока» 'your juice'), then the difference would be more prominent. «Выпил твой сок» is 'drunk up your juice', «выпил твоего сока» is 'drunk [some of] your juice', there's an obvious difference. (Duolingo requires translating this as 'drunk your juice' vs. 'drunk some of your juice', but that's a pretty artificial thing. In real texts, you don't always translate it with 'some'.)
But in «выпил сок» vs. «выпил сока», there is little difference because it's obvious you didn't drink up all the existing juice in the world.
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Many thanks for your extensive elaboration. I'm a total beginner and still struggling to get to grips with Russian grammar. My earlier post was really just talking to myself. Again, Большое спасибо!!
Usually if the male "item" is not alive you use it without using any kind of letters.
There are 3 genders in Russian language, Female (женский род), Male (мужской род) and middle (средний род). This app doesn't teach any of these I think you should look them up
Is it always necessary to specify the pronoun in Russian? It marks нет хочу сока as false
From what i read earlier on, not it isn't, but for this lesson it is important to start with the basics and then move on to the more advanced techniques. These are not my words, but just pasisng thwm on !
Clear as mud, as we say. In Italian, I would be optional. Oh, we are not in Italy.
This word order emphasises «хочу». You could use it in a context when the other speaker assumes you don't want juice, but you actually want it, so you emphasise «хочу» for contrast. It won't work well in other situations.
I think «Нет, я сок хочу» is a translation for "No, I do want juice", and not for "No, I want juice".
With uncountable nouns, you can use both accusative and genitive. Accusative shifts the meaning towards 'all the juice' or 'a portion of juice', while genitive shifts the meaning towards 'some juice'.
Right.
But the issue of leaving out я is more of a colloquial issue, no? Also, aren't the genitive and accusitive forms for сок both сока?
