24 Comments
I don't understand - 'страна' is feminine, so why is it not 'в какая стране ты живёшь'?
With в you need to use prepositional case. Какой стране is prepositional of Какая страна.
Does the declension of как kinda follow the declension of это; like would masculine preposition for как be каком?
No, как does not decline. The word here is какой, which declines like a normal adjective. Masculine prepositional is indeed каком.
This site is worth recommending again and again (and I do :-) ) You plug in a word and it will show you all the forms. http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/morphque.cgi?flags=endnnnnp
Hello Theron : i am doing the tree again and I see your answer. unfortunately this site does not open. I will copy it and try to open it directly. You are a master in Russian grammar.
Thanks :-)
These days I actually prefer this site: http://www.morfologija.ru/
The only drawback compared to the other site is that it doesn't show the stress.
Я живу в Нидерландах (Netherlands), please correct me if it I made a mistake
so I guess that the Netherlands are plural and you put: -ax for the plural locative??
May который be used in this context, if so how will we construct the question with it? And if not, why not?
Который is usually used to refer a single object, which you mentioned just right before: http://www.lingvo-online.ru/ru/Examples/en-ru/%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%B9
or to refer one of several objects mentioned before: http://www.lingvo-online.ru/ru/Examples/en-ru/%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BD%20%D0%B8%D0%B7%20%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8B%D1%85
It is used also in collocations, such as который час and который год.
You can use который из in questions to select one object from a few of them: "Который из них (этих двух)?", but you can say "Какой из них?" or "Кто из них?" (о людях) as well.
You should not use который in questions about countries, because there are too many of them.
Do Russian prepositions always come before question words like this?
Good question. Technically yes, but "state" is almost never used with this meaning in English, usually only in very formal contexts. Generally we'd say "country". You can argue that maybe "state" should be accepted, but all the Americans would think that means New York or Texas, which is not a correct interpretation of страна. I think it's defensible to only accept the common word "country" but if you think "state" should be accepted you can report it.
How would you say: "In what kind of country do you live?" I thought that was the essence of the word какой...
