- Forum >
- Topic: Russian >
- "Что ты читаешь?"
22 Comments
48
Is there a way in russian to make the distinction between the present tense and the progressive present ?
It would be distinguished through context, so the sentence "Я читаю книгу" means both "I read a book" and "I am reading a book"
By saying, Что ты там читаешь? you will make it clear that it is the progressive present. By saying Что ты читаешь в последнее время? will make it the perfect progressive (What have you been reading recently?). And if you want to emphasize the habit, you could say "Что ты обычно читаешь?" When it comes to describing certain ways of movement, we use different verbs of motion to draw the distinction between the presenent progressive and the present simple, e.g. идёшь - ходишь, едешь - ездишь, плывёшь - плаваешь, ползёшь - ползаешь, летишь - летаешь.
If you were to follow this up with another question such as 'a book or a newspaper?', would you have to decline those nouns. So 'книга или газета' or 'книгу или газету'? Thanks
- 1529
In this sentence, что is accusative case, because it is the direct object, isn't it? And ты is nominative, because it's the actual subject of the sentence?
To put the cases in this kind of order, the English would be "You are reading what?", where "you" is the subject and "what"is the direct object.
I had another sentence in this lesson that said что ты читаете? But sentence is что ты читаешь? Why the difference between the two sense both english sentences are "what are you reading"? Спасибо for explaining
The literal translation of «Что ты читаешь?» is “What art thou reading?” or “”What dost thou read?”. «Что вы читаете?» is either translated as “What are you reading?” or as “”What do you read?”, depending on the context. In modern English, though, only the last two sentences are used as equivalents for both Russian sentences. *Что ты читаете? is nonsense and is never used.
maybe a stupid question, but how can I see whether I have to add -esh or -ish?
For most Russian verbs whose infinitive ends in -ать the second person singular form is formed by replacing -ть with -ешь. The verbs гнать (гонишь), держать (держишь), дышать (дышишь), слышать (слышишь) and their derivatives are exceptions. There are also a few verbs that lose the -a- in personal forms. These include брать (берёшь), врать (врёшь), драть (дерёшь), жрать (жрёшь), ждать (ждёшь), звать (зовёшь), рвать (рвёшь), жать1 (жмёшь), жать2 (жнёшь), начать (начнёшь) and their derivatives and verbs with the same roots.
thank you, but if I don't know the infinitive how kan I know? Here the verbes are already conjugated. On other courses, the infinitive is added in the hints. Could this be possible here too?
Verb forms in -аишь simply don't exist in Russian. Infinitive forms are dictionary forms. As for the hints, the question should be addressed to the creators of this course, and I am not one of them.
Sorry, I have to correct myself - such verbs do exist, albeit they are few. They include таИть, дрАить and their derivatives.
As question words, что and как are normally translated as “what” and “how”, respectively. There are, however, a few important exceptions. The Russian for “What is X called?” is «Как называется X?». The question “What do you think he is doing?” is either translated as «Что он по-вашему/по-твоему делает?» or as «Как вы думаете / Как ты думаешь, что он делает?». The question “How do you plead?” to which two answers are possible: “Guilty” and “Not guilty” matches the open Russian question: «Подсудимый /Подсудимая, признаёте ли вы себя виновным/виновной?» (literally: “Defendant, do you plead guilty?”), which can be answered «Да» or «Нет».
