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- "I drink neither tea nor milk…
"I drink neither tea nor milk."
Translation:Я не пью ни чай, ни молоко.
29 Comments
75
I answered "Я не пью ни чая ни молока," thinking of the "нет + genitive" rule, but after a bit of reading on the subject it looks like the "ни ... ни" structure doesn't call for genitive at all. Yet the site gave me a correct answer! Is it because of the "some quantity" usage of genitive? And if so, wouldn't it be strange using it to express that you're not drinking milk and tea at all? If anyone can clear up my confusion, it would be much appreciated. :-)
687
It has a different meaning.
Я не пью чай. I am not drinking tea.
Я пью не чай. Literally "I am drinking not tea". What I am drinking is not tea.
Я пью не чай, а кофе. I am drinking coffee, not tea.
If I understand correctly не always comes before the verb. So in sentences like I don't eat ... , you would say Я не ем ... . However, when saying У меня есть ... you are literally saying "with me, there is ... " So есть being the verb you would say У меня не есть ... . Except in Russian you always skip words that are redundant, so У меня не есть ... becomes У меня нет ...
289
I just got an incorrect for doing that, although someone commented that its also correct.
136
I think they're looking for the не in front of пью because Russian uses double and triple negatives
Another ни... Ни... Response in this lesson (i have neither bread nor butter) does seem to rrquite the genitive case. Here i woukd expect to need it based on thr negation rule. I sed other responses saying that here it is because you dont drink it at all, rather than not having some... Is this the reason?
289
Dont and neither in your English sentence is a double negative and really sounds uneducated. . How about I dont drink tea ir milk would be typical. If you say I drink neither tea. You must say nor milk. Sorry. Can't say if или would work or not.
136
They are different conjugations of the same verb. Пью is used for first person singular present tense (I drink, I am drinking). Пьёт is the third person singular present tense (he/she/it drinks, he/she/it is drinking).
359
Because with 'не' you don't have to use genitive, only with 'нет' (you don't have 'нет' here, but just 'не'). You can read the first comment by Dotters to read a further explanation.