- Forum >
- Topic: Russian >
- "Кажется, он говорит по-русск…
31 Comments
often кажется is with мне: мне кажется = it seems to me (which makes throwing a 'like' in there sound less natural)
I think "seems like" would be "кажется как" in literal, but I am not sure...
That makes sense, I didn't realize there was a more literal way to say it. Спасибо
No, it wouldn't. E.g "Кажется, что он богатый." / "Мне кажется, что она заболела" / "Ему кажется, что он герой." etc.
I would say "He seems to speak Russian" which is less literal but feels more natural, even though Duolingo doesn't like it.
I'm not Russian but it's obvious that Russian sentence:
"Кажется, он говорит по-русски." doesn't mean 'He (subject) seems (verb) to speak (infinitive) Russian (direct object of infinitive)'.
There are two verbs that indicate TWO subjects: кажется and говорит.
In Polish:
1) It seems he speaks Russian. 'Wygląda na to, że on mówi po rosyjsku' - I am a subject (or there is some "people"'s subject) and the second part is from my/widely recognized perspective. Wygląda na to or zdaje się mean "It seams" - in English you need to use the dummy subject while in Polish and in Russian we only use the verb for the third person singular (like it :) ) and we use the się/-ся pronoun to indicate impact on the surroundings.
2) He seems to speak Russian. 'On wydaje się mówić po rosyjsku.' He is a subject. It's about his impact on other people. Remember verbs are also about "feelings" not only actions.
They mean the same thing like the passive and active voice. But you use them for different emphasis, like e.g.:
-I wrote a book. (active)
-A book was written by me. (passive)
The same thing but emphasis is different and personally I think that first sentence " feels more natural" :) But it doesn't mean that you can't use second type of grammatical construction, right?
We could use a native speaker's comment for a more accurate description of reality from the Russian point of view. Very often our grammars present the same problems using different tools. I'm courious how they say: "He seems to speak Russian".
because it's an adverb, and it's an adverb of manner. How?In what way?In what manner?By what method(как?каким образом?каким способом)
Any idea why кажется is pronounced as "kazhetso" and not "kazhetsya"? Is it just a bad recording or something else?
i've heard duo mess up several similar endings. pretty sure it's "kazhetsya"
Google Translate can be used as an alternative robot voice... its pronunciation is "kazhetsa."
I read somewhere that the -ся ending used to be pronounced w/ the little glide (syah) but nowadays people mostly pronounce it without it (as "sah").
Is there a modern translation for кажется? "It seems" in english is a bit classical. Could you replace it with "I suppose?"
i agree, and though for duo (as well as most textbooks etc i've seen) it'll be almost invariably translated as "it seems," in terms of meaning, to my mind they're the same, and i read them interchangeably
The literal think-as-russian-thinks translation would be "it shows itself" or "it appears".
1422
'it seems to me he can speak Russian' - this was disallowed. I think it sounds more natural than the 'correct' answer.
Capitalize я and yes, the sentence is correctly written...at least, it seems to me.
- 31
When you just realize that boy you and your BFF have been bitching about for the last 10 minutes understands you pretty well...
It acts as a reflexive verb. Мне кажется means "It seems to me." Ему кажется means "It seems to him," and so on and so forth. Кажется is a shortened form of Это кажется. What about "They seem...?" That would be Они кажутся.
