25 Comments
that infuriating/embarrassing moment when you understand the sentence but can't remember the right word in your native language...
Oh I even didn't know. I just assumed it was wrong because English is not my native language
Correct, I suppose, but I think it's unnatural. "Orbit around" is redundant and I don't think I've ever heard someone say that.
1871
It may be redundant, but I hear such statements more frequently with "around" than without. This may be another of our friendly regional variants.
Yes, I'm pretty sure that should be right. Me, I forgot the word orbit. And English is my native language, so I have no excuse...
Good! Although incorrect. The Earth has a rotational period of about 24 hours and an orbital period of about 365 1/4 days. Correct would be "The Moon revolves around the Earth."
For physical motions, "rotate" is "to turn around on or as if on an axis" and "revolve" is "to move in a circular or curving course or orbit (the Earth revolves around the Sun)."
The Moon orbits the Earth.
It's perfectly a good translation and i've written that correctly plenty of times, but today i used present continuous, so is it really wrong? "the moon is orbiting the earth?"
There are some contexts where that would be fine: 'OK, here's our plan: the moon is orbiting the earth, let's take our space ship and...' However, as a general statement of fact it sounds unnatural - do you remember a time when the moon wasn't orbiting the earth?
That time would be before Theia collided with the Earth: http://www.space.com/25332-moon-formation-history-lunar-evolution-infographic.html
Also see http://www.space.com/29047-how-moon-formed-earth-collision-theory.html
hm, there really are plenty of contexts. As an answer to "what is moon doing right now?"
Maybe a little off topic, but I heard the word возвращаться the other day, and that means "to return". Could anyone clarify how this is related to the word вращаться? They seem entirely different in meaning...
Redundant ?? What makes "orbit around" more redundant than "turn around"?
- 149
When someone says turn they don't always mean around. The direction of the turn is important and needs to be specified. But nobody i know says "orbits around." "Revolves around," is more common.
- 495
Fkat earth comment was posted twice. He is obviously curious what the heck flat earth has to do it. Msybe it radiates xtra XP...
