22 Comments
Is there any reason "This egg is for salad" was marked wrong for lacking an article? Does для imply that the egg is for a particular salad?
That was my answer too. I'd like to know if it's actually incorrect or just not accounted for in the solution.
Agreed. "the salad", "a salad" and just "salad" (with no article) should all be accepted. "I'm saving this egg to put in a salad I haven't made yet" and "here, i made a salad, and this is the egg i saved to put in it when it was ready"
Is there a difference in the usage of за and для? Would I still be correct if I wrote за instead of для in this sentence?
It will not be correct. English "for" has multiple uses, and those of за and для rarely intersect.
- для is used as "for the benefit of", "with the purpose of"
- за is "for" as the opposite of "against"
- за is "for" in "I bought it for $20". It means getting or doing something in exchange for something
- за is used to express how long it takes to perform some action. English "for" is not used in this meaning.
- "for" is used to express how much time you spent doing something (which does not mean you are finished, and are no longer going to do that). Russian does not use any prepositions for that, and just uses Accusative.
- за also has the literal meaning of "behind". It is used with Instrumental (for position) and with Accusative (for direction).
Hi Shady_arc. Thanks for your many very clear explanations. I have a small quibble here. We can say eg: Shake for 3 minutes- so this would cover a meaning of за.
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You are awsome, this has bugged me for soooo long and in one answer, it is now clear ))) (that means thanks a lot )))))))) .........)
Why is салата in Genitive form here? Is it due to 'ownership' of the egg? Or is it Partitive: 'some salad'? To me it seems more likely to mean 'a salad' or 'the salad'
Prepositions come with case requirements of their own. Для is one of many prepositions that only ever use the Genitive.
A few prepositions have a larger list of meanings, and some groups of these meanings require different cases.
- For example, c paired with the Genitive generally means "down from, off" whereas used with the Instrumental it means "(together) with".
Could this also mean "This is an egg for the salad", using the other meaning of "Это"?
That would be "Это — яйцо для салата". The em-dash replaces the verb "to be", which would be placed just like in English in both cases if it wasn't omited. Granted the dash is mostly optional, so without it the sentence could've had both meanings. But since it's here, it's placement is important. In fact its main purpose in such cases is specifically to clear up potential confusions like this one..
I used "that" instead of "this", it was marked as wrong. Is there a reason for that?
Could also be plural яйца ("these are the eggs for the salad") , there is absolutely no difference in pronunciation. But it is marked wrong.
There is in fact a difference. "Яйцо" is stressed on the "o" thus it's pronounced as "о" and doesn't get reduced. "Яйца" is stressed on "я".
