"The man has a sister."
Translation:У мужчины есть сестра.
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"Человека" should definitely be allowed as a translation for "man" here in addition to "мужчины"--I've seen it done all throughout the course. I understand that this course is still in beta, but the inconsistencies in it are so irritating. -_-
Depends on the context. If everyone knows that the man has a sibling but doesn't know it's a sister or a brother, then you can use «У мужчины сестра» to say the sibling is actually a sister.
«Есть» is used when existence is important. However, if everyone knows he does have a sibling, existence is not important and the important part is «сестра» (i.e. you're not making a statement about the man having someone, you're making a statement about who is the sibling the man has). But if it wasn't previously known if the man has any sibling, then «есть» is required because you're making a statement about existence of a sister.
you are SOOOOOOOOOOO right. but what i see here as reply is also quite interesting! absolutely the inconsistencies with duolingo persist 'til today. i quit them so long ago -- years ago -- because i was giving totally proper answers they'd mark wrong. so much for AI robotics. i would have to keep a cheat sheet for what was accepted with their crazy standards. YEARS after i quit them, they started writing me slews of notes wherein my answers in multiple language courses were now accepted as correct. i only came back because the method -- despite its incredibly aggravating inconsistencies -- is the best yet for where i am with Russian.
If you wrote «У мужчины есть сестры», it wound be understood to mean «У мужчи́ны есть сёстры» 'The man has sisters' because it's allowed to drop the dots over «ё». However, this is not what the English sentence says.
«У мужчи́ны есть сестры́» (with plain «е», not «ё») is ungrammatical: «сестры́» is a genitive case, and this sentence requires nominative, because 'sister' is the grammatical subject (literally it's something like 'at man, [there] is sister).
A sentence can't be genitive, only a noun can. Different nouns within a sentence can be in different cases depending on their grammatical function.
Yes
singular plural
nominative мужчи́на мужчи́ны
genitive мужчи́ны мужчи́н
dative мужчи́не мужчи́нам
accusative мужчи́ну мужчи́н
instrumental мужчи́ной мужчи́нами
prepositional мужчи́не мужчи́нах
The preposition у only used with genitive.
why is man being conjugated in feminine though? I thought man was always masculine despite ending on a.
It is following a common feminine declension because it ends in an «а», like many feminine words.
No more difficult than having to learn 43 forms for a verb in Portuguese. How about the verb form "impossibilitássemos"?LOL!
If "Мужчина" is man (singular) and "Мужчины" is men(plural) . Why if the sentence says " the man..." the word is "Мужчины" ???
Here "у мужчины" is the genitive case of a singular "мужчина". It's not plural.
'Man' is a masculine noun, and I thought masc. nouns could only possibly end in -a/-я in the Genitive. Why does this one end in 'ы'?
That is incorrect - there are exceptions. Дядя, дедушка, и мужчина are a few.
Best thing is to remember "у (genitive) есть (nominativ)" in the case of having something, or "у (genitive) нет (genitive)" when not having something. At least that's the way I've learned it in university.
I am so lost on genitive. Why is сёстра not сёстры? I am getting every single one of these wrong even after reading all the "rules" from this site and others. This is just not sticking for me, any other tips before I give up while still in beginner phase? It seems like sometimes the noun/pronoun as the last word gets a genitive ending and sometimes not.
«Сестра» does not need to be declined in this sentence; it will remain in its Nominative singular form. Think of this sentence as meaning “There is a sister with/by/of the man.” That’s pretty much what it translates to literally. So, the only word that will need to be declined to Genitive case is «мужчина» (which is spelled «мужчины») because of the preposition «у». Genitive case normally applies to words that are the origin or possessors/owners of other words.
For instance:
“The cat has a mouse.” = «У кошки есть мышь.»
“Cat,” in its Nominative singular form, is «кошка», and Genitive singular is «кошки». The Nominative singular form for “mouse” is «мышь». Notice the word for mouse did not change, but “cat” did, because it is the possessor of the object.
Another example:
“The boy threw the dog’s ball.” = «Мальчик бросил мяч собаки.»
«Мальчик» is in its Nominative singular form because it is the subject, and «мяч» is in accusative singular because it is the direct object of the verb “to throw,” but because “ball” is an inanimate masculine noun, it does not have a different form for this case. And, finally, «собака» (Nominative singular for “dog”) is declined to Genitive case «собаки» because it is the owner of the ball.
Thanks, I can follow this a little better. It just doesn’t seem to be consistent or I’m just getting overly frustrated and blind but I had two exact phrases end with “juice” where one was “сок” and the other was “сока”. Does it matter on the gender for this possession. One was “the boy had juice” the other “the girl has juice” I keep getting these wrong because it seems object being possessed changes to genitive sometimes. I know after “нет” it will. Thanks again for the reply.
«Нет» also requires Genitive.
“The boy has no juice.” = «У мальчика нет сока.»
My point is not specifically about this phrase, but about these "Mark the correct one" exercises in general. I would find it really useful to hear the phrases spoken. I'm still struggling to attune my ears to the sound of Russian, and it would be a great help to hear the words as well as seeing the spelling.
Could someone explain to me why "U muzhchiny est' sestra" is apparently wrong? it says that I wrote the "est' " wrong, I have no idea whats happening. is this grammatical or is it a mistake?
No, it's not apparently wrong. In fact, it's exactly the suggested translation (У мужчины есть сестра). Looks like a bug with the input in Roman alphabet. :/
"у человека есть сестра " ,могу ли сказать так , или просто человек - это общая форма , то есть , человек на русском может быть и женщина?
No. The sister is nominative because it's a grammatical subject of the sentence.
In English, it's object: "The man has a sister", 'the man' does an action of 'having' directed at the sister. So, sister is grammatically an object, she doesn't do the action but an action is directed at her.
However, Russian treats things differently. In Russian, sister is the subject, and sister exists near the man: "By [the] man, there-is [a] sister". (Of course, we don't translate it this way, this is just to show the grammar.) So, here's the sister that does the action of 'being', and she is being by/near/with the man. Sister is grammatically the subject, she is the one who 'is'.
Спасибо, Шэрая Жаба. It was very hard to understand until you explain it. I was thinking everyone was going crazy about 'subjects' and 'objects'. You're my heroe.
What would happen to this sentence if there was a possessive pronoun? I mean, how would you say "your man has a sister"?
Could you reasonably state "Сестра мужчины" like it's "The man's sister" or does that not compute?
Not in this particular question of course just generally.
In Nominative case, yes, but since we are talking about possession and using the preposition «у», it requires Genitive case, which would be singular «мужчины», plural «мужчин».
I have difficulty getting an accepted spelling in the latin lettering!! I get "wrong" every time... mushchini ... how else should it be written?
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Why is this transliteration not accepted: u muzhchiny est’ sestra. This is taken from internationally recognized transliteration. This continues to be an issue throughout this course. Thank you
Question fails to correctly parse the transliteration of 'есть' (neither est nor est' work, while both should be marked correct!)
Something weird going on... The instructions said "Write this in Russian" and gave this sentence: "The You has a sister." My answer was "у женщины есть сестра " but the program informed me that was incorrect and provided the "Correct solution:" "У мужчины есть сестра."
I'm at a complete loss. Why the strange English sentence? How does "you" ¿or "the"? get translated as мужчины ?
I think the program needs to study Duolingo more!
У мужчин есть сестры.
You would have to use the Genitive Plural of 'мужчина' which is 'мужчин.'
EDIT: P.S. I believe the English verb you are looking for is 'to translate.'
According to the dictionary, 'to traduce' means to, "to speak maliciously and falsely of; slander; defame."
It's "мужчины", not "мужчиньи". It's a regular plural form for a noun ending with "-а".
