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- "I am throwing apples into th…
"I am throwing apples into the box."
Translation:Я бросаю яблоки в коробку.
18 Comments
I understand that "коробка" is the nominative case, "в коробку" is in acusative and "в коробке" is the prepositional case.
Then, why "в коробку" and not "в коробке"? Shouldn't be: "I throw something (acusative) into somewhere (prepositional)?
901
Ah, Russian grammatical cases - the reason it's good to be a native speaker! :)
I put/am putting something in the box = Я кладу что-то в коробку.
If you were a native speaker, you would think like this: "I'm putting something (into whom? / into what?)..." = "Я кладу что-то (в кого? / во что?)..." Since кого?/что? are the questions we use with the accusative case, the noun will be changed accordingly -- "в коробку".
Something is (lying) in the box = Что-то лежит в коробке.
If you were a native speaker, you would think like this: "Something is (in whom? / in what?)..." = "Что-то лежит в (в ком? / в чём?)..." Since о ком?/о чём? [or в ком?/в чём?] are the questions we use with the prepositional case, the noun will be changed accordingly -- "в коробке".
I am sorry if this explanation is confusing: I don't know how to teach grammatical cases to aspiring Russian language learners. If you search for "падежи и предлоги в русском языке" (cases and prepositions in Russian), you'll come across some useful materials. E.g., here is a table of questions, endings, and prepositions for conjugating Russian nouns (I had a similar table back in my elementary school):
http://cdn01.ru/files/users/images/5e/70/5e7099a7247fe516aa44bd1635abdcaa.png
The image came from the following forum: http://www.bolshoyvopros.ru/questions/817179-tablica-padezhej-russkogo-jazyka-chto-takoe-padezh-v-russkom-jazyke.html
YouTube also has a lot of good material where educators attempt to explain this difficult part of Russian language in different ways. Give it a try and see if one of the explanations works for you better than others.
Could we say more simply that the accusative is used here because throwing something implies a motion ?
Yes, I think that's it. в + prepositional is something inside something else. в + accusative is something moving towards/into something else. So in this case в коробке would mean that you are inside the box throwing something, while в коробку means you are outside the box throwing something towards/into the box. At least that's my understanding :)
Why "кидаю" is marked wrong? I thought both "кидаю" and "бросаю" meant throw
Why в каробку and not в каробке? I didn't understand the explanation above.
- 556
Essentially, whenever "в" is used to mean "into", it requires the accusative. Whereas if it is used to mean "in", it requires the prepositional (or locative).
That's the simple answer ;)
- 556
Ah, now this is the kind of sentence I'm looking for in the "Sport" section! Apple-throwing happens to be one of my favourite sports.
