19 Comments
I would have translated this sentence with "have you already seen ..." instead of "did you ..."
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"Have you already seen..." is British English, but I believe this use of "Did" is standard American English.
I have deduced why the given translation sounds odd to my British ears: 'have you seen' would be used for something which is still there, whilst 'did you see' for something transient, thus 'have you seen the new hospital?' [it is still there] and 'did you see the doctor in the green suit going in?'
To use perfective you have to complete a goal of seeing a new hospital, which is a bit strange, by the way. Though, you may be a villager visiting a city specifically to look at a new modern hospital. Your wife is calling and ask you "ты уже увидел новую больницу?".
Using imperfective "видел" you ask if a person has seen a new hospital, without implying that he had a goal to do so. He may has seen it once or many times, you do not imply a specific complete action of seeing the hospital.
- 1896
Ohh ok, I get it. I was confused because it seemed like by saying "have you already seen it" it was implying only one time (the first time you have seen it).
The pair of verbs видел/увидел is a bit confusing. If we take, for example, the pair читал/прочитал (read), прочитал means that you finished reading a book. Compare two phrases:
Я увидел всё, что хотел. I wanted to see something, and I finished (or have finished) my goal to see it.
Я видел всё, что хотел. I was able to see anything the moment I wanted to see it. I don't know, maybe through a magic mirror in some fairy tale. :)
Sometimes, perfective and imperfective can be used interchangeably. "Я увидел/видел достаточно" may both mean that you have seen enough to come up with some decision.
Why the words for "hotel" and "hospital" are not similar to "hotel" and "hospital", as it happens with most of European languages, as far as I've seen? It's surprising considering Russian seems to have so many "borrrowed" words (матч, футбол, баскетбол, кёрлинг, покер, блэкджек, теннис, журнал, магазин, газета, касино, билет, бутерброд, газ...)
We also have words "отель" and "госпиталь" but we use these words a little less often, especially the second one.
- гости́ница is from гость (a guest)
- больни́ца is from боль (pain)
I've always been curious about the word гость because it's similar to "guest". Are they related or it's purely a coincidence?
They came from the same Proto-Indo-European root, I suppose.
Words оте́ль and го́спиталь also exist in Russian. Оте́ль means pretty much the same thing as гости́ница, but it's probably less commonly used. Го́спиталь usually means a military hospital, so you can't call any hospital this way.
- 110
How would "do you already see the new hospital?" be different in Russian?
And before someone says "that's not correct English", I'll provide a scenario: someone is giving directions to a location just beyond the hospital over the phone.
That would be «Ты уже́ ви́дишь но́вую больни́цу?»
- 110
Ahhhh thank you. I still haven't got my head around those verb declensions and tenses yet, embarrassingly.
