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- Topic: Russian >
- "She does not eat ice cream."
"She does not eat ice cream."
Translation:Она не ест мороженое.
14 Comments
Hey, I've checked this sentence using the famouse technique "which has more results in google" and clearly the more common version is "она не ест мороженого". Also I've checked the declension and singular genetive of "мороженое" IS "мороженого" so everything seems OK. As I missing something here, or really one should use accusative here for some reason despite that negation always goes with genetive?
I was asking my Russian teacher about it: she said, that negation with "не" usually goes with accusative / the case the verb usually requires, but that genitive is also used in spoken language and has a flavour of "absolutely not / never", meaning according to her "она не ест мороженого" would imply that it's not just now but in general, that she categorically opposes ice cream
кушать should also be accepted она не кушает мороженое is perfectly acceptable
There were some debates here on Duo about the word "кушать", some native speakers do think it is acceptable (there was at least one who even insisted on this word being preferable), but most agree that it sounds very jarring in normal speech. Maybe it's regional. Personally, I only use "кушать" if I talk to my 4 years old niece.
Isn't она не ест мороженого also alright? I'm pretty sure you can say it like that.
When the object is animate, yes, you must use the Genitive endings. But when the object is inanimate (and masculine or neuter), then you must use the Nominative endings.
"Ice Cream" is certainly not animate.
It's more about the sentence being a negation, which sometimes requires the genitive case and sometimes not. With "не" I have the feeling sometimes it's accusative and sometimes genitive which is driving me mad. (e.g: why is "Я не вижу выхода" right? )
800
I'd says that it's always Genitive with negation, but Genitive looks identical to Accusative in terms of animate objects, while identical to Nominative while we are speaking about inanimate ones.
What app do I need to download in order to understand the language that is used in these comments to explain grammar?
