"Я знаю её отца."

Translation: I know her father.

[TheDreadfulGuy]

So ''Отца'' is the accusative form of the word ''Отец''?

[Theron126]

Correct. Because it's an animate noun, so accusative matches genitive rather than nominative.

[AnCatDubh]

Or, as they say in Scotland, ‘a kent hir faither’ :Þ

[Matt.Lacrosse]

I love the similarities between the languages. In Norwegian, it's, "Jeg kjenner hennes fader/far."

[BernhardMa1]

Or in German: "Ich kenne ihren Vater."

[Quixylados]

"Fader" is only used in a religious context in Norwegian nowadays.

[Henrikgren]

Or as you can say in Swedish, "Jag känner hans fader"

[Matt.Lacrosse]

Your Swedish sentence sentence means, "I know his father." "Her father" is "hennes fader".

[Barnyard_Billy]

Does it make sense to also say "Я знаю своё отца"? I'm a bit confused with the proper usage of свой

[wizwisdom]

First, "своё would be the "neuter person". And second, the Russian pronoun “Свой” means “one’s own”. It replaces the normal possessive pronoun when it refers to the subject. Example “Ivan loves his (own) dog (Иван любит свою собаку)”. If you were to use the normal possessive pronoun it would indicate the dog belongs to someone else.

more info here

[Barnyard_Billy]

Thanks! That gives me a better feel for the word and its use

[Lahav862043]

How can i know if a noun is animate or inanimate?

[Shady_arc]

It depends on its meaning. Living beings are animate, things are inanimate. For ghosts, puppets, robots and dead people check the usage examples in the dictionary or a corpus..

[madam_im_adam]

why does отец go to отца here? does знать then sometimes take the genetive case?

[Berniebud]

Masculine and neuter nouns don't have their own accusative case, they borrow from either the nominative or the genitive depending on if the noun is a living thing or not. If it is, accusative=genitive, if it's not, accusative=nominative.

[madam_im_adam]

ah yes of course! I was completely aware of the rule I just wasn't conciously aware that was what this was. большое спасибо :)

[2E3S]

It takes accusative (I guess it's a regular rule for modifying verb + direct object of the action with no preposition).

[pip644113]

ее....There is no ё on my keyboard

[bonapard]

Принцесс, драконом заточённых,
Возможность есть ещё спасти,
А вот заточенных драконом...
Прости.

[Memoryy721]

Many of those words have not been used on Duolingo yet ((

[E-chan.]

It's just a little joke indicating that in some cases the dots above 'ё' do matter. "Princesses who were confined by a dragon can be saved (there is a possibility to save them), but those who were sharpened by a dragon... Sorry".

ЗаточЁнных comes from the word заточать = to confine, imprison (this word hardly ever used nowadays)

ЗатОченных comes from the word затачивать = to sharpen (like, to sharpen a pencil)

[Ann55075]

ЗатОченных mean eaten. Заточить = съесть, сожрать. Just slang.

[bonapard]

И не будут)) They never will.

[Memoryy721]

это печально((

[mitchgilbe]

It's left of the number one at the top usually.

[SergejKos]

Find ё over~ (on PC). Or long press e on android.

[JuanPabloV612863]

Just keep pressed "e" letter

[duosam1]

Luke, I AM your father