"Мне надо нарезать картошку для супа."
Translation:I need to slice potatoes for the soup.
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If a chef asks for a slice and you give him a dice he is going to be angry
I'm having trouble figuring this out: Why is "potatoes" картошку rather than картошки?
This is complicated, because in Russian, some foods are always regarded as singular (mass nouns) and others are treated as usual nouns and decline as either singular or plural. We unfortunately just have to memorize which is which. In the case of картошка, it always declines like a singular noun, whether you are talking about one or more than one potato. Consequently, I believe "potato" should be accepted as an answer as well as potatoes, since we do not know from the question whether the the cook will cut one potato or more than one.
Below is an elaboration with examples of food nouns used differently from a website. The final example below is like картошка:
In Russian, we use some fruit and vegetable names as mass nouns and don't form plural for them:
Салат с луком / капустой / клубникой while the others do form plural:
Салат с огурцами / кабачками / артишоками / помидорами Also, if you ask someone:
Что у тебя в сумке? then the answer:
У меня в сумке огурец / кабачок / баклажан / артишок would unequivocally mean there's exactly one vegetable in the bag, while this answer:
У меня в сумке лук / капуста / клубника may mean any quantity.
Unindentified quantity of potatoes is always singular in Russian, however if there is a statement of how many potatoes - use plular. Я режу картошку (one or many - treat as singular). Я режу три картошки ( as plural). As native speaker i never realizes how weird it is.
It turns this is explained in the lesson notes: картошка is a mass noun, so even though it's feminine singular and the accusative is thus картошку, it still means "potatoes" in English. (I think.) https://www.duolingo.com/skill/ru/Food
You are right. Most of "food nouns" in russian are mass nouns, like картошка/ картофель ("картофелина" is a singular noun), морковка ("carrot". this one also a normal noun, but used as a mass one), лук (onion) ("луковица" is a singular noun, if you talk about underground part of the onion. "The green" part is a mass noun)
With надо, the person involved is always dative. Think of it like 'it is necessary to me to...'.
soup in Russian is суп. In Russian we have 6 grammatical cases, and in this sentence we use the genitive case at the end because of the word для(for). So "for soup" will be "для супа".
"Need to" is more colloquial. "Must" is preferable, but was considered incorrect
НарЕзать is the correct pronunciation, and not нарезАть! This has been heard in many other sentences.
Because it should be perfective in this context, right (since the point is the end result of sliced potatoes ready for use in the soup)? I believe нарЕзать is perfective, and нарезАть is imperfective.
I'm having trouble with "надо". According to a few websites, it's a preposition in the instrumental case that means "above" or "over". Can someone explain what this words means and how to tell its case? Thank you :)
Yes, it's a form of a preposition "над". But there should be no problems, since they take different cases: the preposition "Над/надо" takes instrumental, the verb "надо" takes dative.
Potatoes wouldn't be "картошки"? The accusative plural for inanimate feminine nouns is the same as the nominative plural.
The correction says надо" is "should" but the Ожегов dictionary says it is the same as "нужно" so that "we must,we need to"would be more exact
As a russian I do not feel differencies. "Мне нужно" and "Мне надо" are the same.
I'm fairly new to Russian, so I could be wrong, but I think "Мне" is the first person singular pronoun in the dative case. So if it were "We," it would say "Нам надо..."
In English, 'I need to slice potato for the soup' would make sense. But I was marked incorrect... 20/09/20
I left out "the" before soup and it marked me wrong. "The" is a needless word. There's no reference to any particular soup, like это.
Find the female audio too fast making distinguishing words and phrases difficult
sorry, but you did not propose the word "soup" ... and you did not accept my typing !!
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Why do I have to quit when i still have 3 hearts left. It has taken me half an hour to do these exercises. Very annoyed
