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- "Дай мне какой-нибудь еды."
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I know the какой-нибудь is the point of the exercise, but doesn't the fact that the food is in the genitive case already indicate 'some' (an unspecified quantity - partitive genitive)?
For example:
купи мне сахара - buy me some sugar Хочешь воды? - do you want some water?
I understand the partitive isn't as popular as it was, but it's still used in everyday Russian. Worth a mention in the notes somewhere?
I think (I repeat: think, as I am not sure) какой-нибудь is used to emphasize the fact that you'll take anything, or some of anything because of еда being in the partitive genitive.
That seems to be the sense of the Russian, but the "official" English answer does not really convey it well.
1664
Partitive means "part of a greater whole" - it's indeterminate, but it means an amount with limits, usually set by custom and usage between the speaker and the person being spoken to - missing context here. You ask your spouse or roommate, "Get some bread on your way home", the person will understand that that probably means "get the usual amount of bread", such as a loaf. The kind of bread might also be understood. If my wife asked me to bring some bread home, I definitely would not buy pumpernickel, or rye, or even whole wheat. I'd get some sort of white bread. Or I'd ask, "What kind of bread do you want?"
Мнение носителя английского:
"Give me some food." Дай мне еды (количество (и вид) еды не важно)
"Give me any food." Дай мне какой-то еды (вид еды не важен)
Надеюсь, что Вам поможет.
І am confused now. In an earlier exercise about buying some bread the "correct" answer displayed had bread in the accusative, "какой-нибудь хлеб" which I thought should have been the genitive "хлеба." Which is correct?
In my view the use of the partative genitive already means 'some'. One other way of saying that without the genitive would be 'какой-нибудь хлеб', however as has already been shown, 'какого-нибудь хлеба' could also be considered correct, particularly for emphasis, like 'give me some bread, any bread!' The bottom line is that both accusative and genitive versions are both fine and would be understood. That's the important thing. :)
I think it's more like хлеба in the partitive is talking about the amount, and какого-то is about the kind of bread it is
- 1664
Given that какая-нибудь ложка means, in Duo-speak, "some kind of spoon", I suppose that "some kind of food" would be a valid translation here - Verbose (overly wordy), but valid.
No, that would be like saying ‘something/anything of food’, but you can say ‘что-нибудь есть’ to mean ‘something/anything to eat’. Какой-нибудь here means ‘some/any kind of food.’
what is the difference between Дай мне немного еды / Дай мне какой-нибудь еды
My understanding is that the first says ‘give me a little food’ while the second says ‘give me some of any type of food’.
