"Give me a bicycle."

Translation: Дайте мне велосипед.

[swallama]

I just realized through this whole exercise ive been leaving out the word "мне", but have been getting it right. Is that necessary? Is it more formal to include it? How do the rules of that work?

[Rewm]

if there's no other pronoun, it's implied that you mean me/мне. A native speaker should tell if there's any difference in style. I'd say it's pretty much the same

[yadwinder_gadari]

The "give" is already in formal form.

[ClarkStephen]

Would someone please explain the difference between "Дайте мне велосипед" and "дай мне велосипед". Both are accepted but is one more polite? more common?

Thanks in advance.

[deactivated user]

Дайте — formal (polite)/plural
Дай — informal

[Catparrot]

What's the difference between мне and меня?
Why is меня incorrect?

[Theron126]

Мне - dative case, used for an indirect object. Меня - accusative case, used for a direct object. Here, велосипед is the direct object and мне the indirect object - Give the bicycle to me.

[zKTH5]

I'm confused as to why it isn't Дайте мне велосипеду. Give me a duck is "Дайте мне утку" and Give me your plate please is "Дайте мне вашу тарелку, пожалуйста".

I thought maybe because ducks are animate and bikes are not. The only other difference between the ducks and plates sentence I see is "your, вашу". Would "give me your bike" be "дайте мне вашу велосипеду"...? Or do bikes just never change endings for some reason?

[Theron126]

The object being given is in accusative case. The difference is that утка and тарелка are feminine nouns ending in -а, and thus the ending changes to -у in accusative case. Велосипед is masculine and inanimate so the ending doesn't change in accusative.

[janezg]

Велосипед is inanimate (=it is not alive) masculine noun. So accusative =nominative. Accusative takes pronoun "ваш" which follows same rule as the following noun. This rule is same for all inanimate masculine examples. If it was animate then accusative=genitive (e.g. "Дайте мне вашего кота").
Meanwhile, утка and тарелка are feminine nouns and it doesnt matter if they are animate or not, they will both always take ending "у" in accusative.

[JosdeJessR2]

Don't we have to add a "please" at the end? Дайте мне велосипед, пожалуйста?

[Catparrot]

Not for our purposes, apparently.
The sentences they are teaching us need to be grammatically correct, but not necessarily "polite requests".
The note (before the lesson) says that the Russian "I want some" verbs are softer than in English, but that "please" is still necessary for "polite requests":

I WANT SOME

Russian has two main verb form patterns, which we are going to introduce soon. Unfortunately, the verb «хоте́ть»(to want) is irregular and mixes both. On a brighter note, it is a very common verb, so you'll memorize it eventually.

The other notable thing is that it does not have a strong connotation of 'need', unlike the English verb '"want". Similarly, the Russian verb for "give"(да́ть) is totally OK for polite requests. Just use it with «пожа́луйста».

[FHqXhJ]

Great to find this info here, as the notes before the lesson are not accessible from the mobile app.

[neshko20-21]

Why Мне дайте велосипед , is not correct ?

[Halezdra]

I have the same question. Need help from a native speaker.

[E-chan.]

It sounds like 'Me give a bicycle'. People would understand you but it's not natural way of saying it.

[saxmund]

How polite is this phrase? In English "give me a bicycle" would normally be considered curt to the point of rudeness (although in some contexts it would be OK)

[janezg]

Russians are quite "discrete" people compared to British and this would be totally normal to say to e.g. bike renter. You actually already show some form of politeness by addressing them in formal way ("дайте" instead of "дай"). But to make it even nicer you could, of course, add "пожалуйста".

[saxmund]

Спасибо. Of course in English we don't have the polite form of imperatives to use. It's a bit like хочить - "I want" is considered too direct in English so I was always told that я хочу means "I would like". It doesn't, but that's the phrase you would probably use in English when asking for something

[janezg]

You probably mean "хотеть" = to want/would like ;)
I surely agree but it depends on a context. If there was let's say a child asking her mother in the shop "я хочу шоколад!" it would mean the same (annoying) as in English "I want chocolate!"

[joshfarley26]

Are велосиред and велик synonymous?

[E-chan.]

Велосипед is a standard word, велик is a colloquial shortened version of велосипед. It's often used in everyday speech just because the standard word is rather long. Just like "refrigerator" and "fridge".

[northernguy]

or bicycle and bike.

[romancbeck]

Am I correct in this following assumption?

"Дай" - the command "give", but to a person with whom the speaker has a close relationship

"Дайте" - the command "give", but to either: 1, a person with whom the speaker has a formal relationship with (like a boss or a teacher); or 2, a group of people