- Forum >
- Topic: Russian >
- "Ребёнок видит маму и папу."
60 Comments
папа is masculine and animate. Therefore it is supposed to follow the Genetive case. Why is it acting like a feminine then (папа -> папу)? Wait a second... another exception?!
Just like in Latin, there are declensions in Russian which are declined similarly. Папа is the first declension as well as мама. No matter how masculine and animate he is.
Another way of putting it (for those who don't know Latin) - nouns that are end in -а but refer to masculine people (папа, дедушка, etc) have the same forms as any feminine noun ending in -a as far as the word itself goes, but the rest of the sentence treats them as masculine.
старый дедушка - an old grandfather - not старая дедушка
папа купил хлеб - Dad bought bread - not папа купила хлеб
It should not be accepted. "is seeing" is a special expression which often means "is dating". This particular verb should be used here as "sees".
1192
The present continuous form of see in English is .... is seeing ... English users have placed the emphasis on the continuing part in this particular verb. There is an element of interested intention involved in the ongoing process of seeing.
I am seeing a doctor means I am deliberately placing myself in the position of seeing the doctor for a continuing period for the express purpose of seeing him or her, maybe repeatedly.
I see the doctor means simply that the doctor has entered my field of vision.
Since seeing in the present continuous form is very, very commonly used to describe a romantic relationship with someone (you are deliberately, repeatedly placing yourself in the position of being able to see and interact with a particular individual) it is very seldom used in other circumstances without additional context to make it clear there is no romance involved.
I am seeing a doctor.....because of the ongoing pain
I am seeing a lawyer ......because I was arrested last night
I am seeing Nicole.......(the assumption without any context, is that it is romantic)
I am seeing a nurse......(again, without context provided, the assumption would be romance)
I am seeing my mother.....would not need context to eliminate romance but would seem a strange way to talk about it without additional context.
The present continuous is not used with stative verbs. "is seeing" is a set expression which includes more than just "seeing", but also meeting someone to see that person, whether romantically or for appointments. http://esl.about.com/od/grammarstructures/a/prescont.htm http://esl.about.com/od/grammarstructures/a/g_stative.htm
- 1192
Many verbs are included in both the stative and action categories. See is one of them.
Seeing someone is in the present, is continuous and is explicitly active.
Seeing the sun rise is stative.
- 1192
We are learning both since both languages are involved in translation. No matter how advanced our knowledge of one of the languages, we are learning something about it if we advance far enough in our target language.
That may not be true for you. If so, please ignore any posts relating to the differences between Russian and English.
- 348
apparently 'papa' in the only permitted translation for 'папа.' They don't accept 'pop' or 'dad.' Also 'вирит' can only be translated as 'sees,' not 'is seeing.'
Good, I'm glad their breakup didn't effect the kids relationship with the parents
Does Russian not capitalize proper nouns like in English?
For example, the correct translation of this sentence would be "The child sees Mom and Dad." because "Mom" and "Dad" here are proper nouns (this is currently incorrect in the English translation).
Capitalization of proper nouns is more of a German grammatical-rule. English mainly capitalizes names/countries/languages (e.g.: John, Jane, Jill, Jack, etc.; Canada, America, Britain, United Kingdom, Great Britain, etc.; French, Russian, Japanese, German, Spanish, Italian, Greek, English, Mandarin, Korean, etc.; but non-specific nouns are generally not capitalized unless starting the sentence -- e.g.: cat, dog, tree, country, landmark, name, language, place, etc.; but specific-named nouns become capitalized -- e.g.: the White House, the Pentagon, the World Trade Center, the 9/11 Tear Drop Memorial, etc).
I think you're right that the translation is technically not correct grammar, but many native English speakers do not capitalize "mom" and "dad" even when they refer to a specific person.
It's actually new to me that Mom and Dad should be capitalized. However, this definitely isn't used in Russian. Well, it definitely isn't correct in Czech and I'm pretty sure it's not correct in Russian either.
When a masculine noun ends in а or я (дедушка / дядя), it forms the Accusative like feminine nouns.
дедушка (Nom. singular) ⇒ Я вижу дедушку (Acc. singular)
- 20
Is article in english answer nescesary? I am not english native speaker and have problem with it.
"The child sees mom and dad" works in English as long as the mom and dad referred to are either a) the speaker's mom and dad [more properly written Mom and Dad] or b) the child's mom and dad. In the first case, Mom and Dad are functioning as proper nouns. The second case is probably best understood as an idiom - a similar construction likes "the father sees son and daughter" does NOT work.
"The child sees a mom and a dad" or "The child sees the mom and the dad" are possible translations of the Russian, but unlikely - they refer to some entirely different mom and dad. The alternative to b) would be "the child sees his/her mom and dad"
The good thing is that this is the Russian course!!!
I gave "the child sees ITS mom and dad". This was marked as incorrect. Can someone please explain why?
In the English reply 'her' is added, whereas there is no 'её' in the Russian sentence.
Whose mom and dad are these? In English they are most likely the speaker's parents. Is that the same in Russian?
Rebenok vidit mamy i papy. - how else can one write these cyrillic words in roman script?
You could use GoogleTranslate. When I typed it in it came up with, "Rebenok vidit mamu i papu."
- 1192
Why not just learn to type Cyrillic? It is the easiest thing you can do when it comes to learning Russian.
Easiest? = ) I type in Cyrillic. Sometimes it is a challenge to get the sounds, because reading in Cyrillic is not automatic yet. But it's a cool thing to be learning.
- 1192
Connecting the appropriate sounds to Cyrillic on the fly is not easy. However the original poster was talking about the problem of getting a Romanization of Cyrillic that Duo will accept. Learning Russian takes years. Learning to type in Cyrillic takes a couple of weeks if you are able to touch type already.
Choosing between ш or щ when typing is easy. Recognizing the difference when seeing or hearing them when trying to operate at normal speed is very difficult for me.
Me, too. As for learning to type in Cyrllic, I hadn't thought of it that way. Maybe that is literally the easiest part!
Скажи, почему иногда "маму и папу" и иногда "и маму и папу"? Когда нужно первое слово "и"? Спасибо.
И маму, и папу = his mother as well as his father. "И" тут нужно для того, чтобы подчеркнуть, что ребёнок видит именно обоих родителей.
I used "the boy" instead of "the child" for ребёнок and it is wrong? How do I know when it is gender neutral or male?
Furthermore when do I use ребёнок or ребёнка if both translate to "child" which is genderless?
- 561
Ребёнка is just the genitive form of ребёнок (see how it ends in -а). Perhaps you thought it was feminine as in a female child, it's not and that's not the way feminised nouns are formed in Russian.
The fact that 'your' was capitalized was misleading. Was this deliberate?
- 251
I wrote "child sees mom and dad" and was not accepted, there is no "это", so why "the child"?
- 1192
That is because while it is not only acceptable but routine to drop the articles in Russian, it is usually at least confusing if not nonsensical to drop the articles in English. Proof of this is that if you look hard enough you might find a few examples in English where dropping the article actually worked.
Your sentence is an example of where dropping the article doesn't work. An English speaker reading your sentence would conclude that child was someone's name. The reason they would do that is because there is no article in front of it.
There word "father" wasn't there in the options for me so I had to knowingly make a mistake
Whats the difference between вижу and видит. Is it one is see and the other is sees ?
How would the sentence look like, if the English translation would be: "the child sees the mother and the father"....?
- 561
Adding the "the"s doesn't affect the translation. Changing mom and dad to mother and father you get мать и отца.
