22 Comments
1097
In another exercise with a similar kind of construction, the native-speakers were of the opinion that "a boy" would be expressed by re-ordering the words: Стоял и ждал мальчик.
It's wrong, in constructions "subject+verb" a subject should always be first.
Russian doesn't have the definite/indefinite distinction, some constructions in some cases add a flavor of (in)definiteness, but it's not systematic.
- 218
What about "A boy was standing and waiting" ? Was not accepted, though, but why?
- 1658
Does Russian always have to have the conjunction between the two verbs: "standing AND waiting", or can you have: "standing waiting", as in English?
If you eliminate English "and" then "waiting" becomes a gerund in a construction Past Progressive Tense+Gerund. It just happens that English present participles and gerunds have the same ending. In Russian a gerund would be translated here as деепричастие/transgressive "ожидая": "мальчик стоял ожидая" (it sounds a little awkward though).
To compare, without that English feature: стоял=stood, ждал=waited. You can't say "The boy stood waited".
- 1658
So, if I've understood correctly, there is no direct Russian equivalent, or at least none that would sound natural? So you would always need the "и": "was standing AND (was) waiting"?
I think you understood incorrectly... There IS a Russian equivalent of Progressive Tense+Gerund (was standing waiting) which allows to eliminate AND, but while English present particle and gerund happen to have the same ending "-ing" so no ending is changed when you eliminate AND changing the second present particle into a gerund, the Russian equivalents (verb in past+transgressive) have different endings so you have to change an ending of the word becoming a transgressive.
Tell me please why this variant is incorrect "The boy was standing and waiting for."? Shan't i put the preposition "for" after word "waiting" in every situation?
- 1658
No. The verb is "to wait", not: "to wait for". It can be used with or without the preposition, but if you use the preposition, you must say waiting for what. E.g. "waiting for his mother", "waiting for a bus".
If you don't know what he's waiting for, or don't want to say, you just use"waiting" (no "for").
- 1648
Without thinking, I said "The boy stood and wait" For you English natives, would that sound foreign? And would that be grammatically incorrect? And similarly, in Russian would there be alternative renderings for ждал in this position?
"stood and wait" would not be proper in English. The past tense of "wait" is "waited", so the sentence would have to say "The boy stood and waited"
- 1648
Thank you. It's interesting to note that Google Translate says "The boy stood waiting" when I gave it "Die seun het gestaan en wag", which, in my native language is perfectly fine to say. (Note the "wag" is in present tense).
Assuming you meant stood and waited, that sounds fine in English, but I think it has a different implication when it comes to perfective/imperfective, which isn't really a thing for the Germanic languages.
- 1648
Thanks for replying. In my native language Afrikaans it's perfectly fine to say "Die seun het gestaan en wag". It would be totally uncommon to say ". . . gestaan en gewag" Nobody will speak like that. So it came naturally to me to say "The boy stood and wait". Now I'm still wondering about the Russian equavalent.
Ahh, Duolingoooo... The boy has been standing and waiting is absolutely with same translation Мальчик стоял и ждал. Action in the past with continuous activity, tell me why you are not accepting this answer?
