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- "He thinks you know his broth…
"He thinks you know his brother."
Translation:Он думает, ты знаешь его брата.
26 Comments
This masculine noun is animate and ends in a consonant (брат), so in the accusative form, you add “а” in the end.
As hinted at by apveay, animate masculine nouns have an accusative form that is identical to the genitive form. However, any adjectives that describe them still have their normal accusative form.
What is the difference between animate noun and inanimate noun? Could you please provide some examples here?
Animate nouns are things that are alive and can move by themselves, e.g. people, animals. Everything else is an inanimate noun, e.g. concepts, plants, cars.
Source: http://www.russianlessons.net/grammar/nouns_accusative.php
Manhankr, actually the adjectives for animate masculine nouns also follow an animate adjectival declension which copies the genitive. For example, "Я люблю моего брата."
1659
It's a general rule of grammar, according to https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Russian/Grammar/Accusative_case1
Masculine nouns in the accusative case take nominative endings if they are inanimate and genitive endings if they are animate. In simple terms, for Masculine Accusative nouns, inanimate objects do not change their default ending, while such animated nouns either add -а or replace -й and -ь with -я.
why was a comma placed here? In english it wouldn't make sense to separate it because it splits the continuation of a thought.
- 2253
In Russian, parts of a compound or complex sentence are typically separated by a comma.
This sentence is the equivalent of "Он думает, (что) ты знаешь его брата."
The conjunction что (that) which introduces a new dependent clause, must be preceded by a comma.
I'm so happy with the fact I instinctively thought of «брата» instead of «брат» here. Seems like the effort is paying off!
Why is Он думает ты его брата знаешь wrong?? I'm from Poland and in Polish it makes sense, and Polish and Russian grammar is similar, so why is it wrong?
- 394
Evidently 'что', introducing a subordinate clause, can be omitted following 'думать'. Can this be done also with other verbs of "thinking"? How about 'считать', 'верить', 'воображать', 'предполагать', 'допускать', 'сомневаться', etc.? Can it be done with any non-"thinking" verbs?
