"Сестра ест моё яблоко."
Translation:Sister is eating my apple.
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The English in this sentence seems a little unnatural to me. It seems like it should be My sister, or at least a or the sister, though that would sound like it was talking about nuns or something. Does anyone else think the same?
Good, it's not just my flawed brain. I suppose it might be both of our odd brains... :-D
Im pretty sure it's a contextual issue. Like within a nunnery "sister" is used as a first name. Perhaps in Russian this is more common.
that's actually a very good point, though duolingo does show mama and papa etc brother etc.
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It's OK to discuss if in English "my sister" is better than "the sister" or "a sister". But that comes up only when translating the sentence into English. English tends to use the possessive pronoun instead of articles, for instance the Spanish "él chocó El carro", usually is translated "he crashed HIS car" instead of "her crashed THE car". Of course in English you can say the car, his car, get the, this car, that car, when needed. But it's very common to say his or her car.
But the possessive tends to be used in English where other languages don't use it. So the possessive may have originated in English when translating from Russian to English.
Lol. "A sister is eating my apple": Wrong. "ThE SisTEr eATs mY ApPLe": Right.
I think you should ask this question to a psychologist, not random Internet users
Can 'ест' be translated as 'eats' as well as 'is eating'? I got ixnayed for using "Sis eats" instead of "Sister is eating", but I am uncertain Duolingo is telling me it's wrong because one or because both of these are incorrect.
"Is eating" sounds more natural in English for something that is being done right now, rather than a repeated occurrence. If she's eating one apple today, then another tomorrow, and another the day after that, then she eats my apples. If you're just saying that she's eating one right now, using "eats" is grammatically correct, but normally you would say she is eating my apple.
I'd guess "Sis" as a translation of сестра wasn't accepted. You could report that, but I would recommend translating as sister in future.
Sis is definitely an informal way of saying sister, so I'm not going to bother reporting that, no.
Thanks for the explanation of 'is eating' vs 'eats'. That makes a lot of sense. I'll try and remember it for the next time.
It is because яблоко is a neuter word.
мои is a plural.
мой [moy] is masculine.
моя [moya] is feminine.
моё [moyo] is neuter.
Credit to garpike and ILoveHens ( https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/15030386/What-is-the-difference-between-%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%8F-and-%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%91 )
No, моя is specifically for feminine words, and яблоко is a neuter word. Words ending in -е and -о are almost exclusively neuter.
@ericashelton - Because there's no article or anything, that's definitely a legit translation, but "a sister" in English sounds like a female member of a religious order (like a nun at a convent).
With such limited context, both "a" and "the" sound kind of weird to me though :\
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This is simply incorrect. I wrote: "A sister is eating my apple" and it was marked wrong and should be "The sister is eating my apple.". I'm just reviewing basics, and I'm telling you ... it's not right to mark that as wrong. "A sister" is just as acceptable as "The Sister". Doesn't matter how it could be used. With how we have to insert the indefinite article in English for the lack thereof in Russian? Both should be correct.
the sister? come on guys I'm that close breaking my phone don't tempt me after so many hours of duolingo that is unacceptable.
From what I've gathered about Russian, just thought I'd share this to help some confusion:
Сестра usually would refer to one's own sister, моя is implied and not needed ('my sister' is accepted as part of the answer). Russians would not assume you are talking about a nun or someone else's sister.
Because of word ordering (which you will slowly understand better throughout the course), сестра appears first, suggesting that we are talking about a particular sister, not just any sister in general. Russian doesn't use articles, but often used word order to convey that information. This is probably why 'the sister' is accepted but 'my sister' is not.
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This implies that the correct translation is "my sister," i.e., the way an English speaker would convey the same meaning. As is clear from the comments, the literal translation provided by Duolingo is misunderstood as referring to a nun rather than the speaker's sister.
есть, as in "у тебя есть" or "у меня есть" does have the meaning of possessing something. It's a homonym - a word that sounds the same but has a different meaning.
When/How does past tense come in? I wrote "The sister ate my apple" and it's wrong, just felt like trying :D
The past tense of yest is yel/yela/yelo - that would be imperfective (she was eating my apple). The perfective would be "съесть". Past tense would be Съел/Съелa/Съелo which would mean she ate the apple and the action is done. Sorry for switching from Latin to Cyrillic there...
Somebody please explain why "моё" is used here instead of "мой"? I know "мои" is for plural nouns. Пожалуйста.
Sister is eating my apple. Девочкс ест мёо яблоко.
I miss the word: The.... sister...
яблока is genetive, so you would use it if it's a single apple but genetive, i.e. negation (у меня нет яблока I do not have an apple), possession (the apple's X, X of the apple, the apple has X), as well as after certain prepositions that require genetive (возле яблока near the apple).
Edit: removed suggestion that яблока is plural - this is incorrect. See below.
My apologies. яблоко has an irregular plural of яблоки, not яблока. яблока is exclusively genetive, not plural. (normally neuter nouns ending with о will take on а for plural. яблоко is irregular)
