- Forum >
- Topic: Russian >
- "У бабушки много опыта."
42 Comments
I wondered who'd be the first to stick that butterfly in a comment somewhere. I wouldn't have guessed that this would be the sentence, though.
I would think so, yes, but I confess to being completely ignorant regarding tattoos in general, let alone Russian ones.
Can this also be translated as "The old woman has a lot of experience"?
думаю да, because "бабушка" can be your grandmother or just separate old woman
Interesting question, I analyzed some examples that came to mind, think we use есть, иметь (have, to have) only when it in opposite to нет, не иметь (do not have), in other cases У кого-то, чего-то replacing есть, for example:
He can drive (take) us, he has a car - Он может отвезти нас, у него есть машина. (as opposed to us, we don't have)
He is a real hunter, he even has a rifle - Он настоящий охотник, у него даже есть ружье (в отличие от нас)
Вам надо пройти два квартала, там есть отель (and here is no hotel)
in other cases we do not use есть
У меня две собаки - I have two dogs. (in phrases like: У вас кот? А у меня две собаки.)
У моей жены красная машина - My wife has a red car.
Maybe there are other cases, so here is professional article http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/the-unusual-use-of-%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C-in-modern-russian.2380374/
My PONS cheatsheet claims that the verb "to be"
(a) as an auxiliary verb: is left out in the present tense, except when you say "there is";
(b) as a verb in its own right:
can be used in the present tense to express where someone/something is located.
So, if I understand correctly, then есть could be left out in the first two examples provided by woopeckerr.
It can be left out in the first example, but not in the second one — because of даже which follows «у него».
Why is "experience" not in the genitive plural here? I thought that много always took the plural genitive.
My thinking is that she does not have a lot of experiences, but a lot of experience.
I think experience in its singular nominative form is опыт. But I am guessing here as I am also a learner...
True, unless the word 'experience' is modified with an adjective in which case the word опыт often proves to be the wrong choice, "событие [в чьей-то жизни]" or "испытание" being the more preferable options. Sometimes it's best to omit the noun in translation and use the short neuter adjective form alone, e.g. "It was an exciting experience" = Это было очень интересно, "It was a tough experience" = Это было нелегко, "It was a tough experience for her" = Ей пришлось нелегко. The thing is that if you modify опыт with an adjective, the word tends to be interpreted as having its other meaning which is 'experiment'.
It is OK, though, to say things like "У него большой опыт работы в этой сфере" = He has lots of work experience in this field
о́пыт [opət] m (-а)
"1.experience, practice (usual procedure etc.)
2.experiment "
eg "phrо́пыт рабо́ты work experience о́пыты на живо́тных experiments on animals со́бственный о́пыт autopsy (own experience) внете́лесный о́пыт out-of-body experience приобрести́ о́пыт gain experience (каса́ющийся) о́пыта (form.) experiential" (https://www.dict.com/russian-english/Опыт)
много does always take genitive but you can use it with genitive singular.
A lot of water = много воды: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/12804317
A lot of bread =много хлеба: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/12404054https://www.duolingo.com/comment/12404054
I'm guessing that it's used like that for stuff that you don't bother count, similar to "Would you like some [of the] bread?" / French "du pain".
"experience"/"опыт" is uncountable, as it is in English, so много takes genitive singular.
In a previous question in the same lesson, "a lot of experience" was translated as "большой опыт" (or whatever the proper case of that word is). But here it's "много опыта". Are they synonyms or is there a rule when one is used instead of the other?
They are synonyms but I would stick to the phrase "большой опыт" as "много опыта" is a lottttt less common (hardly ever used, in fact). We do, however, use the adjective многоопытный (having a lot of esperience) to add sarcasm. Other, less formal ways of saying, "She has a lot of experience" are "Она давно живёт на свете" and "Она многое повидала на своём веку"
Thanks, I don't fully understand that yet but it helps, I thought и meant plural, I guess not always
The и ending is used to mark the genitive case in singular nouns whose nominative singular forms end in -ка, -га, -жа, -ша, -ща, -ча or -я. In feminine nouns whose nominative singular ends in -ь and neuter nouns in -мя, the и ending is not only used for the genitive singular, but also for the dative and prepositional singular forms (in the case of -мя, the final -я is historically part of the root and -мя is replaced with -мен before all endings - e.g. имя - имени, именем etc.) . И is also used instead of е in the dative singular forms of nouns whose nominative singular ends in -ия, and in the prepositional singular forms of nouns whose nominative singular ends in -ия or -ие or unstressed -ий.
ns. о́пыт m., I assume 1st declension since it ends in a hard consonant.
Is gs. stressed as Опыта́ or as о́пыта? (My PONS cheatsheet says that the former is the rule, but Wiktionary and dict.com provide the latter for this word, without indicating that it's an exception). Why does the stress move?
The gen sg form is óпыта. The word has a prefix (the prefix is о-, пыт being the root — the related words include пытаться, попытка, испытание) and prefixed nouns hardly ever experience the shift of stress within the set of their singular forms or within the set of their plural forms. Nobody knows why the stress moves in some nouns, but if you look at the stress pattern for singular forms only or plural forms only, you’ll find that the list of nouns in which the stress is shifted from the ending to the the stem or vice versa is limited to a few dozens. Muscular gender nouns in which the stress moves have no more than two syllables and, if they are monosyllabic loan words, then we will never see the movement of stress in them, except in second prepositional (=locative) case: бас (nom), бáса (gen), бáсу (dative), бáсом (instrumental), о бáсе (prepositional), but в басУ (locative).
