"У меня нос и рот как у папы, а уши — как у мамы."
Translation:I have my dad's nose and mouth and my mom's ears.
89 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
There is one English-speaking country over the pond where it's "Mammy", although "Mum" has made some inroads. And I believe there are still posh English people for whom it is "Mama" (pronounced "mamaw", with the emphasis on the second syllable). These things vary by generation, country, class, region, and God knows what else. So even though I would never say it, I type "mom" when answering DuoLingo questions.
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Why don't they accept "I have a nose and a mouth like my dad and ears like my mom"? It is wrong to use the indefinite article after "and" ?
It is not wrong but unnecessary. It would probably be more common to say.. I have a nose and mouth...
The issue with your sentence though is: like my dad/like my mom
In spoken English, it is commonly heard - but what is actually meant is: 'I have a nose and mouth like my dad HAS or like my dad's'. Your sentence is considered grammatically poor and 'shouldn't' be written in English.
I think the problem arises for the translators/course makers because it is still unusual or frowned upon to end a sentence with a possessive adjective (in written English) - those apostrophe S's.
There is an argument to include your answer - but in its written form, it means, your dad is like your nose and mouth.
Since Mum/Dad are in the genitive they should just use possessive adjectives or better yet the verb (have) and make it the answer to which your sentence defaults. This would allow for fairly direct translations
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This sentence can be translated many different and correct ways but DUO STICKS just to one despite many good suggestions Too Bad!
Generally I agree - I prefer to learn Russian and not get distracted. How are you used to seeing this? "I have a nose and mouth like my father and ears like my mother"? Which variant of English do you speak?
The course contributor who built this question may have wanted to avoid making users respond with other structures, such as пахож на. Or may not have thought of this better way to phrase the English.
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The problem with this sentence is that although sense and meaning are fully clear there are obviously too many possibilities of translating it into English. So either Duolingo should allow for additional renderings or, if this technically proves to be too painstaking, remove this sentence at all and replace it by something else.
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Can I use "similar to"? I mean, "I have a nose and a mouth similar to dad, and ears similar to mom", which was not accepted. Any problems?
Yes. Consonants at the ends of words get de-voiced in Russian. Like luggage - багаж - being pronounced багаш. I read somewhere that ignoring this will sound to a native Russian speaker as silly as it would sound to a native English speaker if you voiced consonants that aren't meant to be (fife -> five, buck -> bug &c.).
He-he, or it will make you sound like an Ukrainian, ending consonants don‘t get devoiced at the end of a word. Also, Ukrainian has a strong оканье, pronouncing all о’s clearly; something someone why just has started learning Russian might do. ;)
холод (.ukr._) = ['xɔlɔd], and not [ˈxolət] as in Russian.
Thank you for answering! Спасибо за ответ, Едмунд!
Would it be possible to say "У меня нос и рот как папа, а уши — как мама"?
"My nose and mouth are similar to father's and ears similar to mother's" What is wrong?
They sound quite different - for a start, the syllable stress changes and the final vowels sound quite different. Try listening on Forvo (recommended resource):
https://forvo.com/word/%D1%83%D1%88%D0%B8/#ru
https://forvo.com/word/%D1%83%D0%B6%D0%B5/#ru
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Why do we add the hyphen before the second как and not the first? Except the "У меня" at the very beginning, they seem to be very similar structures.
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First, it is not a hyphen (дефис) that's an orthographic sign and a part of the word (бело-голубой), it is a dash (тире) that's a sign of punctuation and it belongs to the sentence (уши - как у мамы). I don't know whether hyphen and dash are distinguished in English language. In Russian, they are.
The Russian punctuation is a really hard issue. Most of Russians themselves don't know how to spell it right, what sign they have to put in one or another place and they constantly make mistakes, even educated people. Me too.
Here, the dash implies the omitted "у меня" in the second part of the sentence (У меня нос как у папы, а уши [у меня], как у мамы). Another example: Я сварил картошку, а ты - грибы . Besides, a Russian dash has many different functions. It can mean "это" (Яблоко - фрукт; Яблоко - это фрукт). It can mean a consequence (Будешь быстро бежать - победишь в соревновании). It can mean a contraposition (её ругают - она молчит) etc. I use the rule: put a dash only when you don't know what to put anymore.
I use the rule: put a dash only when you don't know what to put anymore.
)))
English has the same distinction, but most of us ignore it most of the time. Including me, unfortunately. ((
So тире is used for ellipsis, i.e. something omitted, similar to "..."? In the last two cases, does it stand for «тогда» and «а»?
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AFAIK, ellipsis in Russian means only an unfinished thought or a specially omitted part of the quoted text. A dash is a different thing
About "тогда" and "а". Yes, most often it means them, but there are a lot rules which I don't know myself when you should put a dash and, vise versa, suddenly you shouldn't. E.g.
- (listing with a general word) Ягоды, мясо, капуста, пироги, пластинки, баллистические ракеты - у нас на рынке можно купить всё (you should).
- Я очень жалею, что мой муж не доктор. (you shouldn't)
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In Russian , the question should be as follows "У меня папин нос и рот, а уши мамины".
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Нет, конечно, но мы ведь так говорим. After all, we say that.
"А чьи это ушки? Мамины ушки! А чей ротик? Папин ротик!"
"У него были отцовские глаза: серые и холодные".
"У меня мамины черты лица".
No, when listing things like that, you only need an article before the first one. I have a nose and mouth, or I have a nose and a mouth. Both are correct but the first sounds more natural.
By the way, unless you normally address your parents as "Mother" and "Father", a native speaker would almost certainly say my father and my mother.
Theron is right and it is a very useful suggestion.
Unless you're an aristocrat, lived in the early 20th century/further back in Dickensian times, or are staging a historical play, it is rare not to place a possessive adjective before the nouns, mother and father. Yes, it is a possibility but a rarity.
The distinction Rogers makes is accurate for 'Mom/mum' and 'my mom/mum', but even then, if I were speaking to a cousin, I might likely ask, 'where is my mum/mother' given the context.
Use of 'mother' and 'father' is generally more formal, so the likelihood is that you are speaking with 'strangers' and then would likely almost always use possessive adjectives.
Crazy that Theron was downvoted.
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Yes you are. I know that there's a difference, but what vexes us Brits is the normative US assumptions...