"Four people work here."
Translation:Тут работает четыре человека.
43 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
How come "Тут работАЕТ четыре человека" (third person singular) is also marked as correct? Is it a grammar rule I overlooked or just a mistake on Duolingo's part?
This is one of that crazy grammar rules which is extremely difficult to explain.
In a few words, yes, the verb can be either a singular or plural depending on speaker's preference.
I wish I would find the article about this in English, but I can't. Here is the Russian version, however: http://new.gramota.ru/spravka/letters/22-spravka/letters/64-bolshinstvo
Hmm, I see.. I don't really understand that page, but from what I gather, I think it's because it's "Four 'of A person' or of A group of persons", which allows conjugation of the singular group rather than the plural four ?
Like "four people work here/A group of people comprised of four units works here" ?
Yes, I think you got it right. We may consider four men a group of people:
Здесь работают четыре человека. (plural)
=
Здесь работает группа из четырёх человек. (feminine noun)
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Also, "миллион" is a masculine noun in Russian:
Здесь работают миллион человек. (number)
=
Здесь работает миллион человек. (noun) -
The adverbs "много", "мало", "столько" look like a neuter ("-о"):
Здесь работают много человек. (rarely used)
=
Здесь работает много человек. (preferable)
"Здесь четыре человека работают" did not work and it only changed to "роботает" for the correct answer, so I'm confused.
In Spanish, we have a similar situation were it's perfectly valid to treat "people" as both singular and plural (but it's more common to treat it as singular, at least where I live)
четыре человека работают здесь was wrong, presumably because of word order. but why? is there a strict rule here?
Accepted now, which for me means on October 2020: Четыре человека работают здесь
In the textbook they say: "When you are counting people, use человек for numbers that end in пять or more. Anywhere else use the genitive plural людей. So how come it is четыре человека?
I have to confirm. I spoke with a Russian native and she told me this rule is not true and doesn't make sense. And then they don't follow their own rule in the exercises.
Just want to point out that it's gen. plural for numbers ending in 5 to 0.
Один + nom. sg. (Один до́м)
Два, три, четыре + gen. sg. (Два до́ма)
Пять, шесть ... десят + gen. pl. (Пять домо́в)
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Got the same problem, but there is no comment about that point in this discussion. Did we miss something?
здесь работают четыре человека seems to be more correct here. why would the alternate solution be работает?
I asked in another comment is "chelovek" singular and "lyudi" plural and they said it was. They also said there is no plural of the former and no singular of the latter, but it appears "chelovek" here is plural...clarification appreciated
In case you haven't found an answer to your question yet, here's the explanation: numbers in Russian behave very differently than they do in English. A number that ends with one of these words [два / три / четыре] calls for the noun it quantifies (and all adjectives that may be attached to it) to be declined in the genitive singular (nom. singular человек -> gen. singular человека). Check out the lesson "Time and Numbers" for a more fleshed out explanation!
I do have bad news for you though; человек does have a plural form that isn't люди. I believe it is used when the number of "people" it refers to is known, or in general when the word "people" isn't used as an unquantifiable. Don't take my word for it though, I haven't quite gotten the hang of that particular subtlety myself.
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The noun following "два/две", "три" or "четыре" is in the genitive singular, but the modifying adjective (if any) is genitive plural or, if feminine, nominative plural. And what if the numeral is itself in an oblique case? It's messy!
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I think (vague memory from Russian courses long ago) the gen.pl. людей is used in general, and человек when you are counting, hence много людей, but десять человек. One could make an (imperfect) analogy to 'people' vs. 'persons' in English.
Why does the word order seem to be different depending on whether you use здесь or тут?
Dulingo:Тут работает четыре человека. Google: Здесь работают четыре человека. Makes no sense to me.
Are you sure you wrote it correctly? "Здесь работают четыре человека" is the proposed answer here in Duolingo
I just did a copy/paste. Did not know there was already a discussion about this. Thanks!
Isn't the proposed translation be wrong? Shouldn't it be: здесь работают четыре человека?
It sounds correct, it's just that this word order emphasizes a different part of the sentence. Kind of English Here, four people work vs Four people work here.
(Russian is not my mother tongue so if any native speaker would like to correct me, go for it)
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i got learned that "please" put in first may as a boss speaking recently, so the position of verb is important in English, and it seems not so strict for emphasized order of positional adverb for in English and Russian.
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Is 'четверо особы' an acceptable substitute for 'четыре человека'? Duolingo rejected it.
'Четверо особы' is not acceptable because 'четверо' (as well as 'пятеро', 'шестеро' and so on) takes masculine and general nouns that mean persons (четверо братьев - four brothers, четверо детей - four children) or nouns which have plural form only (четверо брюк - four trousers). And особа is a feminine noun.
What is wrong with "четыре человекa работают здесь"? Why isn't this word order accepted?
На этом уровне русского, с английского учить ужасно, разве нельзя улучшить? возможно, если они получат кого-то, кто, если они говорят по-русски, сможет упростить систему. пожалуйста.
