"Мне вас не хватало."
Translation:I missed you.
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I think a literal translation would be something like, "To me, there was not enough of you." That's how I read it, anyway.
I don't know if it will help, but the literal meaning is "For me it (the imaginary supernatural force of a neuter gender) wasn't catching you". Or, to be even more literal, “To me, you, it was not grabbing”.
I guess the "miss" in this sentence is like the "I miss the ball" like if you throw it and I didnt catch it.
To miss someone is like to feel 'saudade' in portuguese, right? It is praticaly a good nostalgia feeling about somebody or something.
Si, “chega mi saudade”...
скучать/тосковать по ком-то = “to miss someone” or “yearn for someone”. Saudade (loneliness) = одиночество; melancholy = тоскá or меланхóлия (not as strong as тоска), tristeza (sadness) = грусть or печаль. The latter is more like sorrow.
Just fyi, 'Saudade' doesn't mean loneliness. It doesn't have an accurate translation (with just one word) in english. One can feel 'saudade' and not be alone. One can be amongst friends and family and feel 'saudade' for someone, something, some place, some past event... anything really... :)
The feeling you described is called “loneliness” in English. It is not the same as the state of being alone. One can feel lonely even in the company of other people. I know that “saudade” is a cognate of the Spanish word “soledad”, but I am not sure that the meaning is exactly the same.
According to Merriam-Webster loneliness means “being without company, cut off from others, sad from being alone, producing a feeling of bleakness or desolation”. ‘Saudade’ isn’t that feeling. Native speakers often have difficulties trying to explain what ‘saudade’ really means… But Wikipedia got that covered for us lol
“Is a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never be had again. It is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, and well-being, which now trigger the senses and make one experience the pain of separation from those joyous sensations. However it acknowledges that to long for the past would detract from the excitement you feel towards the future. Saudade describes both happy and sad at the same time.”
I don't know about "soledad" though...
Your description of “saudade” fully matches the meaning of the Russian expressions «мне тебя не хватает» and «я по тебе скучаю» (you can replace the pronoun ты with whatever is necessary). As for the word “loneliness”, it does not imply isolation or solitude, contrary to what some dictionaries say. Although it is not a perfect match of “saudade”, the concept of feeling “lonely” comes pretty close in meaning.
It’s very interesting how Russian is so similar to Portuguese in many ways… "На улице" for example, meaning “outside” and “[on the] street”. In Portuguese we have “na rua”, also meaning "street" and "outside"! So cool!
Now, the loneliness thing, I disagree. Loneliness doesn’t convey the nostalgia and the recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events that “Saudade” does. Also, it doesn't bring joy AND sadness at the same time (it is mostly perceived as a sad feeling). It is not deeply connected to memory and experience. You can extrapolate by saying that it means the yearning or longing for something specific, but it doesn’t have the deep emotional complexity of “Saudade”. To understand it fully takes a lot of knowledge (linguistically and culturally speaking). Maybe if you combine "loneliness" with "I miss..." and with "nostalgia" you can get the gist of it, but it still doesn’t even scratch the surface of the complete meaning of “Saudade". I don't even know if it has the same undertones in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Cabo Verde... Linguistics, man... such a complex and interesting topic... ;)
Would this be like "Du hast mir gefehlt." in German? (Well, except for the не.)
Its funny how не and He changes your sentence. I hope he didnt throw you too hard.
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"jemanden satt haben" has a very negative connotation to it. I would not use it here. I think "Ihr habt mir gefehlt" (since вас is used and not тебя) is about pretty right, which is basically the same as "Du hast mir gefehlt" (just personal / formal adress).
A closer way to say this in German would be "Ich hatte nicht genug von dir/euch" or "Du hast mir nicht gereicht". Just like Хватит! is usually translated as Genug! or Es reicht!
Actually you would more likely say "Ich konnte nicht genug kriegen von dir." in German.
I know but I was trying to stick as closely as possible to the original Russian sentence structure.
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It means - literally translated into German - "Ich habe nicht genug von dir bekommen" There's another sentence "Тут хватает кровати на всех" - in German "Hier gibt es genug Betten für alle"
This sentence means "I didn't need anyone else around, satisfied with your company"/"Having you around was enough - I didn't want to see anyone else".
Why is the verb in neuter form? Is this a more idiomatic thing or is there a reason?
The verb хватать has 3 meanings. The first one is “to grab” and there has to be a subject or at least an implied doer for the verb to express this meaning. Most of the time the subject will be masculine or feminine. The second meaning is “to be enough”/“to suffice” and the third one is only rendered in the idiom «не хватать». “X is missing Y” translates into Russian as «Х (in dative) не хватает Y (in genitive)». Such Russian sentence will have no subject; in other words, the verb becomes impersonal. When put in the past, impersonal verbs are always used in the neuter gender singular form. By the way, when it means “had enough”, the verb is also used in its impersonal neuter form хватало and the English subject matches with the Russian object in the dative case, e.g. “He didn’t have enough experience” = «Ему не хватало опыта». One can also say, «Ему не доставало опыта» — the meaning will be the same, but the sentence will sound slightly more formal.
Another common idiom is the sentence «Только этого мне/нам не хватало!». It is similar to “Oh no!” or “Oh, that’s just what I/we need.”
Is this sentence reflective of something an actual person would say in Russian?.... As opposed to "Я скучаю по тебе"
The two sentences are used differently: «Мне вас не хватало» is mostly used to speak about work relationship or friendship, whereas «Я скучаю по тебе» is about love.
This is surprising to me ! I'd never thought "I miss you" can refer to anything but love ! Can you give an example of "не хватать" in a work relationship ?
You can say that to a colleague and teammate who came back from a business trip.
Yes, both the Duo's sentence and yours are absolutely normal and common.
Though yours is in the present tense: "I miss you" instead of "I missed you".
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Lot of comments generated by this rather ambiguous sentence. I still can't see any clearing everything up. Does this sentence mean, in some idiomatic way, 'I missed you' in the sense that I longed for your return?
Yes, it does in a way, but it is more likely to be addressed to a missing team member than someone you’re in love with.
In English "I missed you" could mean something like "I tried to shoot you but the bullets did not hit". What would "missing" in that sense be in Russian?
Я в тебя не попал / не попала. (the verb попасть means getting somewhere or hitting one's target.)
You can also use промахнуться (e.g, Я стрелял в тебя, но промахнулся)
For the sake of my understanding, would it be safe to loosely transliterate this as "It was not enough of you for me"? It doesn't sound right in English, obviously... but if you're trying to connect the two phrases so that they could perhaps make a little more sense... I don't know, maybe not. Haha. This may just be something that will help me remember this wording.
If anyone has a comment to add to this madness of mine, please, help! =P
Actually, Shady has already answered you in one of the questions above. To quote him: "the sentence is roughly 'There wasn't enough of you', which needs negation", so yes, your understanding is correct ;)
Yeah I want to translate this as I can't get enough of you or I couldn't get enough of you
That would be either "Я вас/тебя не застал" (meaning, "I came to find that you were not there") or - more colloquial - Я вас/тебя не поймал, which will imply that you had left sooner than had hoped. "Мне вас не хватало" means "I felt lonely because you were not around".
I really still have a hard time understand this sentence (not literally). Because "to miss" in German can mean both things but we have different words. We can "miss" something in the sense of not getting something (miss the train) but we can also miss a person in the sense of longing for someone. So what does this sentence really mean?
I missed the train = Я опоздал/опоздала на поезд.
I missed you = Мне тебя/вас не хватало or Я по тебе/вас скучал/скучала.
These days lots of people say, по вам instead of the proper form по вас (a rare case of using the prepositional instead of the expected dative after по, which is only applicable to personal and interrogative pronouns). Some 40 years ago по вам was perceived as incorrect by most native Russians, but that has changed.
According to dictionaries published 40–50 years ago, по вам and по вас were both considered correct at the time.
By the way, the old variant is still considered OK, though, I think, most native speakers would find it rather funny.
Thank you two. Is there a tendency to use one over the other way (sentence) to express "I missed you"? Because if I use a translator and look for the word "to miss", it gives me скуча́ть not the other structure that's used here in the course.
I think, скучать is more popular in everyday use. Не хватать is stronger.
I mean, messaging "скучаю" is fine if you saw each other a few days ago. You would use не хватать for something way longer than that (or maybe the person died).
Unlike «я по тебе скучал», «мне тебя не хватало» can also refer to a particular situation where it means “I would have benefitted from having you around”. The verb скучать is derived from the noun скука (boredom), but when it is followed by the preposition по, скучаю means ”I am yearning” (the same as «я тоскую») rather than “I am bored”, which would be мне скучно in Russian.
my dictionary says хватать means to snatch or grab while хватит means I've had enough. So does the Russian sentence mean 'I didn't get you' or 'I didn't get enough of you'? Whatever it means is profoundly unclear. If it's idiomatic we should have been told.
If it's idiomatic we should have been told.
Haha, that's funny! This is not school, there is no teacher, and doing the exercises is not the same as being quizzed. The answers to your questions can be found further up on this page (please read those before asking the same things), as well as here: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%85%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C.
A great example of Everything before the "but" is &%¤#/%, if ever there was one...
Note that the Russian verb here is imperfective and is used in its past tense neuter gender singular form which is, in fact, an ancient past participle - that's why the past forms of Russian verbs have genders and don't conjugate. Literally, the phrase "мне вас не хватало" means "to me, [it - some sort of supernatural force] never grabbed you [to bring you back]". I'm sure you've heard the song with the refrain "Bring back my bonnie to me". So the idea is the same: I missed you and no force would bring you back to me. Only the imperfective verb хватать in its negative impersonal (3rd person singular subjectless) form can be translated into 'miss', and when it does, the dative object of хватать becomes the subject of 'miss' whereas its genitive object becomes the direct object.
The personal forms of хватать do mean 'snatch' or 'grab', e.g. Полиция хватает всех подряд = The police snatches whoever comes their way.
The perfective counterpart хватить in its impersonal past form means "There was enough of". Ex.: "Нам не хватило денег" = "We didn't have enough money". Another (personal) meaning of хватить can be illustrated by the following sentence: Он хватил молотком по пальцу = He accidentally hit his finger with a hammer.
So the impersonal forms of both хватить and хватать are used idiomatically.
Please, can a native tell me if there is a difference between "я скучаю по тебе" и "мне тебя не хватает"? Is it exactly the same or is there a nuance? Thanks !!
I didnt have enough of you sound very romantic
What a beautiful language
No, because it misses the point. The given Russian sentence means “I missed you”.
Okay, one more question: how would you translate "I can't get enough of you" into Russian?
If it is a declaration of love, there are several expressions with that meaning. Here are some: «Наглядеться на тебя не могу», «Наговориться с тобой не могу», «Ненаглядный [ты] мой! / Ненаглядная [ты] моя!», «Ты для меня свет в окошке!» — all of them are pretty emotional. If, however, you want to be sarcastic, you can say, «Куда же я без тебя/вас?». If you admire anything — for example, if you say, “I can’t get enough of this song. I would listen to it again and again”, then in Russian you will say, «Какая чудесная песня! Слушал бы и слушал!»
Good question. One might think that if “I missed you” can be translated into Russian as «Мне тебя/вас не хватало», the opposite statement will be «Мне тебя/вас хватало». No. That means “With you around I felt I didn’t need any other company”. The Russian for “I didn’t miss you at all” is, as Shady_arc said, «Я по тебе (or Я по вас) совсем не скучал(а)». By the way, it is a rare case where the preposition по requires putting the following pronoun in the prepositional rather than the dative case. In the case of ты dative and prepositional forms are identical (тебе), but, in the case of вы, the dative is вам and the prepositional is вас. «по вас» was the only acceptable form with verbs скучать and соскучиться as far back as 50 years ago. These days, however, some Russian native speakers consider it obsolete and say «по вам» instead. I am about to turn 60 and it jars on my ear, but it is OK with younger people.
No, it means “With you by my side I didn’t need any other company. You were enough”.
I've been very surprised by this meaning, since, at first, I thought just the opposite: You weren't enough for me ....I needed someone else...
The interpretation is a bit different. Хватает means you have enough of something. Не хватает means you do not have enough. But yours also works.
If "to have enough of something/someone" means "to get bored of smth/someone" yes, I can understand: I didn't get bored of you -> I missed you
The meaning of impersonal хватать / не хватать has nothing to do with boredom. The verb means to be / not to be present in sufficient amount. E.g. В яблочном пироге не хватает корицы. = There is not enough cinnamon in the apple pie. or The apple pie lacks cinnamon.
Мне моих проблем хватает. = I am too busy solving my own problems to worry about someone else’s.
For making forecasts about the future the perfective хватит is used: Этого кофе хватит до конца недели? = Will the coffee last out till next week? Хватит! means Enough! or That’ll do.
The Russian for “I’ve had enough of you” is «Ты меня достал!».
So we come back to the original meaning Hard to understand how it can mean to miss (You are no longer with me, so I miss you)
Oh, for that we say, Вас/Тебя мне было недостаточно. Мне нужен был кто-то ещё.
When talking about a particular period in the past, one can say, «Мне ВАС хватало», which means “You were enough — I didn’t need anyone else”. The Russian for “I had enough of you” is «Ты меня достал» or “Вы меня достали».
No, that won't work. Technically one can say "мне вас хватило", but that's not idiomatic or common.
«Не хватало» means “was not enough” when the Russian sentence starts with the phrase indicating the location or some kind of food, e.g. «В комнате не хватало стульев» (There was not enough chairs in the room) or “В супе не хватало соли» (There was not enough salt in the soup). If, however, the sentence starts with a noun or personal pronoun in the dative case, it means that the person or thing it refers to missed (or was missing) something or did not get (was not getting) enough of something. So «Мне вас не хватало» means “I missed you”, and «Растениям не хватало солнца» means “The plants didn’t get enough sunlight”.
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An idiom should not be introduced in a unit test. I responded "I am not enough for you", which I think is a literal translation, and it was not accepted.
If you want to translate it literally it would be "you were not enough for me".
The literal translation of the given Russian sentence is this: “To me you it didn’t grab” where “it didn’t grab you” is an idiom meaning “it was short of you”.
Does this mean I didn't run into you, or I took a shot at you and missed, or, I was thinking of how much I missed you? Confusing.