"Мої брат і сестра - студенти."
Translation:My brother and sister are students.
18 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
I just can't get over how cavemanlike Ukrainian grammar is: "My brother and sister - students! Grunt!"
That's pretty logical, actually. An analogue of "was" means you are talking about the Past, "will be" refers to the Future and the lack of any verb is interpreted as Present.
I mean, seriously. English does it all the time: the "-s" ending is used in "He eats", you should use -ed in "I watched TV" but no ending in particular is used in "I see you" or "You eat too much". The lack of a certain feature might be a meaningful feature of itself.
I agree with you, it makes a lot of sense. I can even identify with it on some level, since I learned Hebrew as a kid, and Hebrew doesn't have "am "are" or "is" in it either. At least Hebrew has a definite article prefix
962
And similar to Spanish were they often leave out the pronoun. It's not "I run" but just "run", since the choise of conjugation reveals the pronoun. But I admit that it does look funny in Ukranian if you're not used to it :).
It is smart. We try to simplify spoken language as much as possible so it takes less time to speak. In English you use contractions: e.g. I'll instead of I will. In Swedish a lot of letters are not pronounced when speaking. This really isn't any different.
- 2711
"my brother and sister - students" was not accepted. Didn't know that a dash (-) stands for "are".
Ukrainian (also Russian) doesn't use the verb 'to be' in the present form. They just put a dash for this.
So is мої a feminine or a masculine pronoun? Or non of them? Sorry im kinda confused.
Why it's not "Мій брат і сестра", since both words are singular? And what would "my brothers and sisters" look like?
Collectively, "my brother and sister" are "they" even in English, so plural indeed. "My brothers and sisters" would be "мої брати і сестри".
Yes. Dash is placed between subject and predicate when the predicate is a noun.
Oh, it's like:
Моя сестра (noun subject) вчить (verb predicate) українську . //My sister learns Ukrainian.
Моя сестра (noun subject) - студент (noun predicate). //My sister is a student.
But dash is not necessary in:
Моя сестра (noun subject) хороша (adjective predicate). //My sister is good.
Do you pronounce the "-"? Is that the grunt everyone is talking about?
Huh? You don't pronounce it at all. Of course you don't grunt. That would be weird.
