The best video I've watched about this topic, I've watched 4 or 6 videos and they all have something missing ( especially the endings which are the most important ).. Thank you so much for your efforts!
I have a very good ear for sounds. Am I going mad, do и and ий sound exactly the same? (Example Тетради and кафетерий - I’m aware those are different cases)
Don't worry about your sanity :) - in normal and quick speech, й isn't heard as a distinct sound after и. It makes sense if you consider how the tongue position for и and the beginning of й is essentially the same; if the tongue isn't moving, you won't hear a separate sound. This is certainly true for the first й in a word like английский. Some argue that й might be devoiced at the end of a word (I knew someone once who tended to do this), but in general I wouldn't worry about distinguishing the pronunciation of endings of тетради and кафетерий. For a more extensive discussion you might check this thread: forum.wordreference.com/threads/how-to-pronounce-%D1%8B%D0%B9-and-%D0%B8%D0%B9.3413296/
a question (if possible to send you in the future in private i would love it): i stumbled a few days ago the sentence "i sleep on the floor", which translates to "ya splyu na polyu". whey isnt it "na palye" like a prepositional?
Feel free to subscribe to my newsletter, we can be in touch more easily that way. :) There's a group of masculine nouns that have this stressed -у́/-ю́ ending in the prepositional singular; some common ones include пол, снег, нос, лес, Крым, мост, год, рай.. so на полу 'on the floor,' в снегу 'in the snow,' на носу 'on the nose,' в лесу 'in the forest,' в Крыму 'in Crimea,' на мосту 'on the bridge,' в году 'in a year,' в раю 'in heaven,' etc. They have these endings only when you're expressing location - в лесу = in the forest, but Мы думали о лесе = We thought about the forest. This -у/ю ending was more common in earlier periods of the language, but has mostly disappeared - except for in a handful of words (kind of like the English -en plurals in 'children' and 'oxen').
I have an odd question, which is probably due to me still being a beginner at Russian. So far, I've seen the nominative, genitive, accusative and prepositional cases, but it seems like the prepositional is the only one that alters the hardness/softness of the stem (e.g, город -> городе). Why is this? The other cases seem to "respect" the hard/soft qualities of nouns' stems. Even to me, this comes off as a weird questions since the answer could be "That's simply how Russian is", but I reckon the answer could be deeper; perhaps a suffix eventually glued itself onto the ends of nouns, causing a change in palatalisation. I'm unsure of how to find this information by myself. Hoping you can shed some light, professor.
The prepositional -е ending (as well as the feminine dative -е, which you'll soon encounter) developed from the vowel written as ѣ (now called ять) in older forms of Russian. We don't have sound recordings from those times, but it may have sounded like a long *е* or possibly ие. In any case, it merged with е, which follows a soft consonant - other examples include хлѣбъ > хлеб, гдѣ > где. So perhaps it makes sense that when it occurs in an ending, it also softens the final consonant of a root, even though you've correctly noticed that that's unusual. Odd questions are often the most interesting ones. :)
@@russiangrammar I have another question: How do nouns like щи (-> щах) and ночь (-> ночах) work? Should I think that, because their stems' final consonants are inherently soft, we use -ах instead of -ях? I suppose the soft sign in ночь is superfluous and always removed for case endings...
For practical purposes, it's helpful to remember that spellings like щах and ночах fall under the 8-letter spelling rule: use а and у instead of я and ю after г к х ш щ ч ж ц. This is often an issue in verb endings: я говорю, but я молчу, я держу; они говорят, but они учатся, они держат. There's a slightly silly video on remembering the letters of the three spelling rules (7-letter, 5-letter, and 8-letter) here: th-cam.com/video/Yp4VoIQ98pg/w-d-xo.html It's safest not to say that we use а, у after inherently soft letters, because that would suggest that we should use э after those letters as well - which we don't (честь, щенок, etc; I don't think the combinations щэ or чэ ever occur). Yes, the ь in ночь is removed before endings, and is phonetically superfluous, though it can be handy for distinguishing feminine nouns (ночь) from masculine (врач).
Accusative takes a direct object, meaning a person or thing that the verb is being done directly to. Я прочитал книгу. - I read a book. Book is in the accusative case with the -y ending there. Prepositional basically does a heap of other things that aren't direct objects. One example that might help contrast it with the accusative would be: Я прочитал об Эйнштейне. - I read about Einstein. Einstein's in the prepositional with the -e ending, and there's the preposition "oб" meaning "about". It wouldn't make sense to say "Я прочитал Эйнштейна." - "I read Einstein." Because we can't directly read him, instead we would read about him, he's not a direct object Hope that helps! (Edit: accidentally put "o" instead of "об", it's "об" before vowels just like with English "a/an")
Excellent Russian grammar videos. Simple explanations. And, I really like the practice sections of the video.
The best video I've watched about this topic, I've watched 4 or 6 videos and they all have something missing ( especially the endings which are the most important ).. Thank you so much for your efforts!
Glad it was helpful! ))
not learning Russian but was looking for examples of prepositional noun cases. Your explanation was very clear
Thank you so much! You made it so simple to understand!!!!
best video I have seen on nouns so far
Thanks Yamen, I'm glad you found it helpful!
Man, you just made this seem so simple!
11jupitercowboy8 he is excellent. He could explain anything
Absolutely agreed
so great!!!...thank you
I have a very good ear for sounds. Am I going mad, do и and ий sound exactly the same? (Example Тетради and кафетерий - I’m aware those are different cases)
Don't worry about your sanity :) - in normal and quick speech, й isn't heard as a distinct sound after и. It makes sense if you consider how the tongue position for и and the beginning of й is essentially the same; if the tongue isn't moving, you won't hear a separate sound. This is certainly true for the first й in a word like английский. Some argue that й might be devoiced at the end of a word (I knew someone once who tended to do this), but in general I wouldn't worry about distinguishing the pronunciation of endings of тетради and кафетерий. For a more extensive discussion you might check this thread: forum.wordreference.com/threads/how-to-pronounce-%D1%8B%D0%B9-and-%D0%B8%D0%B9.3413296/
a question (if possible to send you in the future in private i would love it): i stumbled a few days ago the sentence "i sleep on the floor", which translates to "ya splyu na polyu". whey isnt it "na palye" like a prepositional?
Feel free to subscribe to my newsletter, we can be in touch more easily that way. :)
There's a group of masculine nouns that have this stressed -у́/-ю́ ending in the prepositional singular; some common ones include пол, снег, нос, лес, Крым, мост, год, рай.. so на полу 'on the floor,' в снегу 'in the snow,' на носу 'on the nose,' в лесу 'in the forest,' в Крыму 'in Crimea,' на мосту 'on the bridge,' в году 'in a year,' в раю 'in heaven,' etc.
They have these endings only when you're expressing location - в лесу = in the forest, but Мы думали о лесе = We thought about the forest.
This -у/ю ending was more common in earlier periods of the language, but has mostly disappeared - except for in a handful of words (kind of like the English -en plurals in 'children' and 'oxen').
thank you very much :)
I have an odd question, which is probably due to me still being a beginner at Russian.
So far, I've seen the nominative, genitive, accusative and prepositional cases, but it seems like the prepositional is the only one that alters the hardness/softness of the stem (e.g, город -> городе).
Why is this? The other cases seem to "respect" the hard/soft qualities of nouns' stems.
Even to me, this comes off as a weird questions since the answer could be "That's simply how Russian is", but I reckon the answer could be deeper; perhaps a suffix eventually glued itself onto the ends of nouns, causing a change in palatalisation.
I'm unsure of how to find this information by myself. Hoping you can shed some light, professor.
The prepositional -е ending (as well as the feminine dative -е, which you'll soon encounter) developed from the vowel written as ѣ (now called ять) in older forms of Russian. We don't have sound recordings from those times, but it may have sounded like a long *е* or possibly ие. In any case, it merged with е, which follows a soft consonant - other examples include хлѣбъ > хлеб, гдѣ > где. So perhaps it makes sense that when it occurs in an ending, it also softens the final consonant of a root, even though you've correctly noticed that that's unusual. Odd questions are often the most interesting ones. :)
@@russiangrammar I have another question: How do nouns like щи (-> щах) and ночь (-> ночах) work? Should I think that, because their stems' final consonants are inherently soft, we use -ах instead of -ях? I suppose the soft sign in ночь is superfluous and always removed for case endings...
For practical purposes, it's helpful to remember that spellings like щах and ночах fall under the 8-letter spelling rule: use а and у instead of я and ю after г к х ш щ ч ж ц. This is often an issue in verb endings: я говорю, but я молчу, я держу; они говорят, but они учатся, они держат. There's a slightly silly video on remembering the letters of the three spelling rules (7-letter, 5-letter, and 8-letter) here: th-cam.com/video/Yp4VoIQ98pg/w-d-xo.html
It's safest not to say that we use а, у after inherently soft letters, because that would suggest that we should use э after those letters as well - which we don't (честь, щенок, etc; I don't think the combinations щэ or чэ ever occur).
Yes, the ь in ночь is removed before endings, and is phonetically superfluous, though it can be handy for distinguishing feminine nouns (ночь) from masculine (врач).
thanks
helps to capitalize the "e" in prepositional to remind of the ending
Can someone please help me understand the difference between accusative and prepositional
Accusative takes a direct object, meaning a person or thing that the verb is being done directly to.
Я прочитал книгу. - I read a book.
Book is in the accusative case with the -y ending there.
Prepositional basically does a heap of other things that aren't direct objects. One example that might help contrast it with the accusative would be:
Я прочитал об Эйнштейне. - I read about Einstein.
Einstein's in the prepositional with the -e ending, and there's the preposition "oб" meaning "about". It wouldn't make sense to say "Я прочитал Эйнштейна." - "I read Einstein." Because we can't directly read him, instead we would read about him, he's not a direct object
Hope that helps!
(Edit: accidentally put "o" instead of "об", it's "об" before vowels just like with English "a/an")
Thanks