Re: YART (Was: Re: Inspirational languages)

H. S. Teoh wrote:

| Yet Another Russian Thread. :-)

Since I seem to be the only Russian speaker currently active on the List, I
feel obliged to help.

| On Mon, Jan 15, 2007 at 10:18:27PM +0200, Isaac Penzev wrote:
| > I'd better give you examples of the correct Russian.
| >
| > Я учу химию. - I learn Chemistry (in the secondary school).
| > Я изучаю химию. - I study Chemistry (at the university).
|
| So you'd use a different verb to distinguish between studying secondary
| school and studying at university? (Well, not really different, but
| cognate.)

Usually, yes. _Изучать_ generally implies more thorough studies.

| > Я учусь в школе. - I go to school.
| > Я учусь в университете. - I study at the university.
| In other words, "to study" without reference to subject of study?

Yes.

| > Я обучаюсь сапожному ремеслу. - I learn shoe mender's trade.
| Сапожному ремеслу is dative case, right?

Right.

| So the verb here is the
| reflexive form, with a dative for the subject of study. Interesting.

Yes. After thinking a little, I see we may use _учиться_ (_я учусь_) here
too. They are equivalent.

| > Я учу сестру читать. - I teach [my] sister how to read.
| So accusative case for the person being taught, I guess?

Yes. That is why I used the 1st declension noun for illustrative purposes,
as they have a distinct for of Accusative.

| > Я учу детей истории. (clumsy, a bit archaic) = Я
обучаю детей истории.
| > - I teach kids history.
|
| Interesting. Doesn't обучать mean "to train"?

I don't know all the nuances of the *English* verb "to train", so my
spontaneous Ru. equivalent to it would be _тренировать_ (back translated "to
be a coach"). But then I consult the En-En dictionary and see I am wrong.
That's just a side meaning. We often take *glosses* as *equivalents*, while
they are not.
So yes, _обучать_ means "to train".

| > Я учу их чтению. (ditto) = Я обучаю их чтению. -
I teach them reading.
| So again, accusative for people being taught, dative for the subject, it
| seems.

Yes.

| Side question: is чтению pronounced ["tSt_jeniju] or ["St_jeniju]?

[ˈʧʲtʲenʲiju] / CXS ["tS;t;en;iju]. Something like an extremely short [i]
may be heard between [tS;] and [t;]. But neither required nor recommended.

| > Я учусь читать по-русски. - I learn how to read Russian.
| Interesting. So when an infinitive is used, учить is "active" ("to
| teach") and учиться is "passive" ("to learn").

Yes.

| > Я преподаю химию студентам первого курса.
- I teach Chemistry to the
| > freshers.
|
| Hmm. Here the accusative is used for the subject being taught, and
| dative for the students. Interesting.

Yes. Mirrored to _uchit;_

| > Я преподаю историю ученикам пятого
класса. = Я читаю историю в пятом
| > классе. - I teach History to the 5th Form pupils.
|
| Ditto.

Yes.

| > | Учить can mean both "to teach" and "to learn", the distinction being
| > | drawn by the case of the nouns: "to teach" having the learner in the
| > | accusative case and the subject in the dative, whereas "to learn"
| > | having the subject in the accusative case (and the learner in the
| > | nominative).
| >
| > Верно. См. выше. -- That's true. See above.
|
| This seems to work differently for other verbs like преподать, as you
| have above.

Many RU. verbs are unique wrt "Rection" (prepositional and/or case
governing).

| > This time you are 100% right. But it's better to use the verb
| > _нравиться_ "like" instead of _любить_ "love": _Мне
нравится учить
| > русский язык._
|
| I read about this in my book, that usually Russian would use нрпвится
| where the English may use "love" instead of "like". I guess любить would
| be used in occasions such as "I love you", although my book did have a
| conversation where someone said, Я люблю говорить по-русски. Would this
| be unusual in real-life?

Sounds a bit odd. _Ljubit;_ is a strong word, y'see...
To say nothing about slang equivalents to both, for example _Я тащусь от
хипхопа._ "I go mad about hiphop".

| > Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
| > | Whotsit coming from I wonder? The old locative of a short
| > | adjective perhaps?
|
| Speaking of short adjectives... it seems to me that they are essentially
| predicative adjectives, is that right? (In the sense that they are
| adjectives being used as a predicate.)

Exactly so. Plus some archaic idioms that may be used, e.g., ironicly, for
example _красна девица_ "a fair maid".

Hope that helps,
-- Yitzik
~~nep mu'mey~~

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