Questions tagged [essive]
The essive tag has no usage guidance.
12
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Why are the endings in "я студентка" and "я была студенткой" different?
My question is this: How did the Russian language end up having different endings in the phrases shown in the title of this post?
Now I will make some remarks to explain precisely what makes me ...
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What is correct form - "Был кто" или "Был кем"?
I stumble over this one a lot and sort of puts me off a bit. "Я был адвокат", "Петруччо был почтмейстер".
I guess this can be also applied to adjectives like "Я была красивая" or "Я была красивой"?
...
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1
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"Who" and "whom" in Russian
In "The New Penguin Russian Course", M.J. Brown (1996), a tourist in Moscow asks:
Who was Dzherzhinsky?
using "кем" (with whom) as opposed to "кто" (who) -- Mr. Brown did not give an explanation - ...
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Inflection of такой, какой
Within the expression такой, какой must both components be in the same case? Or rather, какой may take another case, according to the content of the second clause?
For example:
"She's just like she ...
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Use of instrumental with был/быть, e.g. "Ты был забавным."
Today the following sentence came up in a chat with a Russian friend:
Ты был забавным.
Here the adjective is in dative instrumental case, but I would expect it to be in nominative together with the ...
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2
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Declension after "был"
I've been having a hard time trying to find out when был is followed by nominative and when it is followed by instrumental.
Это даже не был дом, а ветхая сторожка, стоявшая в глубине сада.
Пушкин был ...
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Why is the instrumental case used in the sentence: Чтобы быть здоровым?
From what I can tell, здоровым is the masculine/neuter instrumental case of здоровый.
What I can't figure out is why the instrumental is used there?
The sentence comes from a transcript found here: ...
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"Кем бы он ни был" or "кто бы он ни был" - which one to choose?
With structures such as the following how do we decide whether кто should be instrumental or nominative—
кем бы он ни был
OR
кто бы он ни был
- 3,497
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Case of complements in Russian
Context: My book says that:
The copular verb is absent in the present tense for a compound predicate and the noun [which is the complement] is in the nominative case. In the past and future tenses ...
- 3,071
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Быть с именительным падежом
Я всё больше держался Кролика. Кролик был вор с мистическим уклоном. Жулик и вор он был, впрочем, вполне нормальный. А вот его дружок по грибной тематике был человек особенный.
Почему здесь автор не ...
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Use of the instrumental case with adjectives in the past tense
Is it correct and usual to use the instrumental case with adjectives when speaking in the past tense? Например:
Я был на конференции, которая была очень интенсивной.
Why not интенсивная?
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Does "был крутой" means the same as "был крутым"?
I'm reading Незнайка в солнечном городе and just encountered something I cannot properly make sense of:
Подъем был такой крутой, что ...
Obviously, подъем (= climb, rise, ascent, etc.) is a male ...
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