Questions tagged [word-order]
The word-order tag has no usage guidance.
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Is the word order important in the phrase "мы тоже ее видим"?
What is the difference between the phrases:
Мы тоже ее видим
and
Мы видим ее тоже
4
votes
3
answers
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Does бы have to follow immediately after если?
I was taught that an unreal conditional sentence always begins with если бы..., i.e. бы always immediately follows если. However, I recently came across the following examples that indicate that there ...
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Moving the subject of the sentence into a dangling participle
When I do homework to be later read by the teachers, I sometimes like to show off by using rare forms that I have learned by deeply studying Russian. It is always fun, especially as the assistant ...
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When to use “спасибо нет” or “нет спасибо”?
I understand that both expressions are acceptable translations of “no, thank you” in order to politely answer no to a question.
Are they always interchangeable? In which situations would we use one ...
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How do you tell which noun an adjective is modifying?
In the refrain or chorus of the Russian national anthem, there is a line that goes: "Славься, Отечество наше свободное."
Word for word, that might read (to me, at least), "Glory to the fatherland, ...
- 1,233
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2
answers
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views
Do Russian infinitives need to be at the end of the sentence as is the case in German?
I've been "writing" a Russian poem.
Here is a brief passage from the original English.
What's the reason I am standing here is something I don't know.
Inna leads me to a place where I don't want to ...
- 1,233
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votes
2
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What is meant by "repeated" words?
I'm referring to constructions like полным-полна. They appear to be the same word, but different parts of speech, something like the French, "comme ci, comme ca". What is the significance of this ...
- 1,233
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«от самого себя» vs «от себя самого»
In conversation, I just said:
Разве терять голову и быть в восторге от самого себя – это как раз не значит поступить не по-взрослому?
Sometimes I find myself of two minds about the position of "...
- 11.3k
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Why is "лишь" interposed in "одних лишь жадных женщин"?
Похоже, я встречаю одних лишь жадных женщин.
I assume that the adverb "лишь", along with the adjective "одних", conveys the idea of "(meet) only/just". I wonder why "лишь" needs to be interposed ...
- 11.3k
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Significance of word order in "Привет мой друг" or "Привет друг мой"
I am trying to say the following in russian:
Hello, my friend.
From what I have seen from online learning videos, it seems the ordering should be:
Привет, друг мой.
However, in my head it ...
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answer
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When to use which with "есть"?
Lets look at these 2 sentences:
у нас есть / We have.
что вы хотите есть? / What would you like to eat.
(In both of them the word "есть" is used differently).
I'm confused as for the use of "есть" ...
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views
Does word order influence the meaning of this sentence?
Intro: Here is some text where the speaker is explaining their plans for their future education:
Диссертации только после магистратуры и на соискание (получение)
степени. Если всё пойдёт по плану,...
- 3,071
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answer
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In Russian, when to use an 'interposed' phrasing such as "на чьей ты стороне"?
Выбери на чьей ты стороне.
= Choose which side you are on!
In expressing the idea of "on which side" in Russian, the phrase "на чьей стороне" is interposed by the pronoun "ты". On the other hand, I'...
- 11.3k
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How to parse the expression "И речи быть не может"?
И речи быть не может.
I understand that this phrase as a whole means "it's out of the question", but its sentence construction has me puzzled.
Q1. Does this separated phrase "быть ... ...
- 11.3k
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When can I omit the word "есть"?
What's the difference between:
у папы семь собак
and
у папы есть семь собак
Are both sentences used? When can I omit есть? On a daily basis which of these would you use?
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What is the difference between "благодарю" and "спасибо"
I rarely hear благодарю, so I was wondering under which circumstances would one use that word? Are благодарю and спасибо interchangeable?
- 2,057
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Concessive phrases and word order--of the type "Сколько бы ни... и.тп"
I am quite confused about the word order in sentences of the following type—
Как бы ни складывалась жизнь христианина,
в какое бы ни жил он время
и к какому сословию бы ни принадлежал, он не ...
- 3,477
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Where to put ли if no verb is given?
The particle ли is put behind the verb, but the verb to be is omitted in present tense. If you want to say something like "How do we know this is true?", how do you translate it to Russian? "Как знать,...
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Verb быть in past tense sentence inversions: был, была or было?
I know Russian is quite a "strong" language in terms of word order, which I actually like. However, I recently learned that the verb быть changes in past-tense sentence inversions.
For ...
user8492
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Word order: "я сказал тебе" or "я тебе сказал"?
Does the word order in the sentences below make any difference or sound unnatural to natives? I oftentimes, inadvertently, use Serbian’s word order due to personal preferences with clitic word ...
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Word order in questions with adjectival (determinative) pronouns
This a follow-up to a previous question of mine, because I realized that the phenomenon is more general: Parts of speech in the question "Чей это ...?"
Question: Why is the word order for ...
- 3,071
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Order of adverbs and position of subject
I recently read a lot about word order (it makes life so much easier). But I have the following question:
It's said that for adverbs the following order is normal— Time, Place, Manner.
But, if for ...
- 3,477
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What order are the parts of a full Russian name in?
It is my understanding that Russians have a first name, surname, and patronymic.
What is the order of a full name: "first name, surname, patronymic" or "first name, patronymic, surname"?
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Genitive Case Word Order "У них ничего нет" vs. "У них нет ничего"
To the best of my knowledge both sentences are correct. Does the order of "нет" and "ничего" mean anything or is one used more often by native speakers?
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answer
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What is the meaning of these specific words: "не ахти", "напряг"?
I'm newbie in both English and Russian, so sorry.
But Russian is pretty much more difficult for me... Trying to translate few sentences for about a hour... :) I'm especially confused by two words and ...
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What do you add to a word to make it cute?
In Spanish you add "-ito/a" as in hermanita, meaning little sister. In English we mostly do this with modifier words like that ("little").
What is the common construct in Russian?
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phrases with infinitive + можно
I've noticed this inverted (by English standards) pattern where можно follows an infinitive several times and have often wondered what the force of this inversion is. I may be wrong, but I would ...
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Does it sound strange to put the pronoun before the verb?
Он нам показал свою машину.
Is that a natural way of saying it or would one only do so with a certain purpose which would be figured by the listener, because it does sound strange compared to Он ...
user3538
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How is Yoda Speak rendered in Russian? Are there easy, yet universal, rules I can follow?
Full disclosure up front: I've never watched Star Wars in Russian. Nor do I plan to. (Edit in response to comments: that is not meant as a stab at Russian, of course. It is a stab at the movies ...
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What circumstances led to dramatic change in Russian language between 17th and 18th centuries?
The language of 19th century (even its beginning), judging from the poetry and prose of Pushkin and Lermontov was quite the same language we speak today. Even if somebody decided to compose similar ...
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How to assume the syntactic role of indeclinable nouns?
Russian has free word order. So the the syntactic role of a noun is usually determined by morphology. Yet there are some indeclinable nouns and nouns for which say Accusative and Nominative forms do ...
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Difference between "тоже" and "также". Where to place "тоже"?
The first part of the question is straightforward.
Is there any difference between "тоже" and "также"? If so, what?
The second one is likely to have a "yes"-answer, but ...
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abc-гипотеза or гипотеза abc
There's a famous conjecture in math that is called the abc conjecture. When I was preparing a lecture on this for a summer school in Russia a few months ago I was initially going to call it abc ...
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What is the order of adjectival premodifiers?
What are the syntactic and semantic constraints on the order of adjectival premodifiers in Russian?
In English, linguists and nonspecialist users of language alike generally agree that the order of ...
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