20
votes
'Too expensive' in Russian
Russian is an inflecting language, meaning that endings change all the time for every possible reason. Russian has six cases for nouns and adjectives; on top of that, adjectives inflect for gender, ...
- 19.3k
17
votes
Why are United Nations and United Arab Emirates translated as "Объединённые", but United States as "Соединённые"?
Объединять and its derivatives were not used in Russian before about 1850.
Kostomarov did use it time to time in his works, however, he mostly used соединить wherever a modern Russian speaker would ...
- 52.2k
16
votes
Accepted
What's the purpose of своё in this sentence?
The word «время» is omitted, but implied: «отжить свое время» = «to live past one's time». So in this case, it means that the fern (папоротник) is very old or maybe even dead.
The phrase «отжить свое» ...
- 1,485
13
votes
when to use the short form of an adjective?
Basically, you use it only after "is". Of course in Russian there is no "to be" in the present tense, but none the less you can only use short forms (in modern russian) in this position. You can use ...
- 3,497
13
votes
"Действующий и будущий регуляторы" - why not "действующие и будущие"?
That's short for "действующий регулятор и будущий регулятор".
It's a perfectly valid and quite widely used construct in Russian.
E.g. "a blue pencil and a green pencil" (синий карандаш и зелёный ...
- 16.1k
13
votes
What's the purpose of своё in this sentence?
Why is своё in this sentence and why does it have this specific declension?
Отжить своё is a set expression literally meaning "to outlive one's own (allotted time)".
It's not a case of ...
- 52.2k
11
votes
Accepted
Why are United Nations and United Arab Emirates translated as "Объединённые", but United States as "Соединённые"?
Соединённые is historical, used AFAIK only with the US and the UK (Соединённое Королевство, which loses overwhelmingly to Великобритания in frequency of usage. The English term "United Kingdom" dates ...
- 19.3k
10
votes
Accepted
What does the adjectival ending -енький mean?
-еньк-/-оньк- is an affectionate and/or diminutive suffix, similar to English "-y/-ie": "cute / cutie, sweet / sweetie" etc.
It can be used with nouns, adjectives, adverbs and (in ...
- 52.2k
10
votes
Suffix "-но" on adjective? "ошеломленно"
It's an adverb, which is what -но usually forms. Ошеломленно describes замолчали.
Adjectives have no tense; that said, ошеломлённый is not an adjective but a participle of ошеломить, and as such, is ...
- 19.3k
9
votes
"Красная" Площадь
To answer your second question, in modern Russian красный (красная, красное) means red, as in color. When someone says Красная площадь, what comes to mind is the square at the center of Moscow, and ...
- 382
9
votes
"Красная" Площадь
If you had to generalize, do Russians today hear/understand the name
as "Red Square" or "Beautiful Square" (regardless of what they know
intellectually about its origins)?
No.
In modern Russian ...
- 8,572
9
votes
Accepted
what are these endings: -о and ие?
Англо-ру́сские словари́
The adjective "англо-русский" is a single word. Therefore it has only one ending "-ий" (pl. "-ие"). Its first part should not be declined. The same holds with "русско-...
- 15.3k
9
votes
I am confused by the difference between the word for a language and the word for a people who speak that language
Yes, in Russian, the name of the nationality is usually different from the name of the language. That's because nationalities are nouns, English often has the same difference: nationality is Pole, but ...
- 26k
8
votes
Accepted
Why is the adjective "главное" in neuter gender?
Here an adjective "главный" becomes a noun (the substantivation). The neuter form is chosen because "the main thing" (which it stands for) is a pure abstraction. It could also be, for example, "...
- 15.3k
8
votes
Accepted
Двадцать один хорош(?) год - declension after number 21
All the numerals ending in 1, exept for those that end in 11 (11, 111, 711, 1011, etc.), need the following noun in the Nominatve case singular. If there is also an attribute adjective, it agrees with ...
- 26k
8
votes
Accepted
Can anyone clear up some discrepancies between rules for numeral+adjective+noun agreement for 2/3/4 and actual usage (as found through e-sources)?
Both nominative plural and genitive plural adjectives can be used with feminine nouns. Nominative plural is preferred.
Lisa, you are not the first to notice this variation (and well done spotting it!)...
- 16.1k
7
votes
«годовая» экспедиция and "year" adjectives
There is a good answer on rus.stackexchange.com:
Годовой - получающийся к концу года, в итоге за год; рассчитанный на
год (доход, прибыль, убытки, расходы, собрание, оценка, подшивка;
запас ...
7
votes
Russian Quality Adjective Ladder
Yes, there is!
See Количественный анализ качественных прилагательных русского языка.
But be careful using these adjectives, some of them are colloquial or close to obscene.
Here is one of the lists ...
- 654
7
votes
Difference between "провокационный" and "провокативный"
I hardly ever heard the word "провокативный", and it is not listed in most dictionaries, while "провокационный" is a common word. To translate "provocative" you can use "провокационный" only when it ...
- 2,157
7
votes
Accepted
What is the grammatical difference between "валютный курс" and "курс доллара"?
Your questions are a bit vague, and also, I don't think валютный курс is a phrase that's likely to be used outside of an academic or professional discussion that's more about the notion of currency ...
- 19.3k
7
votes
Why is the adjective "главное" in neuter gender?
It's a nominalized adjective, similar to those in English "orange is the new black", "eat fresh", "bowl of red" etc. It acts as a subject in this sentence, and, therefore, does not have to agree in ...
- 52.2k
7
votes
"Толстой" and "толстый"
Russian adjectives may end in either -ый/-ий or -ой (the latter is always stressed), so it's OK to have also surnames ending in -ой, such as Мостовой. However, it's unclear why Толстой and several ...
- 15.3k
7
votes
римановое многообразие or риманово многообразие?
These are so-called possessive adjectives which are used extensively (but not exclusively) in science, medicine and religion:
булева алгебра
базедова болезнь
ахиллесова пята
прокрустово ложе
...
- 16.1k
7
votes
Accepted
Which one is grammatically correct, “в Южную Корею” or “в Южная Корею”?
With the preposition В there're only two options, either Prepositional or Accusative case.
Prepositional case when В forms adverbial of location, which answers the question где? - where (at)? - в ...
- 19.6k
7
votes
Accepted
What is хлеще the comparative of?
The adjective is хлёсткий ("good at lashing"), the comparative is хлеще (not *хлёще)
It comes from хлестать "to lash" and means "trenchant, scathing, vitriolic".
Note ...
- 52.2k
6
votes
Accepted
Case use in simple sentence
Actually, the entire noun phrase [мой любимый спорт] is the subject of the sentence. In other words, all the elements of the phrase: the possessive adjective мой, the adjective любимый and the noun ...
- 8,265
6
votes
римановое многообразие or риманово многообразие?
This is a possessive adjectival form.
Притяжательные прилагательные - разряд прилагательных, выражающих
принадлежность чего-либо лицу или животному (отцовы сапоги, волчья
нора). П. п. ...
- 19.6k
6
votes
Accepted
Is "51-летний" correct in Russian?
It's absolutely valid Russian and it'a pronounced "пятидесятиоднолетний". Those adjectives respond to the question "сколько летний" and more popular (though considered colloquial) form "скольки летний"...
- 37.9k
6
votes
Accepted
What is the best Russian equivalent for "savory"?
I'll concentrate on the direct and literal meaning of the word, which relates to taste. For some reason it is listed #4 in your list, but we all know this is the actual literal meaning of the word, ...
- 3,098
5
votes
«годовая» экспедиция and "year" adjectives
Anton's answer describes proper Russian, but today "годовой" is usually used instead of "годичный". I searched the pairs of годовой/годичный and срок/кольцо/цикл/экспедиция in Google, and in all cases ...
- 291
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible