neofight78 returns from his Siberian exile? [RU, ES]

[tarvos]

Thanks guys, glad I am not alone in this

There are certainly elements of grammar and vocabulary that don't map very well to English. Explanations can either be absent, low quality, or simply not comprehensible to the English mind. My limited experience tells me that you need to tackle these things with a mixture of exposure and grammar theory and a whole bunch of patience. Eventually the mist clears and then all seems rather straightforward and simple.

It's not just being able to understand the basic meaning either, some of the nuance can be lost too. A recent example that is perplexing me:

Где ему быть?

You can translate this word for word and get: "Where he is?". But if that's the meaning why not just "Где он"? As I understand it, and I may well be wrong, the above example perhaps would be better translated as "Where else would he be?", but that's a nuance that has to come from the grammar and not the vocabulary. I've still no idea how this sentence works, but maybe it will become clearer as I work through these grammar exercises.

I have a feeling this area is one of the last big stumbling blocks to good comprehension, although there are plenty of smaller ones still lying around!

You indeed translated this wrong. It's rather "Where else should he be?", or literally "where to-him to-be?". This is the reason that they are using the dative and the infinitive is that it's a common fixed structure.

Где ему быть? "Where else should he be?" (answer - nowhere)
Куда ему деться? "Where can he even go?" (answer - nowhere)
Что мне есть? "What's there for me to eat?" - (answer - nothing)
Кто мне спасать? "Who's there to save me?" (answer - no one)

Often the question phrased like this is rhetorical. The answer is usually implied (there isn't anything).

[neofight78]

Thanks for the clarification, it's much appreciated

BTW How did you acquire this knowledge, was it from a textbook, from sheer exposure to the language or some other means? I wonder if there's some approach or resource that might help with these areas of grammar that confuse me.

[tarvos]

Dative constructions crop up in Russian all the time. Instead of saying "what am I to do" they say Что мне делать? and that's just how it works.

Part of it is logical analysis. Part of it is the fact that dative constructions crop up in other languages with similar meanings, such as in German and Latin "mihi nomen Claudius est" "Mir ist schlecht", although they don't use the infinitive in this case. I don't remember where I acquired it - I think it was a fairly natural realization at some point. Usually when you have a dative, that means there is another subject somewhere else and the verb must either not be conjugated (because if it were, it would be я, not мне) or something else must be going on "мне хочется, мне нравится" or there is no verb in the construction (because to be is skipped in the present tense).

It's a combination of understanding how grammar works in the wider context (so being able to perform some grammatical analysis) and a lot of exposure to the fact that "this is how Russians say it".

[Arnaud]

deleted

[neofight78]

Dative constructions crop up in Russian all the time. Instead of saying "what am I to do" they say Что мне делать? and that's just how it works.

Part of it is logical analysis. Part of it is the fact that dative constructions crop up in other languages with similar meanings, such as in German and Latin "mihi nomen Claudius est" "Mir ist schlecht", although they don't use the infinitive in this case. I don't remember where I acquired it - I think it was a fairly natural realization at some point. Usually when you have a dative, that means there is another subject somewhere else and the verb must either not be conjugated (because if it were, it would be я, not мне) or something else must be going on "мне хочется, мне нравится" or there is no verb in the construction (because to be is skipped in the present tense).

It's a combination of understanding how grammar works in the wider context (so being able to perform some grammatical analysis) and a lot of exposure to the fact that "this is how Russians say it".

Unfortunately this is my first language, I don't have any others to lean on. It's the "something else" bit that confuses me. E.g. "Он подарил мне подарок" - it's fairly easy to see that there is a subject, object and indirect object. Sometimes when the subject is absent it's obvious e.g. "Говорят, что...", it's obvious that the implied subject is people/they. But what is the subject in "Где ему быть"?? But I am sure, as you say, with some more figuring out and some more exposure it'll slowly become natural/obvious.

I've found the explanation in my usual french grammar book (Grammaire pratique du russe by Anne Boulanger). In the chapter about "L'expression impersonnelle et les équivalents du 'on' français", treating about possibility, impossibility, necessity, duty, order, fatality, etc, there are explanations closely related to the use of the verb at the infinitive. And with the infinitive often comes the dative (or adverb like можно, нельзя, etc).

The problem I have with the dative is when there is no verb at all and you have to guess the meaning from the context. I don't count the number of times when I heard the question что тебе? without understanding what was ask

Perhaps the best way to think about the phrase "Где ему быть?" should be "Где [можно] ему быть?"

[neofight78]

Random aside:

I was mooching around the Mosfilm channel last night and was reminded of the film Не горюй, in particular this fantastic scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfobzkJmlX8 (Unfortunately Mosfilm has disallowed embedding).

It's not Russian, but Georgian, possibly not even modern Georgian but it's so beautiful I just had to post it. I did watch the film a long time ago when my level of Russian was very basic and understood practically nothing but there was no way I could forget this scene. I'll have to watch the film again now that my comprehension level is higher, it would be great if there were some subtitles (Russian or English) available, if anyone knows where I might find some that would be so awesome.

[neofight78]

Returning to my problems with dative, here's another example confusion. Some times it seems to be used to express possession, and I don't understand why, and more importantly when do I need to use it. E.g.

Он будет требовать, чтобы ему повысили зарплату

Why ему and not его or свою or у него?

[Jar-Ptitsa]

neofight

are you American or English or from another country?

[neofight78]

I am from the UK.

[tarvos]

Returning to my problems with dative, here's another example confusion. Some times it seems to be used to express possession, and I don't understand why, and more importantly when do I need to use it. E.g.

Он будет требовать, чтобы ему повысили зарплату

Why ему and not его or свою or у него?

его is impossible a priori (that would mean someone else's wage). I don't think that there is a big difference between the other variants, although у него sounds super clumsy to me. I would have said свою.