How do you refer to cats?

[udarnitsa.livejournal.com]

Let’s say you’re walking down the street and see a cat. You want the cat-lover you’re walking with to see it, so you point at it and say, “Look! A cat!” What word do you use? Кот? Кошка? Котик? If you know the sex of a cat, do you automatically use the correct word?

English doesn’t force us to specify gender the way Russian does, so I find this confusing.

Comments

[soir.livejournal.com]

Смотри, киса!

[maria-d.livejournal.com]

"Смотри, кошечка!" The one Russian entity I really, really miss in English is the "endearment" suffixes :-) "Киса" has babyish connotations and is also used to tease people, so I would be careful with it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nikki/]

I've been meaning to ask that!

[med99.livejournal.com]

A cat of unknown gender is more likely to be called in the feminine.

[udarnitsa.livejournal.com]

It’s the same in English (you can tell by the pronouns). My mother says she thinks of all cats as girls and all dogs as boys. She learned this from coloring books. My father feels much the same way, even though he grew up with an unaltered tomcat.

[alexandrov.livejournal.com]

Ha!

There are 100 versions =)

Most popular:

Смотри, какой котик! (sex of cat - male)

Смотри, какая киса! (sex of cat - female or unknow)

[aveleen.livejournal.com]

Кыыыса!!

[aveleen.livejournal.com]

Yep, because in the unidentified situation the unmarked term is always used. (Male term would be marked in this particualr case.) Same in all the languages where animals are diferrentiated in terms of gender.

And both versions goes for humans too ^_^

[rottenshworz.livejournal.com]

Somethimes this may be a nice way to get slapped or bruised :)

Re: And both versions goes for humans too ^_^

[http://users.livejournal.com/_teemon_/]

Right. :)

[tolangue-agess.livejournal.com]

usually a female form кошка is used
if you are sure the cat is a male, you would say кот

[gvadelupa.livejournal.com]

If the cat looks like the cat in boots from "Shrek 2" movie -- impertinent and experienced -- we can say "Смотри какой котяра!". The word "котяра" is quite slang word.

[gvadelupa.livejournal.com]

Example of "котяра" (вот как выглядит настоящий котяра :) ):

[karashi.livejournal.com]

Kакой котяра!!!
=D

Although if you're walking around Moscow, you'll find a lot of cats about which to make this comment... ;)

[sanin.livejournal.com]

Bottom line: cat is most likely feminine in Russian :-)

Котяра...

[rottenshworz.livejournal.com]

this is just Бомж Подзаборный!
The real Котяра is something like this:
http://libo.ru/ind/graf1/3734.jpg
*^_^*
meow!

Re: Котяра...

[karashi.livejournal.com]

С ума сойти...ваш? =D

[karashi.livejournal.com]

The noun itslef is masculine.

[udarnitsa.livejournal.com]

But кошка looks like the marked form to me because it has the feminine suffix, and кот looks unmarked because it has no suffix.

[karashi.livejournal.com]

*itself

[aveleen.livejournal.com]

-к- is indeed a feminine suffix, but it is not used for marking. Some of the marked feminine suffixes would be -иц- (волчица, тигрица, медведица), -ш- (докторша, секретарша, директорша). All cats are called "кошка", just like in English - "cat" is feminine, unless you want to mark masculine and say "tomcat" (or cow - a bull would be marked as definitely masculine, whereas any bull can safely be called a cow).

Unfortunately no...

[rottenshworz.livejournal.com]

But i like to have one... наглого такого... с отожранной мордой :)

[udarnitsa.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! That’s good to know.