Adjectives

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

And now that I've been corrected in using русски, I just wanted to know when do you use русский and русски, and for what verbs you use по-русский. Also, when I was looking up the dictonary for August, they gave me the noun август and what I'm guessing is the adjective августовский. I'm completely lost there, so I don't even know what question to ask. Can someone explain what's what in that?

Comments

[unxp.livejournal.com]

In Russian = по-русски.
For example, "I speak Russian" = "Я говорю по-русски".
I think, the general rule is: you use that form (the ending "и" instead of "ий") when your sentance can answer a question "how" or "in what way", etc. Basically, when you have some noun with ending "ий" and you want to use it with a prefix "по", you have to change the ending to "и". As simple as that, I think...

[sanin.livejournal.com]

Русски is used in "по-русски" only. "По-русский" does not exist. You can use "на русском", "на английском", etc. though.

And the adjective is августовский, right. :-)

[chaika-jazz.livejournal.com]

Actually there is no such adjective as "русски". The only expression where you can use it is "по-русски" that means "in Russian". I think that you've just mixed up "русский" (= Russian as language or nationality) и "по-русски" (in Russian)

Accoriding to the "августовский" - you're absolutely righ - that's the adj from "август", but I cannot say that it is used a lot.

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Ooooooh, all this time I've been reading this incorrectly. And now for another question, this grammar book states that you use по-русски when answering the question как and русский when answering что, but it states that both как and что mean "what?" What's the difference?

[veraltete.livejournal.com]

"Как" means "how"!"Что" means "what"!That's the difference! Unfortunately I can't imagine a question You can answer with "по-русски", I mean, a sane question, but as far as grammar is conserned, you can answer the question how with по-русски!

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

I know what Kak meant from before, I'm just wondering why they would say that in my book thing...

[chaika-jazz.livejournal.com]

I'll try to explain ...
I'm more than sure that when you studied cases you were taught the questions they are answering to: as to Genetive - кого? чего?, Dative - кому? чему? But these are questions that we (I mean native speakers) use to distinguish them, this is the easiest way for us to say that "Я думаю об облаке" is Prepositional or "У меня нет карандаша" Genetive.
The same thing with "по-русски". For me this expression answers the question "how", but it is impossible to translate it into English saving this question.
I would use this expression in such questions as:
1. Вы умеете писать/читать/говорить по-русски? (Do you write/read/speak Russian?)
2. На каких языках вы говорите? (What languages do you speak?) Я говорю по-русски, по-английски и по-французски. (I speak Russian, English, and French)
To the second question you also can answer Я говорю на русском, на английском и на французском. (I speak Russian, English, and French)


_________
Ooooooh, all this time I've been reading this incorrectly. And now for another question, this grammar book states that you use по-русски when answering the question как and русский when answering что, but it states that both как and что mean "what?" What's the difference?

[vladon.livejournal.com]

"русский" is not the nationality, it's ethnicity.

nationality will be "российский" or "россиянин".

[chaika-jazz.livejournal.com]

That's my fault. You are absolutely right.

[girl-tenor.livejournal.com]

Hm...I wasn't aware of that. Can anybody give (or point to) a good description of how these are used? Is there a straight forward translation of "россиянин" into English? Or, if one were discussing a native citizen of unknown ethnicity from the Russian Federation, would they just be called a citizen of the Russian Federation?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Unfrotunately, the concepts of ethnicity/nationality are too different in Russian and Western consciousness. This is why all people from Russia are Russians for the Westerners (like all people from America are Americans.) Both россиянин and русский seem to be the same. But there is a strict difference in Russian language. Россиянин is a citizen of Russian Federation (which consists of more than 100 nations.) Русский is an ethnic Russian (who are the majority - about 80 per cent - but not the entire population of Russia.) There are ethnic Russians in Latvia, Estonia, Lituania, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Germany, Canada, U.S. etc. etc. etc. - they are русские but not россияне. And there are Russian citizens who are Tatars, Bashkirs, Ukrainians, Germans, Jews, Tuvans, Chukchas, Daghestanis, Chechens etc. etc. etc. They are россияне but no русские. Unfortunately, there is no such difference in English language => no straightforward translation of "россиянин / россиянка / россияне".

P.S.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

To make things worse, there are ethnic Russians who live in Russia but still have no citizenship (like the repatriants from Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan,) and therefore they are русские but not россияне though they do live in Russia, and there are people in Israel whom the locals call Russians because they are emigrès from the former Union but, ethnically, they are no Russians at all but Jews, and there are people from the former Union whose native language (or one of their native languages) is Russian but they are ethnically no Russians though everybody call them so, etc. etc. etc. - for all those people there is a word in modern Russian, "русскоговорящие" (Russian speakers.)

Re: P.S.

[girl-tenor.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info...I'm going to have to draw a diagram to remember this! But the distinction makes sense. One follow-up question: is there a way to distinguish linguistically between an ethnic Jew (not that I'm *entirely* sure what that means) and an ethnic Russian who is a practioner of Judaism?

Re: P.S.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Jewishness in Russia, inlike the U.S., is an ethnicity, or even a race, but not just a religion. Most of Russian Jews are not religious (some of them are even Christian,) but they still are Jews for the ethnic Russians. It's a nation that has a certain amount of their own national/racial signs: the type of their hair etc. -- PLUS most of them origin from the Jewish shteteles from within the old Settlement Line that existed during the Tsar times, their ancestors spoke Yiddish (even if now they don't), etc. See, it's a race here, not a belief. One of the greatest teachers in Russian Orthodox Christian Church, the late Father Alexander Men, was born to a Jewish family. And a Russian practioner of Judaism (surprisingly, there is an entire village of people like this in Central Russia,) is a Judaist, but not a Jew.

[welgar.livejournal.com]

So, "по-русски" is an adverb while "русский" is an adjective.