(no subject)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Question on phrasing...
To say, "I have no name," would you say "У меня не имя" or "У меня нет имя" or something different entirely?
-Asa

Comments

[annyway.livejournal.com]

У меня нет имени.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Just as an explanation of the answers you got: when negating the existence of something using "нет", the negated thing is usually (always?) in the genitive case. "имени" is the genitive of "имя" -- there is a small group of nouns that follow this pattern.

The genitive case is used in other situations with negation as well, but blah I'm lazy. =)

[nemica.livejournal.com]

У меня нет чего (кого)? У меня нет имени (друга).

[kart.livejournal.com]

Эта фраза приемлемо?
Я безымянный.

Is this phrase acceptable?
I am nameless.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's exactly what I was going for. :)

[yms.livejournal.com]

BTW, this pattern is close to French. A French would say "Je n'ai pas de nom". This "de" is much like Russian genitive case.

[welgar.livejournal.com]

Er, I think it wouldn't go well with a person. "Безымянный" usually goes with objects. E.g., "безымянный корабль" (nameless ship) or "безымянный город" (nameless town).

BTW, since "фраза" is feminine, you should use "приемлема" instead of "приемлемо" (which is a neuter form).

some words about declension

[shellesie.livejournal.com]

имя, семя, темя, пламя, время, бремя (name, seed, top of the head, flame, time, burden)
These word are quite specific and are to be declineв this way:
Genitive: имени, семени and so on (similarly);
Dative: имени, семени
Accusative: им<я>, семя
Instrumental:именем, семенем
Prepositional: имени, семени

Re: some words about declension

[shellesie.livejournal.com]

oh, i forgot about племя (tribe). This way too.

Re: some words about declension

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

You also forgot вымя. ;-D It's my favourite -мя word.

[noser.livejournal.com]

When speaking Russian, you got to declense and inflect stuff. Otherwise it's gibberish.

Re: some words about declension

[shellesie.livejournal.com]

how could i?? such a necessary russian word =)

[kart.livejournal.com]

Ooops! Thanks for catching that.

[yms.livejournal.com]

And one more "BTW": there are a lot of ****.net domains, where **** is some Russian word in genitive case. For example: http://pisem.net, http://deneg.net/, http://anekdotov.net/, http://nichego.net :)