Russian Maths

[jesuschrist2k1.livejournal.com]

Hey, everyone. I'm learning the Russian numerals right now and I figure that a good way to get them down is to do a little bit of arithmetic. How would I say, "six times seven is forty-two?"

Here's my guess: "Шесть умножить на восеме равно сорок-два."

Спасибо!

Comments

[tsoka.livejournal.com]

6*8=48 =)))))

>Шесть умножить на восем[ь] равно сорок восемь.

"сорок восемь" - without hyphen

But usually "шестью восемь - сорок восемь"

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

erm... vocyem is 8... cyem is 7 lol.

oh!

[tsoka.livejournal.com]

8 is восемь
7 is семь

[jesuschrist2k1.livejournal.com]

What a blunder! Maybe I should learn my arithmetic, then I'll try it in a new language...

[jesuschrist2k1.livejournal.com]

What case is "шестью" in?

Thanks for the help!

[simonff.livejournal.com]

Good question. It's a pretty special situation. For the first operand in multiplication, you use these: единожды, дважды, трижды, четырежды, пятью, шестью, семью, восемью, девятью. (You don't use this form for bigger numbers.)

Eдиножды is pretty rare, though - nobody cares for asking about 1*5. :)

Eдиножды, дважды, трижды, четырежды also mean once/twice/thrice/quadrice. (Quadrice is not really an English word, but I'm trying to underscore that they all have the same structure.) They are NOT normal ordinal numerals, and thus are not cases of один/два/три/четыре.

Пятью, шестью, семью, восемью, девятью *look* like instrumental (творительный) cases of пять/шесть/семь/восемь/девять. However, these are also special forms, and the stress is shifted. Normally you would say пятью (Он тронул стену всеми пятью пальцами), but in multiplication it's пятью восемь - сорок.

So, the normal numeral stress pattern in the instrumental case is:

Пятью, шестью, семью, восемью, девятью

In multiplication, it's

Пятью, шестью, семью, восемью, девятью

Go figure. I actually don't even know why this happens. :)

[welgar.livejournal.com]

In speech, you may also omit "умножить" and/or "равно" and say "шесть на семь - сорок два".

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>I actually don't even know why this happens.

Yeah, it took me a couple of minutes of meditation to admit that I don't know this either :)

[simonff.livejournal.com]

My best guess is sentence flow - keeping the normal stress would make the phrases sound rather awkward.

[yms.livejournal.com]

For the first operand in multiplication, you use these: единожды, дважды, трижды, четырежды, пятью, шестью, семью, восемью, девятью.

Not always. When you learn or remember the multiplication table, you use пятью etc. But when you perform real calculations, you use compound forms more often: "сколько будет пятью сто двадцать пять?" sounds much less naturally than "пять умножить на сто двадцать пять".