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[battersby.livejournal.com]

How would you properly conjugate быть? Like вы, они, она/он, мы, ты. Much thanks!

Comments

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

budu, budesh', budet; budem, budete, budut.

(where u="y" in Cyrillic)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, you don't.

If you're stating something with an adjective, you just stick the noun and adjective together, like so: он красивый, "he's handsome."

If you're stating something with two nouns, you usually put a — (—) or -- between them, like so: она — русская.

If you really need to emphasize "is/am/are," you would use есть, e.g. "I am Aleksei!" «Я есть Алексей!»

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

Did I not answer the question properly? After reading apollotiger I'm wondering what you're asking-

[gera.livejournal.com]

In present tense you don't use быть at all. It is just omitted (does not exit) where you would use am/is/are in English.

Interestingly, this is also true for Hebrew which makes Russian traslations of the Bible more literal than the English ones.

[noser.livejournal.com]

Strictly speaking, what you gave is the future tense conjugation of быть. By the way, быть is the only imperfective verb in Russian that has a future tense conjugation.

[beowabbit]

In short, you don’t, at least not in the present tense in modern Russian. As somebody else has pointed out, буду, будешь, etc., are the future tense of быть.

The one present indicative form of быть that is still normally used is есть, which I suspect most Russian speakers would think of as a separate word, because it’s developed a somewhat separate usage. Originally it was the third-person singular present indicative of быть. Note that (as you would expect for a form of the verb “to be” in an inflected language), it’s pretty irregular, ending in a soft -ть rather than a hard -т like all other 3sg. pres. ind. Russian verbs I know.

You might also encounter the form суть in older literature (or in very formal writing); that was the 3d person plural present indicative. Nowadays есть is invariant for number.

There used to be first- and second-person forms as well, but they aren’t used any more. They were (я) есмь, (ты) еси, (мы) есми, (вы) ести. According to http://www.answers.com/topic/russian-grammar (which is where I looked up the forms), they were used as late as the 19th century. You can see some echos of Latin and Sanskrit in those forms; compare я есмь, вы ести with Latin (ego) sum, (vos) estis, and есть and суть with Latin est, sunt.

[logodaedaly.livejournal.com]

As others have said above, there are no present-tense forms of быть (with the exception of an emphatic usage of есть: "Он есть учитель.")

However, the Old Russian/Old Church Slavonic forms do crop up in poetry. They appear in one of my favorite Tsvetaeva poems:

Я — есмь. Ты — будешь. Между нами — бездна.
Я пью. Ты жаждешь. Сговориться — тщетно.
Нас десять лет, нас сто тысячелетий
Разъединяют. — Бог мостов не строит.

Будь! — это заповедь моя. Дай — мимо
Пройти, дыханьем не нарушив роста.
Я — есмь. Ты будешь. Через десять весен
Ты скажешь: — есмь! — а я скажу: — когда-то...

[gera.livejournal.com]

Are you familiar with anything Владимир Высоцкий wrote?

[logodaedaly.livejournal.com]

A little, yeah. (I'm the English-language alter ego of skitalets.)

[gera.livejournal.com]

Oh, nice to know, hi, there :)

I just figured you may like this poem (http://www.livejournal.com/users/gera/103103.html), which is one the few non-songs that he wrote and also one of my favorites.
This is very much about himself.

[logodaedaly.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's amazing.

[gera.livejournal.com]

Yeah...The ending gives you goosebumps if you realize that he died 3 years later, at 42.
Here's another one (http://www.kulichki.com/vv/pesni/i-snizu-led-i.html) of his non-songs, his very last poem, dedicated to his wife, Marina Vladi, a famous French actress of Russian decent.

Also, note the ending. He died 5 days later of a heart attack.

[padruka1988.livejournal.com]

NO NO NO!! Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!
It is incorrect! You never, ever, ever, ever, EVER say "Я есть Алексей". You are literally saying "I am there is Alex." This makes no sense! If you want to emphasize soemthing, you should say же. Of course, there are certain rules. And 99% of the time, you don't NEED "to be". You can just use your voice to accentuate the words, just like in English!

Я Лиза. What else could this sentence possibly mean? Russian nouns decline, and because of this handy yet slightly difficult to learn feature, you don't need "to be". So Я же Лиза. is rather... Well, the zhe is unnecessary.

And now for a quick lesson in есть. This means "there is, there are". У меня собака есть... У меня есть работа.... т.п. By me there is a dog... By me there is a job... Etc. If someone says "У вас или Кока-кола или Пепси?" to a waiter, the waiter could simply say "У нас Кока-кола". I don't know if this situation is even plausible, but it was the first example I could think of. The point is that есть is used to say whether or not THERE IS or THERE ARE something, but not that SOMETHING IS. Does that make sense?

[quieres.livejournal.com]

In russian we have two "is" verbs "быть" and "являться" simmilar to spanish verbs "estar" and "ser". In present we usually omit "быть", unless an impersonal form "есть" (hay in spanish) is used. Past forms are "был", "была" (female) and "были" (plurar), future forms are "я буду", "мы будем", "ты будешь", "вы будете", "он/она будет", "они будут".

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Thats future tense I think...

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

You forgot было, the past neuter form.

[oryx_and_crake]

:: If someone says "У вас или Кока-кола или Пепси?" to a waiter, the waiter could simply say "У нас Кока-кола".

This is exactly where you need to use "есть".
- У вас есть Кока-Кола? or Что у вас есть - Кока-кола или Пепси? (when you are addressing a waiter or a shop assistant)
- У тебя Кока-Кола? (informally, when addressing a friend who sits at a table next to you and sips something tasty.)

Another example. You are going to go for grocery shopping and you ask your mother:
- Хлеба купить? (Shall I buy bread?)
- Хлеб есть. ([No,] we have some [bread].)

[oryx_and_crake]

When you are thinking some deep philosophical thoughts, you can say something along these lines: Я есть. Вселенная есть. Бог есть. (Meaning that you really exist and acknowledge your own existence.)
I cannot think of another example of using "быть" in first person present. The Old Church Slavonic had all forms:

аз есмь
мы есмы
вы есте
они суть

but none of those are used in modern Russian.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Aheh. Sorry bout that then. :)
(So, есть is like the Latin "est" or "sunt"? As in, "There is/are a fly in my soup"?)

[oryx_and_crake]

"There is/are a fly in my soup"

Yes, indeed, you don't need "есть" here:
У меня в супе муха.

[night1ngale.livejournal.com]

Hm. We still use суть not in primary meaning like "core of subject" I think. But very rarely. Like Нечто суть что нибудь. It's probably short version of "по сути".

[oryx_and_crake]

Sorry, суть is plural, therefore it cannot be used with нечто which is always singular. It is a very common mistake, though.

[oryx_and_crake]

And please note that noun суть means essense and is different from the verb суть which is a third person plural of быть.

[night1ngale.livejournal.com]

(Sorry for writing in Russian now, but it drives me crazy to write such things in English)
Товарищ, я всего лишь говорю что можно к примеру написать: Бутылка это суть сосуд мудрости (не надо воспринимать буквально, это всего лишь первое что пришло в голову). Перефразируем и получаем: Бутылка по сути сосуд мудрости.
Так понятно о чем я?
Ну и естественно постоянно используемое значение слова, определение которого дается в Лингве.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>Бутылка это суть сосуд мудрости

You cannot say so in Russian, it's wrong.
Суть as a verb was a plural form, so what you wrote was just illiterate.
Бутылка есть сосуд мудрости would be correct.

Note that there are TWO DIFFERENT words суть - one is a noun (the 2nd meaning that you use) and one is a 3rd person plural form of a verb. Those are DIFFERENT words, see?

And please remember that THE WORKING LANGUAGE OF THIS COMMUNITY IS ENGLISH -- so if you cannot contribute in English here, simply don't do it at all.

[night1ngale.livejournal.com]

Hm, I couldn't find examples but I remember clearly that I read cases of such using of word "суть".

Like here:
Один Мудрец сказал: "Нижняя часть моей головы - суть рельсы". А как сказал, так крыша у него и поехала.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

If the guy said "Рельсы суть нижняя часть моей головы", then it's OK. If it was like you mentioned, it's illiterate.

The fact that you've seen a mistake somewhere wouldn't mean that it wasn't a mistake.

[night1ngale.livejournal.com]

Ok, ok, I'm wrong and you're right :)

[yms.livejournal.com]

Non-songs? heh...
http://67.104.22.37/russ/mp3/00/0600--/0618/00_0618_05_5.mp3
http://67.104.22.37/russ/mp3/tm/vv07_10.mp3

[gera.livejournal.com]

Wow! Thanks!
I (or rather my family) used to have one of the most complete collections in the 80s, including his private performance at brothers Vainers' place, but I don't remember hearing this one as song.
(Although, background noise in one of them sounds like Vainer's voice).

[yms.livejournal.com]

The original pages of these records are:
http://vv.uka.ru/07/07.html
http://vv.uka.ru/29/29.html

and another site with these records and info:
http://vysotsky.km.ru/russ/page/phonogramm/0600--/0618/0_spisok.html
http://vysotsky.km.ru/russ/page/phonogramm/0500--/0541/0_spisok.html

These two sites, http://vysotsky.km.ru/ and http://vv.uka.ru/, have huge collections of Vysotsky's mp3 records. About 20G or so.

[gera.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[ob-ivan.livejournal.com]

afaik,
аз (=я) езмь, мы езьмы
ты еси, вы есте
он есть, они суть (cf. Latin 'sunt', Fr. 'sont' etc)

and in fact 'суть' is used in meaning of '(they) are'. e.g. instead of "решения уравнения f(x)=g(x) есть точки пересечения графиков функций f и g" one should say "решения уравнения f(x)=g(x) суть точки пересечения ..." (though the example is kinda rare in common life, in maths the phrases like this come out everywhere)

[oryx_and_crake]

Never saw "езмь/езьмы", and I deal with Church Slavonic pretty much.

[ob-ivan.livejournal.com]

ok, you win. i've said, that was As Far As I Know. no wonder i could be mistaken

[oryx_and_crake]

Well, I might be mistaken too, you know. I have never had any formal training in Old Slavonic/Church Slavonic.