learn_russian | (no subject)

(no subject)

Oh, and another question. When is it appropriate to use иметь over the у+genitive construction?

only when you have to use the infinitive (i.e. "it is nice to have..."), or in some idioms, such as "to make sense" (иметь смысл), etc.

Are you sure? My boyfriend's family (they're Russian) uses иметь in place of у + genitive in more instances than "infinitive" or idioms. I mean, sure, maybe they are being grammatically incorrect...

They are grammatically correct, but stylistically special. This sounds like a dialect (typically Southern Russian or Ukrainian, or "emigrant Russian").

Actually Ukrainian is not a dialect, it's a language with it's own history. Believe me, 'cause i'm citizen of Ukraine and I speak Russian and Ukrainian fluently.
PROUD TO BE UKRAINIAN!

I believe he meant the Ukrainian dialect of Russian; or, rather, that the phenomenon being described could be heard from speakers of Russian from Ukraine. (So difficult to word...:) In any case, I would hope that most of us know that Ukraine has its own language, and a beautiful one at that!

Uhhh yeah, I'm sure cema meant the Ukrainian dialect OF Russian... Not the Ukrainian language...

We had an exchange student from Kamyanets-Podolski... But she hardly ever spoke in Russian, so I didn't find out if she uses иметь over y+genitive.

They are from Yekaterinburg... So maybe this is typical of there.

I was always told that у+genitive was for concrete things and иметь was for abstract things, but I'll let a native tell you for sure.

Also, in formal, official language and written documents иметь is more acceptable, just like "быть" is often replaced with "являться".

Also, there are fixed expressions like "иметь отношение к" or "иметь право", where иметь construction is mandatory/preferrable.

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