(no subject)

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

When to use "от" and when to use "из"?

And...is there any software (preferably free) that teaches Russian typing/helps people type faster in Russian? I was talking to someone on MSN last night and he finally just told me to write in English; I asked him why, and he said no offense, but it's faster. Haha. But I said to him: "надо терпение" (have patience/patience is necessary).

One more thing: every time I ask something, I'm sort of afraid it's been answered already, though it's not in the archives--afterall it doesn't seem that the archive is very complete. Do you guys think it would be a worthy effort to update the archives? After all, you guys spend so much time leaving valuable comments...just a thought.

Comments

[devinshire.livejournal.com]

Though there are some exceptions, you should generally use "от" when something is "from" something and "из" when something literally comes "out" of somehting. You can say that you are "из" your native country, but you cannot say that you received an email "из" your friend from home - that would be "от"! I made this mistake last year and was laughed at for it. :)

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

So is "из" only for someone "from" a place? What about something like "It came from school'?

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

I believe it would be Это пришло из школы.

Also want to emphasize the bottom comment, remember when you learned which nouns to use на and which to use в? It also applies in this situation. Use с with на and из with в.

Я пойду на работу.
Я приду с работы.

Я пойду в школу.
Я приду из школы.

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

ah the виз-нас-кот trick.

В - ИЗ, К - ОТ

[shiro-ki.livejournal.com]

there IS a strong correlation between those prepositions...
в Америку - из Америки
к другу - от друга
the first is about place, the second - about person...
we have another significant opposition, you know:
В - ИЗ, НА - С
tens of shades of meaning... sometimes it's funny, for example, the traditional НА УКРАИНЕ - С УКРАИНЫ changes in Ukrainian - and in Russian! - now, because НА means also AT the part of the state, but В - IN the state :)

Fast typing -
http://urikor.net/rus/Prak00.html
Russian only, I'm sorry! but free :)
they have tutorial in English, but not for Cyrillic k-board...
http://urikor.net/eng/index.html

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

надо терпение
You cannot say so in Russian, though there's a lot of correct ways to say it:
нужно терпение
надо потерпеть
нужно потерпеть
надо быть терпеливым
BUT NOT надо терпение, since "надо" only applies to verbs, not to nouns, while "нужно" can be (theoretically) applied to both (common usage varies, though.)

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the correction(s)!

[stephan-nn.livejournal.com]

нужнО терпение
нУжно потерпеть

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

No, this is not correct. The accent in нужно NEVER falls on the last syllable. NEVER.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

As for the archives: you'd serve a great service to the community if you could search through at least a few last months and send direct links (i.e. everything from the question sign ? to the LEFT in each link) to valuable posts or discussions to my e-mail: moshkow AT moshkow.net. I'll put it into community archive then.

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

Let's first define valuable posts :D

btw, be I'd glad to work on archiving.

[mr-yogurt.livejournal.com]

Probably the most popular software that teaches to type faster in Russian is "Solo on the Keyboard" (http://www.ergosolo.ru); too bad it's shareware, but still it's worth trying. :)

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

I found Solo on the keyboard completely useless. I used http://www.alfatyping.com/index_en.php instead. It's free, it's online, and you just have to mingle with the options once you're in to have it be an English tutorial for typing in Russian. It honestly has helped me out a lot. Well, much. But I'm no longer "looking" for the keys by pecking at a general area :)))

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

Awesome! I'll look into it right away. :D

[ja-va.livejournal.com]

the best software to use if all you want is to type faster is the one that changes set up from classic to phonetic, when most letters correspond to the traditional US set up.
Here is the link:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PaulGor/kbd_e.htm

I think no one mentioned this yet

[oryx_and_crake]

If you measure distances and intervals then you use от... до.

E.g. я пришел из школы (I came from school) BUT расстояние от школы до дома - три километра (The distance from school to my house is three kilometres.)

You will also say
расстояние от одного дерева до другого - два метра (the distance from this tree to that tree is two meters)
от обеда до ужина - три часа (there is three hours from lunch to dinner)
я выучил буквы алфавита от А до Ж (I learned letters of alphabet from А to Ж)