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[detroit-cobra.livejournal.com]

Привет.

I was wondering if anyone here would be kind enough as to tell me of the pronouns in Russian? Like, I, he, she etc. Is there 2 forms of 'you', like in French? Im just looking into starting to learn Russian soon, and I thought this would help me a bit.

Спасибо in advance. :-)

Comments

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Yes. The personal pronouns are as follows (nominative cases):

я (I), ты (you [tu]), он (he), она (she), оно (it), мы (we), вы (you [vous]), они (they).

[detroit-cobra.livejournal.com]

Hey wow what a quick reply! Thank you.
Does the 'they' они , stay the same no matter what gender the 'they' is? Like ils for a group of boys and elles for a group of girls. I dont know why I keep referring to things in terms of French...

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

Yes it does. (No such thing as ils and elles ;) ).

[detroit-cobra.livejournal.com]

ahh okay. less things to learn is always a good thing! thank you :)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Gender in Russian is done away with in plural, even with adjectives. You say:

синяя майка (a blue t-shirt)
синий чемодан (a blue suitcase)
синие майки (blue t-shirts)
синие чемоданы (blue suitcases)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Something I've been wondering for a while:

in English, when we're not sure of someone's sex/gender, we often refer to the person as "them": "I saw them", "They're standing over there", etc., even though they're only one person. Does Russian do this?

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Be aware that, as in just about every inflected language, the personal pronouns have oblique forms that are more or less completely irregular.

This page puts it all in a nutshell:

http://masterrussian.com/aa110100a.shtml

[oryx_and_crake]

Well, no. (And it is quite ungrammatical in English, too, if you ask me - the language is mutilated for the sake of political correctness.) Normally masculine is generic ("Кто-то пришел", "Я видел какого-то человека" - even if the person in question was a woman). Please note that Russian человек is closer to English "person" as it can refer to a man or to a woman, but any adjectives related to it in will still be in masculine. You can use an indefinite pronoun "кто-то" ("Там кто-то пришел" - "Someone has come") but still with masculine form of adjectives and verbs.

I think, though, that you start from the wrong end - I could give you plenty of examples but they will probably not do you any good at your present level of language knowledge.

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

Wow! I didn't know about it! Something new every day :)

I think we'd say
"Я увидел кого-то" and "Кто-то стоит там".

[oryx_and_crake]

P.S. Yes, there are two forms of "you", or, rather, three forms - ты, Вы and вы - exactly like in French where there are "tu", "Vous" and "vous".

[http://users.livejournal.com/celsium_/]

"it" does not always mean "оно". When you speak about animals or some inanimates it may mean "он", "она", or "оно". Because all nouns in Russion have gender. Sorry my English.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Actually, “they” is not mutilating the language for political correctness — I wouldn't think that Austen, Shakespeare, or Thackeray would use it for political correctness (see Wikipedia's entry on the subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they)). I think it's one of those 'holy wars' among grammarians in English, sort of like the splitting of the infinitive.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Yeah. There's some debate over the propriety of the singular they (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they) in writing, but in speech, it's quite common.

[http://users.livejournal.com/celsium_/]

and even "они", for example when you speak about trousers, or scissors

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Oh, right; sorry about that.

Like in the example I gave above, «майка» (t-shirt) and «чемодан» (suitcase) both have genders — «майка» would be referred to as «она», even though one would translate that «она» as “it”, and «чемодан» would be referred to as «он», even though one would translate the «он» as “it”.

[mananas.livejournal.com]

I have never seen anything about a second 'vous'. Can you point me to a reference somewhere? (Sorry, offtopic!)

[oryx_and_crake]

Do you mean the second "vous" in French? I had an impression that French uses "Vous" with a capital V like Russian uses "Вы". I might be mistaken though.

[nur-ein-tier.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it's not capitalized, it's just used for both you plural and you singular, polite; but both look the same (as opposed to Russian "Вы" or German "Sie").

[oryx_and_crake]

My mistake, then. Sorry.

[yms.livejournal.com]

Russian is like French, not like German. See my comment below.

[yms.livejournal.com]

Generally speaking, neither French nor Russian uses capital letters in polite forms of singular pronouns. (German does - Sie.) But in personal letters in Russian the capitalized Вы can be used indeed.

Nevertheless, a lot of people write capitalized Вы in all possible cases, like in Web pages and in advertising, as if they were afraid to look impolite. This is incorrect.

I think, the main reason for this is that they study in Russian school when they should write the capitalized Вы, but never study specifically when to use the lowercase "вы". Such asymmetry causes this mistake. The fact that they can see the lowercase "вы" throughout the Russian literature in all dialogs and sometimes in private letters, for some reason, doesn't make them come to the conclusion that they must use lowercase "вы" themselves.

[oryx_and_crake]

I am sorry, but Russian does use capital letters in polite forms of singular pronoun. Formal (polite) singular Вы is always capitalized. It does not matter whether a letter is a personal one or a business one. It is out of place in an advertisement, though, I agree.

[yms.livejournal.com]

In my comment I already wrote this only case when Russian uses capital letter, it is a letter addressed to a certain person. It is some kind of "double politeness".
All other cases (dialogs, advertising, user manuals etc.) require general rules of capitalization, i.e. lowercase "вы" in the middle of the sentence.

So your statement "Formal (polite) singular Вы is always capitalized" is wrong, and your bold font doesn't make it more correct :)

[oryx_and_crake]

"this only case when Russian uses capital letter, it is a letter addressed to a certain person."

and how's that different from "Formal (polite) singular Вы is always capitalized"?

[yms.livejournal.com]

it means that in all other cases of formal address (such as dialog between two persons, or addressing to an abstract reader) it is NOT capitalized.

[oryx_and_crake]

A dialog is not formal writing. Neither is addressing an abstract reader.

[yms.livejournal.com]

I meant "polite". The situations when "вы" is used for a single person.

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

Thank you, it is very interesting :)

[oryx_and_crake]

Oh, I see. I probably did not make myself clear enough. I meant formal (polite) addressing in writing, such as business correspondence. So, dialogues (no matter how polite) and advertisements do not qualify.