Question

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

Is there a way to take an ordinary verb, say "manufacture," and make it so that it's passive?

"The company manufactures toilets." vs
"The toilets are manufactured by the company."

Only, you know, in Russian?

What I *want* to assume (because I'm always full of bad ideas) is that you can just add -ся to a verb and do a little instrumental case action for an instant fix. But... something tells me that's not exactly right.

Any help is awesome! Thanks, guys! :D

Comments

Yes

[gera.livejournal.com]

Комания производит унитазы.
Унитазы производятся компанией.

(The latter sounds kinda awkward without a context).

Re: Yes

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

Sooo, you made the verb plural (to reflect the noun), added -ся, instrumentalized компания, and lived happily ever after!

Can you do this with any verb? Are there exceptions?

Re: Yes

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Careful there. "Петр Иванович укусился собакой", for example, would be totally ridiculous.

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

What would be the correct way to say someone was bitten by a dog?

[oryx_and_crake]

Петр был укушен собакой.
or
Петра укусила собака.
(The latter is preferable, because the passive voice usually sounds too formal. It would look OK in formal writing though.)

[mr-yogurt.livejournal.com]

Пётр Иванович был укушен собакой.

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Петра Ивановича укусила собака.

Петр Иванович был укушен собакой (this, by the way, is genuine passive voice) — is technically correct, but one would hardly ever put it this way.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>one would hardly ever put it this way

why, a police report would - "был неоднократно укушен собакой с особым цинизмом по предварительному сговору с отягчающими обстоятельствами группой лиц". My English definitely fails to render that, but be sure that any Russian policeman can produce miles and miles of stuff like this :)

A good example of bureaucratese using passive voice

[oryx_and_crake]

"Дикие кошки стреляются из ружей с собаками" (a phrase from a book on hunting).
Here the approach "add -ся to make it passive voice" spectacularly failed, as the phrase does not mean "(people normally) shoot wild cats using guns and hounds" but rather "widl cats shoot themselves with hound-equipped guns".

[noser.livejournal.com]

Instead of using reflexive verbs, which don't always work the way you want them to, you should go with passive participles.

That is: Унитазы произведены компанией. Кто-то был укушен собакой.

In addition to being correct, this is as close as possible to the original English text as well.

Re: Yes

[gera.livejournal.com]

It's plural because it agrees with the object. Should the object have been singular, the verb would singular too.
Унитаз производится компанией.
-ся indicates passive in this case.

Grammatically you can do that pretty much with any verb. For many verbs and contexts it doesn't make any sense though.

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

What I *want* to assume (because I'm always full of bad ideas) is that you can just add -ся to a verb and do a little instrumental case action for an instant fix. But... something tells me that's not exactly right.

You can do that... фирма производит унитазы, унитазы производятся фирмой... just don't overuse it, for stylistic reasons. Remember that if you just want to stress a different part of the sentence, you can often just swap the word order, eg. туалеты производит фирма...

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

right, don't overcomplicate things. Passive voice is discouraged (hah hah hah) in English; I imagine it is in Russian too?

Sometimes it's just easier to say what you want to say: the company makes toilets.

[oryx_and_crake]

Not exactly discouraged but if you overdo it you would sound too stiff and pompous/ bureaucratese.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Or Roman. ;) The Romans were huge fans of the passive voice.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I doubt that too may Russians can recognize Roman influence right away :))

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

Not sure it requires the instrumental case, but you can take a present imperfective verb, decline it correctly (i.e., sing. vs plural) and add -cya and it most always works. This will give you present passive voice.

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

What happens if you want to use past passive?

[oryx_and_crake]

Унитазы производились компанией (continuous process in the past)

Унитазы были произведены компанией (for perfect tense; this particular batch has been manufactured, get done and over with.)

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

PPP are marriages of verbs and adjectives as a professor would say. They take two forms: to be + short form, or the long form.

Kniga byila napisana: The book was written (by...)
Ya chitala knigu, napisannuyu ... (I read a book, which was written...)

So take the infin, drop the t + myakii znak, and replace with:
-a/enn
- t
- d

there are specific rules. You should loko them up. Someone stop me if I'm wrong!

[cheytobot.livejournal.com]

Then happens "Унитазы произведены". :)

[cheytobot.livejournal.com]

1) Компания производит....
2) Унитазы произведены...

[svyatogor.livejournal.com]

@cheytobot:

come on, these are really different tenses. 'Компния прозиводит' - сейчас, while 'Унитазы произвены' - вчера. Not a really good example.

Taking a more generic look:

Объект (кто, что) производит действие (кого, что)

converting this will result in:

Действие (кто, что) производится объектом (кем, чем)

[cheytobot.livejournal.com]

The toilets are manufactured</> же, блин.

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Yeah... "are," as opposed to "have been manufactured". YOU LOSE.

[cheytobot.livejournal.com]

слив защитан.

[svyatogor.livejournal.com]

i'm sure people would appreciate if you avoid using jargon, especially LJ one. hardly can it be understood by foreign readers :)

[noser.livejournal.com]

"произведены" is a perfectly good translation for "are manufactured".

If it was "are being manufactured", OTOH, then no.

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Plain wrong.

[noser.livejournal.com]

You are :)

Whooooaaa

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

What is that? I don't recognize that form.

Re: Whooooaaa

[gera.livejournal.com]

That would be past tense.

Re: Whooooaaa

[oryx_and_crake]

произведены is a participle from производить

Re: Whooooaaa

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Passive, perfective participle. :)

Re: Whooooaaa

[oryx_and_crake]

... in the past tense.

Do participles have tenses? I think they do, e.g. производящий vs. производивший. Our Russian language teacher at school once said they don't, though, which left me confused for several years.

Re: Whooooaaa

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

They don't. Because perfective ones are all "past" and imperfective ones can be either "past" or "present".

Re: Whooooaaa

[oryx_and_crake]

I still don't get that last part of it. To me, производящий is a participle of present tense, and производивший is the same of past tense. They are clearly forms of the same verb and they are clearly different.

Re: Whooooaaa

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Active ones, yes, maybe. But, производимый, how do you put it into past tense? Or произведенный into the present?

Re: Whooooaaa

[oryx_and_crake]

OK, let's limit the problem to active imperfective ones. It is more or less clear with the perfective, and the past of производимый could be more or less formed with the help of был (был производим, however awful it sounds).

Re: Whooooaaa

[constpd.livejournal.com]

Производимый is not a participle, it's a verbal adjective (отглагольное прилагательное)

Participles...

[brocster.livejournal.com]

Производимый is not a participle, it's a verbal adjective (отглагольное прилагательное)


Not to get into an argument or anything, but I was always under the impression that a participle was a verbal adjective. A quick check of the dictionary yielded the following:

Main Entry: par·ti·ci·ple
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, modification of Latin participium, from particip-, particeps
a word having the characteristics of both verb and adjective; especially: an English verbal form that has the function of an adjective and at the same time shows such verbal features as tense and voice and capacity to take an object


I was taught that Russian has four basic participles:

1) Present Active -- производящий (which is producing)
2) Present Passive -- производимый (which is being produced)
3) Past Active -- производивший (imperfective: which was producing) and произведший (perfective: which had produced)
4) Past Passive -- произведённый (which had been produced)


- Andrew

Re: Whooooaaa

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

производимый (present) - производившийся (past continuous =))