(no subject)

[bellezzarubata.livejournal.com]

Is there a trick to easily remembering 'это' as "this is" vs. as an adjective?  I hope this makes sense.  I think I have it but to me it seems like a fine line.

Comments

[bellezzarubata.livejournal.com]

"This THING" is a good one! I took French in high school, so that bit also makes sense. Thanks so much. : )

[bellezzarubata.livejournal.com]

Likewise...which text is your class using?

[pzrk.livejournal.com]

Excellent!
/me, being native speaker, can't find better example.

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

Actually, "this is" is exactly "это есть". This is a pencil = Это есть карандаш. However, in a modern Russian we do not use "есть" as an equivalent of "is". "Это" is exactly "This". So think of it as "это карандаш" = "this ('is' implied) a pencil".

That trick works in the opposite direction (when Russians learn English and try to find a rule why to use those "unneeded" 'is', 'am' and 'are'). I don't know if it will work for the learners of Russian.

[kart.livejournal.com]

When the Russian pronoun for "this" stands alone as the subject of a sentence, it defaults to neuter-singular: это.
Это карандаш.

When the subject of a sentence is a noun phrase made of a this-pronoun (эт*) and another noun, the words must agree. Thus you have to use этот/эта/это/эти in agreement with the gender and number of the noun.
Этот мужчина сказал мне, что это - карандаш.