A little help?

[xxblackxsatinxx.livejournal.com]

привет!

I want to take the time to thank everyone who helped me out with my last inquiry! It was very much appreciated and I greatly enjoy learning new things. :)

I have another quick thing I'd like to see if I'm understanding properly! We've moved onto "adjectives"... and I find they can be rather confusing but I think I'll pick it up sooner or later. Let's hope for sooner.

Now, I deviated a little from what my workbook was asking me to do and that's why I want to make sure I didn't complete butcher it. Now, they were giving us "celebrity" names and we had to ascribe an adjective to them.

So, these are the ones that I chose...

Билл Клинтон - Он не хороший президент.
Джоди Фостер - Она очень хорошая. (I don't know if I should elaborate and put actress... the example they gave us was... Лиз Тэйлор - Она очень культурная.)
Джулия Робертс - Она красивая.
Том Хенкс - Он очень большой мужчина. (I wanted to make sure, I know the word man by definition looking at the word, you'd think feminine, but the adjective does conjugate with the "biological" gender, right? Kinda like.. дедушка?)
Билл Гейтс - Он очень толковий.
Леонардо Дикаприо - Он маленький.

сспасибо большое!

Comments

[xxblackxsatinxx.livejournal.com]

Ooooh wow, my typing is horrible! I apologize, I'm using one of those "online typers" that converts my keyboard as I type.. I still haven't gotten the hang of it and always forget my soft signs!

молковий

I was trying to say he's very smart.. :\

[ryururu.livejournal.com]

толковый

my variant is:

Билл Клинтон - Он не хороший президент.
Джоди Фостер - Она очень хорошая.
Лиз Тэйлор - Она очень культурная.)
Джулия Робертс - Она красивая.
Том Хенкс - Он очень высокий (пожилой) мужчина.
Билл Гейтс - Он очень толковый.
Леонардо Ди Каприо - Он маленький. (better невысокий, маленький it's not very polite).

[oryx_and_crake]

Он не хороший президент. is wrong - the correct version is Он нехороший президент, or, even better - Он плохой президент.

[ryururu.livejournal.com]

there is no error but just a difference:

Он нехороший президент = Он плохой президент
Он не хороший президент = Он не хороший президент, но и не такой плохой.

so the question is what the author really means.

[oryx_and_crake]

As you see for yourself, you cannot use "Он не хороший президент" as a standalone sentence.

[ryururu.livejournal.com]

no, it's very possible:

Он не хороший президент. Но и не хуже предыдущего. written and colloqual (the meaning is clear from intonation).

also in not standalone one:

Он не хороший президент, а замечательный.
Он не хороший президент, но бывает и лучше.

[oryx_and_crake]

Your examples disprove your own point. Stop arguing for the sake of arguing and go read Rosenthal.

[ryururu.livejournal.com]

rosenthal did not know everything...

[oryx_and_crake]

Oh really? OK, please point out another respectable source to me, then.

[ryururu.livejournal.com]

брокгауз и эфрон, даль, ожегов...

[oryx_and_crake]

Very funny, haha.

[ryururu.livejournal.com]

Yep
:)))

[oryx_and_crake]

OK. Now please keep in mind that this community was created to help non-native speakers of Russian learn Russian. It is not intended as a place for people to exercise their sense of humour. And you certainly do not help language learners when you give them false information or list Brockgauz and Ephron as authorities on modern Russian grammar. Consider yourself warned.

[ryururu.livejournal.com]

it's you began to do it: when you lost all your "arguments", you began to refer to title of books, and then to spam.
keep it in your mind too.

[oryx_and_crake]

Consider yourself warned, 2nd time.

[ryururu.livejournal.com]

you may ban me. it will show you desability in arguments.
:)))

[oryx_and_crake]

I will, don't worry. You are banned for giving people crap instead of information and for bickering with a moderator. Bye.

[krendel-a.livejournal.com]

Russian isn't have word "молковий":)
Next level the best "Russian матерный":)
If you want to speak russian (or may be write Russian) - get my ICQ from my profile.
And may be I will do my English better.

[xxblackxsatinxx.livejournal.com]

I feel incredibly stupid now. I got my cursive and print mixed again! Guuuh..

I totally meant толковий.

Unfortunately, I haven't used ICQ in like 10 years! :(

[xxblackxsatinxx.livejournal.com]

Oh for crying out loud, I'm just digging myself a crave here. I ALWAYS forget those when I'm typing..


Thanks so much! ^_^ I'm sure you guys are just rolling your eyes now. ;)

[moonbathe.livejournal.com]

haha, I felt the same way with my last post. my typing is always totally incorrect compared to my writing. you aren't alone. XD the online keyboards are tricky, I swear! :P

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

grandfather/old man = дедуШка

> the adjective does conjugate with the "biological" gender, right?

Right. Remember there're 3 genders in Russian and there's plural. So you get 3x2=6 different adjective conjugations based only on the gender and count (there're cases and short adjectives which make even more).

When the gender isn't known or you're talking about an abstract person (who can be either a man or a woman), the gender is by default masculine and so you'd normally refer to this person as он, кто, этот, тот, человек and so on with everything in masculine.

Now, there're some nouns that come only in masculine form (or the feminine form exists but the masculine is preferred over it -- you'll probably learn this later), but are applicable to women as well. In this case you use the gender applicable to the noun, not the person. A good example is президент. This noun is masculine only. If Hillary Clinton had became a president of the US, you could've said after a while:

Она - хороший президент.

In here:
она=she, feminine
хороший=good, masculine
президент=president, masculine

Likewise there're nouns that come only in feminine forms only but are applicable to men too. For example, if you want to say that your brother is a sloven (that is, he isn't very tidy), you can say something like this:
мой брат - большой/большая грязнуля
мой брат - большой/большая неряха
In here:
мой=my
брат=brother, masculine
большой=big, masculine
большая=big, feminine
грязнуля=slob, feminine
неряха=sloven, feminine

I don't know if both forms of the adjective are officially acceptable (per the current rules of the language), but I don't have problems with both.