"many things"

[david-us.livejournal.com]

Still listening to my audio tapes.

I had to say, "This morning I bought many things."

I said:
Сегодня утром я купил много вещей.

I was surprised to hear the construction
Сегодня утром я купил много всего.

Is my sentence incorrect or awkward? If it is correct, what connotative difference does it have with the other sentence?

David Emerling
Memphis, TN

Comments

[odpaam.livejournal.com]

Your sentence is absolutely correct!
Сегодня утром я купил много всего. - has a little bit other meaning. My English is not good enough to explain this difference.

[miram.livejournal.com]

Your sentence, without any context, suggests to me that you've bought many garments.
The other sentence means that you've bought lots of stuff, without any details.

[sunny-anechka.livejournal.com]

+1

[malim-praedari.livejournal.com]

+2.

[teh-milla.livejournal.com]

a bit of this

[taurvat.livejournal.com]

+3

[odpaam.livejournal.com]

If you talk about some specific objects you've bought - you phrase is correct.
If you talk about nothing special, it's better to say Сегодня утром я купил много всего.

[teh-milla.livejournal.com]

a bit of this

[oryx_and_crake]

I would say your version is OK.
In any language, including Russian, there are many ways to say anything.

[fregat118.livejournal.com]

+1

[-pucker-.livejournal.com]

+2

[zoa-mel-gustar.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right. Sentence "Сегодня утром я купил много всего." is just a little more informal. But you could use your version in informal talk too.

[teh-milla.livejournal.com]

and a bit of this
and you get the difference

gl!

[gera.livejournal.com]

Сегодня утром я купил много всего. ~ This morning I bought a lot of stuff.

[karakal.livejournal.com]

In the absence of a context, вещи in this Russian sentence is clothes.

Alternative constructions of the sentence are numerous.

[zauberer.livejournal.com]

As mentioned earlier, «много всего» is closer to "lots of stuff". «Вещи» are not necessarily clothes (cf. Сегодня утром я купил много разных вещей doesn't have a clothing connotation).

It seems that your textbook is a little bit imprecise with regard to translation because it suggests variants of translation which are not quite obvious even for native speaker.

good old textbooks!

[6-02x10e23.livejournal.com]

I would have written EXACTLY what you wrote, based on what I have learned from the textbooks I have , so far. I just read the other comments here.I guess that people who write the textbooks avoid anything that is slightly colloquial or slang-ish and stick to formal language, just so we don't say something informal at an inappropriate time, unknowingly.Some of the books I use are 50 years old or more and probably a lot of the language is antiquated. but...better safe than sorry:)

[towarysc.livejournal.com]

In general, Russian вещь is not an equivalent to English 'thing'. When you say 'thing' in English, you may mean something abstract, but in Russian you'll have to find some other way to express this: for example, 'things have changed' = "всё изменилось". In your example, when you say 'things' you really mean objects, but in Russian it is an unnecessary specification that this what you bought were really material objects - well, necessary in official language, but not in everyday speech.

[oksanaya.livejournal.com]

еще можно сказать "Сегодня утром я купил много чего", если далее последует перечисление того, что было куплено.