Another Beginner's Grammar Question

[improperlyhuman]

I'm totally new to Russian grammar, so I want to know if my thinking process is incorrect.

My sentence is

Вечером я пишу в своей гостиной.

I guessed from the ending of гостиная that it is feminine, and в is a preposition, although not expressing motion. So, I looked at the endings for singular feminine nouns in the prepositional case. -ой is not listed on my chart. I also have Schaum's Russian Grammar, and it's not there either. I don't understand this noun suffix.

Thanks

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

This is because nouns do not usually end with -ая.
Гостиная is unusual as nouns go, because it used to be an adjective and still is declined like one.

[orie.livejournal.com]

this word is derived from an adjective that's why it has adjective endings

btw, you shoul omit the word "своей" here

[improperlyhuman]

btw, you shoul omit the word "своей" here

Why? I didn't compose this sentence; I got it from some learning materials.

The living room

[lion-casserole.livejournal.com]

.
"Вечером я пишу в своей гостиной" is a shortened form of "Вечером я пишу в своей гостиной комнате" sentence.

So, "гостиная" (a noon, feminine) is actually "гостиная комната", i.e. "the living room", a room to meet guests in one's house.

Don't be surprised, there is also "гостиный дом", "гостиный флигель", as well as "гостиный двор", "гостиный ряд" in Russian. :)

Re: The living room

[scolar.livejournal.com]

It is not a shortened form, of course. Nobody says "гостиная комната" nowadays. While you are absolutely right pointing out that initially it was an adjective, in modern Russian "гостиная" is a noun, and all your examples with "гостиная" as an adjective are heavily old-fashioned.

However, as oryx_and_crake mentioned, the noun "гостиная" declines as an adjective.

[scolar.livejournal.com]

Off-topic, but the phrase itself sounds a bit strange for a native speaker. It's not completely wrong, for instance, I can imagine it in a letter, but not in a conversation. The problem is that "пишу" is a simple present of imperfect verb. It can be used for the current moment ("I am writing my comment right now"), some repeating activity ("I write into my journal every day") or even in the known future ("This night I write an essay"), but the adverb "вечером" doesn't fit well into any of these cases.

- По вечерам я пишу в своей гостиной.
- Сегодня вечером я пишу в своей гостиной.

Re: The living room

[lion-casserole.livejournal.com]

.
There is just one example of "гостиная" (as a noun) in my post.

That is not mandatory to use "гостиная" instead of "гостиная комната", as well as "ванная" instead of "ванная комната". In the same time one would say "душевая" (never "душевая комната", "кухня", "столовая", "прихожая", "спальня", "операционная", etc.

The adjectives "гостиная" (гостиная комната, мебель) and "гостиный" (гостиный двор) are indeed pretty usual in modern Russian, e.g. http://www.bgd.ru, http://www.m-gid.ru/site.xp/053057053.html

Re: The living room

[scolar.livejournal.com]

Try to google "в гостиной комнате" and "в гостиной". It's like 1:20.

Re: The living room

[lion-casserole.livejournal.com]

.
Could be, but that is not 0:20.

Anyway, I would not recommend the Google search results being an argument.

http://gramota.ru/slovari/dic/?word=%E3%EE%F1%F2%E8%ED%FB%E9&all=x
http://gramota.ru/slovari/dic/?lop=x&bts=x&zar=x&ab=x&sin=x&lv=x&az=x&pe=x&word=%E3%EE%F1%F2%E8%ED%E0%FF

[thelightest.livejournal.com]

+1

Or "Вечерами я пишу в своей гостиной"

[oryx_and_crake]

P.S. And this is not a suffix - this is an ending. Those are two very different things in Russian, so you should not mix them together. The ending is what changes when you decline a noun or an adjective. A suffix very rarely changes in this case.

[emperor-spock.livejournal.com]

Because, unless the fact of your ownership of the living room is important, possessive pronoun is redundant. Writing something in a living room *that belongs to you* is mundane and obvious enough not to be emphasised.

If you haven't already, get ready to drop lots of possessives, since, unlike English, Russian is not very tolerant with those of them that don't add anything semantically.

Using a possessive pronoun could be valid in these modified sentences:

Вечером я пишу в своей гостиной, а Вовка пишет в своей (гостиной). ("At night, I write in 'my' living-room, and Vovka writes in 'his'." It is stressed that each of them writes in their own room, and also, just like in English, the contrast is represented in intonation)

Вечером я пишу в своей гостиной, а не в Вовкиной (гостиной). ("At night, I write in my living room, not Vovka's." Once again there's contrast between your room and someone else's)

[cassandraclue.livejournal.com]

Learning materials are not usually a good guideline for how people actually speak and write, generally. :) The sentences are often written in order to demonstrate certain grammatical principles, not to teach you idiomatic speech.

Here, this sentence to me sounds like you're emphasizing that you're writing in your living room, i.e., "for the past few days, I've been at Vova's house, but tonight I got to write in MY living room" or something of that nature.