Hallo!

[bugtilaheh.livejournal.com]

The name's Bradley (Брэдли?) or Bug (Баг?) and (и?) я учащийся колледжа (I'm a college student; is Я always capitalized like "I" is in English?). I live in the US in the state of Texas, near Houston. Some of you know me from linguaphiles. Anyway, I'm not a Russian student or anything (but a 3-year and 2-semester Spanish student, yes). I'm sort of learning it on my own (I'd rather learn Czech, but Russian's close enough =P). As of right now, I can *barely* hold a conversation in Czech (and Polish). I doubt it; I just know simple phrases, etc. The same goes for Russian; I already have the Cyrillic alphabet down as well, so all's good.

As some of you may know, my dad is full-blood Czech, and his parents used to speak Czech, but they have since forgotten it all (Grandma can remember some words, but if you spoke to her in Czech, or as she puts it "Bohemian," she wouldn't know how to respond) because they speak English now, and my grandfather is no longer alive. You can thank the good ol' USA for being monolingual. :-/

Anyway, I tend to write too much, so here's some questions about numbers...
I know the numbers in Czech up to 10. Are they the same in Russian? Well, okay, I think some of them are, but not all.
Compare.

Czech (with what it "sounds" like to me with the best romanization I can do):
Jedna (yed-nah), Dva (doo-vah), Tři (trzhee), Čtyři (chtirzhee—that's very difficult to pronounce!) Pět (be-yet), Šest (shest), Sedm (seh-doom), Osm (ah-soom), Devět (dev-e-yet), Deset (de-set)

Russian (with what it "sounds" like, got that from http://www.scifaiku.com/tom/misc/digits/):
один (odin), два (dva), три (tree), четыре (ch'tiri), пять (pyat), шесть (shyist), семь (syem), восемь (vosyim), девять (dyevit), десять (dyesit)

Feel free to correct. I did this quickly.

Comments

[cjoy.livejournal.com]

Well, in Russian "я" is never capitalized (except for the beginning of the sentence ;). Vice versa, "Вы" (the polite form of singular "you" is always capitalized). That's the difference. \\
Numerals in Czech & Russian are very much alike. At least understandable by each other (we had no problems when being in Czech Republic). The only exception is 40 - Сорок in Russian, Čtyřicet in Czech. \\
Sorry for my awkward English. I'm native Russian speaker.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

"Вы" (the polite form of singular "you" is always capitalized).

What?

I've never seen вы capitalized except at the beginning of a sentence. It's not capitalized in my textbooks, homeworks, or handouts. My professor and Russian TAs (who are native) don't capitalize it, either, and I've never been corrected for failure to do so.

And вы is plural.

Confuuuuuused. Is this some sort of regional difference?

[cjoy.livejournal.com]

No regional differences.

Plural: вы (plural you, not capitalized)
Singular: ты (French tu, German du - informal) & Вы (Fr. Vous, Germ. Sie - polite)

[yers.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid you are doubly wrong, because not only is the polite "вы" *not* capitalised except in formal letters (see my comment below), but to the best of my knowledge, the French polite "vous" isn't capitalised either.

Nay, triply wrong, because in (epistolary) German, *both* "Du" and "Sie" are capitalised.

I am *not* being smug.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Neeeeeh?

Why is cjoy saying that there are two "вы"s, a singular and a plural? I've never heard of a singular вы, and I think I would have by now.

[yers.livejournal.com]

cjoy is talking about the вы that is the polite form of addressing a single person.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Is it grammatically plural, then?

You would write вы видели and not вы видел or вы видела, right?

[cjoy.livejournal.com]

Right! Singular Вы is always grammatically plural. Ты видишь, ты видел(а) but Вы видите, Вы видели (addressing one person).

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen here and heard from my professor last night, there is only one "Вы". It's plural, but can be applied to singular persons, and it's sometimes capitalized in formal correspondence.

I have no idea why you're saying that there are two "Вы"s. Is this the way it's taught in Russia?

[cjoy.livejournal.com]

It's not the way it's taught. It's the way it is. (Do you know Spanish for instance? The simple difference between tu & Usted. It's the same. Is it so difficult?)

[bugtilaheh.livejournal.com]

Usted isn't capitalized (at least, not anymore). Unless it comes at the beginning of a sentence, of course.

I've seen it abbreviated to Ud. or Vd., but usted works fine.

¿Cómo está usted? ¿Cómo está Ud.? ¿Cómo está ud.? No difference.

[bugtilaheh.livejournal.com]

Sorry, the last ud. should read Vd. Usted is abbreviated to Ud. or Vd. and that's just the way it is.

[cjoy.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. In Spanish it's a little bit more complicated. Besides, Spanish has such pronouns for both singular and plural: Vd/Vds. In Russian in plural there's no diffirence. We always say вы (non-capitalized) while addressing to any amount of persons more than one (no style differences). For one person if we are addressing to the fellow lad/gal we would say ты, and to anyone else Вы. This latter Вы is always capitalized. (And you can see it in the picture below in this thread.)

[cjoy.livejournal.com]

and it's sometimes capitalized in formal correspondence.

Rubbish! Вы used to address the only one person is always capitalized. Singular Вы presumes formal style. When you write "вы" to anyone this means either you are saying about a scope of people or you are illiteral.

[avva.livejournal.com]

Polite usage of singular Вы in Russian is similar to polite usage of singular vous in French, though the social divisions do not precisely coincide.

Though both are plural morphologically and syntactically, they are felt to be singular semantically by native speakers. Native speakers experience "singular" Вы/вы and plural вы as two separate lexemes.

[cjoy.livejournal.com]

I don't care on the capitalization neither in Franch nor in German. Я говорил всего лишь о том, что в литературном русском языке является нормативным.

[yers.livejournal.com]

Именно в литературном языке это нормативным уже несколько десятилетий не является.

FYI

[cjoy.livejournal.com]

Так, для справки:

[tyrex.livejournal.com]

it is not just polite form. it is used only in letters when addressing to someone personally.

[yers.livejournal.com]

It is, I daresay, a misconception with some of my fellow native speakers.
The singular вы is only capitalised in very formal correspondence. Otherwise, it's expressly *incorrect* to capitalise it.

[langwidere.livejournal.com]

How formal does the correspondence have to be?

In my Russian text book it capitalizes "вы" in letters between pen pals, which is something I wouldn't consider very formal. (Then again, you probably would not be on ты terms with a pen pal in your introductory letters...)

[yers.livejournal.com]

Where and when was your textbook published?

Nowadays, penpals, young people at least, have no qualms about starting off on ты terms. And it would look right weird if they used capitalised Вы.

I unconditionally prefer вы with strangers, no matter what age, but I'm rather an exceptional case in that.

Re:

[langwidere.livejournal.com]

My textbook was published in 1999 by Prentice-Hall in New Jersey. I suppose a lot of linguistic and cultural change can happen in 4 years. That's probably why they're coming out with a third edition now. ;)

[cjoy.livejournal.com]

The general rule is that the capitalization of singular Вы is mandatory in Russian (and you will read it in every native Russian schoolbook ;-). And the singular Вы is always formal. The thing is that the formal style is rather widely used in Russia even nowadays.
In the informal conversation though (e.g. between the young persons of approx. the same age) you will definitely replace Вы with ты. (but not always. For instance here in LJ you will be more likely addressed as Вы rather then ты if it concerns unfamiliar persons.)

Re:

[langwidere.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Thanks! =)

[yers.livejournal.com]

Show me any literary text where the singular Вы is capitalised.
You'll find none.
And the proofreaders, bad as they are nowadays, can't all be wrong.

[cjoy.livejournal.com]

http://www.lib.ru устроит отца русской орфографии?

[yers.livejournal.com]

Ок, открываю наугад первый попавшийся текст на либ.ру.



-- Я вам не помешал?
-- Помешал, помешал! -- живо откликнулся он и с облегчением отложил
кисть.

Андрей Битов, стало быть, неграмотный номер 1. Продолжать?

[avva.livejournal.com]

This is nonsense.

The common rule is that Вы is capitalised when used as a form of polite address to a specific person.

It's sort of wrong to capitalise Вы when used as a form of polite address to a non-specific person (in an advertisement brochure, for instance), but people do it all the time anyway.

It's certainly wrong to suggest that it is *incorrect* to capitalise Вы in non-formal written contexts.

[yers.livejournal.com]

Indeed, people do it all the time, but does that really legitimise something that's wrong by the standards of the language? And I wouldn't be saying it's wrong if I wasn't taught so by people whose philological background I cannot mistrust.

Also, what about the fact that вы is evidently never capitalised in works of literature?

[avva.livejournal.com]

It's not wrong. It's the standard. If you need authority, look it up in Rosenthal.

And these aren't standard of the language, but rather orthographic conventions. Capitalisation of Вы has very little to do with the language per se.

Works of literature fall under fiction, where this rule doesn't apply. Вы is capitalised as a form of polite address in real written communication. This exception is made stronger than it really is by copyediting past works of literature (e.g. even when the author used a capitalised Вы in manuscript or contemporary editions, it is standartised to a lowercase вы in all modern editions).

[bugtilaheh.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Sorry for my awkward English. I'm native Russian speaker.

—Your English is perfect! Except we say "the Czech Republic," and "I'm a ..." :)

[cjoy.livejournal.com]

Thanks to you.
There's a lot of things in this world we still have to learn.