(no subject)

[3g0.livejournal.com]

I am confused about something: I am writing a dialogue for my russian class, and in it, I want to say "I (female) became a good student." Я становила хорошeго ________.

I think that student (being the object) is in accusative case, but doesn't it need to agree in gender with the subject? This is where I'm getting confused. The book conjugates it as "студентов" in accusative case, but I am getting mixed up with the 'agree with the subject' logic which tells me that it should be "студентка", and I'm not sure about the accusative ending then. My decision there impacts how I conjugate the adjective too. Argh! Stupid cases, I hate them!

Thanks for the help.

Comments

[masscooper.livejournal.com]

If you're using the singular, the ending in the masculine isn't -ob it's -a. I've been told by my profs that the feminine versions of words for occupations are generally out of vogue, so I'd just go with the male version. If you want to use the female version, however, the accusative ending is -y instead of -a. Hope this is helpful!

[yay4pikas.livejournal.com]

I've been told by my profs that the feminine versions of words for occupations are generally out of vogue, so I'd just go with the male version.

That's interesting. We haven't been learning female words for occupations, generally, but we are still using 'studyentka'.

I dare not ask my prof to clarify, though, for she is fearsome.

[masscooper.livejournal.com]

Mmph. BobbyRay is right. "To become" takes the instrumental.

[bobbyray.livejournal.com]

"Я стала хорошей студенткой" (female)
"Я стал хорошим студеном" (male)

Опечатка!

[object.livejournal.com]

"Студентом" - не "студеном".

[3g0.livejournal.com]

why instrumental case?

The way I'm diagraming it:

I | became \student
\good

student answers the who or what question, so it is a direct object, thus accusative case.

[3g0.livejournal.com]

spacing is wrong - good describes student obviously.

[ouwiyaru.livejournal.com]

It seems idiomatic to me, but you can think of it as "'good student' was an element in what I became/was"--that is, 'to be' rarely takes a strict direct object case in most languages. In Russian, 'to become' is in the same family, I guess.
The same construction (subject-verb-instrumental) is used in:
Я была хорошей студенткой
Я работала преподавателницeй

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

Стать is one of those verbs that takes a case other than accusative as its object. Although the accusitive is most of the time the object, some verbs are just weird, and you have to remember what they use.

In Russian, whenever you talk about something that you weren't always - e.g. "When I was young, ...." or "I became a...", the instrumental is used. "Когда я был/а молодым/ой..."

[belacane.livejournal.com]

yeah.. .i was going to say that there are verbs which don't take the accusative case.

[slotos.livejournal.com]

"Я стала хорошим студентом" is grammatically. But in common language студентка is used very often.

[yers.livejournal.com]

It's a bit messy with feminine words for occupations (which are indeed on the way out). I'm a native speaker and I can't decide whether to use студент or студентка in this case. If I were you I'd get around it by saying "Я стала хорошо учиться" which is more idiomatic anyway.