Russian of the Day.
Oct. 27th, 2010 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This one - "golos" - is a pretty easy one. It means "voice" (or sometimes vote, or "vocal part"). Russian nouns being gendered, голос is masculine, and inanimate. So!
The nominative case, of course, is голос
The genitive singular is голоса (The genitive case is most often used as a possessive - "tone of voice", for example. Ironically, if you don't have something, you also use the genitive - "I have no X")
The dative singular is голосу (indirect object, "to" or "for". Also, perhaps more relevant here, the object of study generally takes the dative case)
Accusative singular is голос (direct object, as in English, and the case used in the song)
Instrumental case - голосом ( used with "with", or in the passive construction)
Prepositional singular: (о) голосе (to talk about, is perhaps the only relevant one here)
So that's the singular....
The plural, quickly:
Nom: голоса
Gen: голосов
Dat: голосам
Acc: голоса
Inst: голосами
Prep: голосах
Note again the accusative agreeing with the nominative, because it's masculine inanimate.
So with the verb слыщать, we get слыщу голос - I hear a voice. Things to note, putting it together:
1) Russian has no articles, definite or indefinite. I hear the voice, I hear a voice, it's all the same. If there really is a specific voice, then "ето" or "вот" (this and that respectively) will disambiguate. Articles are perhaps the hardest thing to explain to Russian speakers, mostly because the rules in English are a little bit all over the damn shop.
2) Inflection of the verb lets you drop the pronoun. My Russian teacher says educated people would always say "Я слыщу голос", but most of my Russian friends wouldn't bother. The meaning is the same either way. In fact, if the subject is an obvious pronoun, you can drop that as well "Do you hear that?" "Слищу" - I hear.
Tomorrow[0] - prepositional yey, and adjectival forms ( though not technically an adjective).
[0] FSVO "Tomorrow"