Russian of the Day.
Oct. 29th, 2010 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tyggerjaiAnd now, the tricky bit....
из ! Prepositions, though not the prepositional case. To be honest, I'm a little out of my depth here, but we'll muddle through. The first bit is easy: "из" simply means "from". For things. "от" means "from" for ... other things. Specifically, something from a person (a gift, whatever) will be "от Саша", for example - "from Sasha". From a place will be "из Москви" - from Moscow. It all gets a lot trickier than that, though. The idiom for "How did you know?", for example, is "От куда, ты знаеш?" - literally "From where do you know?". Place, "от". Go figure.
Anyway! "из" is a preposition, and like many prepositions, the words it applies to will take ... the genitive case. Hah. You thought I was going to say "prepositional", didn't you!? The prepositional case is generally reserved for location (в or на, meaning to be in a place), with verbs of motion and a mode of transport (by car, by train - very closely related to the first use, it's literally "I travelled in a car"), time (again, "in march"), or, oddly, with "о" for a topic of conversation. Outside of that, most prepositions will be associated with another case. That's actually kinda handy, because then the preposition can mean various things depending on the case of the associated words. Handy if you're Russian. not so handy if you're learning Russian. Anyway. "из" takes the genitive to mean "from". "Далёко" (props toafuna for finding the ё on Mac keyboards)) ) is technically an adverb, but in this instance will decline like a noun to form the genitive - "из далёка" - from afar. If you remember the last ROTD post, you'll recognise that ending. And adjectives also decline to match the case of the noun with which they agree. So in this case "прекрасное" becomes "прекрасного" - genitive singular adjective form. To be more verbose:
Adjective declension endings - Masculine (fem, neut., pl):
Nominative: прекрасный (-ая, -ое, -ые)
Genitive: прекрасного (-ой, -ого, -ых)
Dative: прекрасному (-ой, -ому, -ым)
Accusative: прекрасный (-ую, -ое, -ые) (But! For an animate (masc) noun, declines like genitive)
Instrumental: прекрасным (-ой, -ым, -ыми)
Prepositional: прекрасном (-ой, -ом, -ых)
If you ever have to guess at the feminine, guess "ой" outside the nominative ("а" or "я" in the nominative.). The feminine really doesn't inflect anything like as much as the masculine. Note also the animate/inanimate form (yes, it matches the noun, huzzah).
If you're listening to the song at home, you may have noticed an interesting thing (if you also happen to read Cyrillic). The -ого ending is transliterated, technically, as -ogo. But pronounced as "-ovo". This is one of the very few inconsistencies in Russian pronunciation. In general, what you see is what you get. This is the main exception, and as exceptions go, it's remarkably predictable. As far as I know, you *only* get it at the end of a word, only for adjectives in the genitive or masculine animate accusative, and it will take one of two forms - either "-его" or "-ого", which will both always be pronounced as "-evo" or "-ovo". And that's it.
So. All together: "из прекрасного далёка" - "From the beautiful afar". Google will tell you it means "Far from perfect". In a sense, I suppose :) The context, again, is someone far from home - Dorothy hearing a voice from over the rainbow, if you will. "Слищу голос из прекрасного далёка". I hear a voice from the beautiful distance, perhaps, we would translate.
(A sidenote on google translate, because I notice it would give "difficult" for "сложно". "Сложно" certainly has implications of difficulty, but it's more like "complicated". Not inherently difficult, just complicated. I mention this mostly in the spirit of "Mistakes I have made so you don't have to". If a Russian woman describes herself as "сложная", you can probably safely agree so long as you make the right "but I like that! It gives you a mysterious allure!" noises. If she describes herself as "трудна", you should probably immediately dissent. Just, y'know, so you know.)
из ! Prepositions, though not the prepositional case. To be honest, I'm a little out of my depth here, but we'll muddle through. The first bit is easy: "из" simply means "from". For things. "от" means "from" for ... other things. Specifically, something from a person (a gift, whatever) will be "от Саша", for example - "from Sasha". From a place will be "из Москви" - from Moscow. It all gets a lot trickier than that, though. The idiom for "How did you know?", for example, is "От куда, ты знаеш?" - literally "From where do you know?". Place, "от". Go figure.
Anyway! "из" is a preposition, and like many prepositions, the words it applies to will take ... the genitive case. Hah. You thought I was going to say "prepositional", didn't you!? The prepositional case is generally reserved for location (в or на, meaning to be in a place), with verbs of motion and a mode of transport (by car, by train - very closely related to the first use, it's literally "I travelled in a car"), time (again, "in march"), or, oddly, with "о" for a topic of conversation. Outside of that, most prepositions will be associated with another case. That's actually kinda handy, because then the preposition can mean various things depending on the case of the associated words. Handy if you're Russian. not so handy if you're learning Russian. Anyway. "из" takes the genitive to mean "from". "Далёко" (props to
afuna for finding the ё on Mac keyboards)) ) is technically an adverb, but in this instance will decline like a noun to form the genitive - "из далёка" - from afar. If you remember the last ROTD post, you'll recognise that ending. And adjectives also decline to match the case of the noun with which they agree. So in this case "прекрасное" becomes "прекрасного" - genitive singular adjective form. To be more verbose:Adjective declension endings - Masculine (fem, neut., pl):
Nominative: прекрасный (-ая, -ое, -ые)
Genitive: прекрасного (-ой, -ого, -ых)
Dative: прекрасному (-ой, -ому, -ым)
Accusative: прекрасный (-ую, -ое, -ые) (But! For an animate (masc) noun, declines like genitive)
Instrumental: прекрасным (-ой, -ым, -ыми)
Prepositional: прекрасном (-ой, -ом, -ых)
If you ever have to guess at the feminine, guess "ой" outside the nominative ("а" or "я" in the nominative.). The feminine really doesn't inflect anything like as much as the masculine. Note also the animate/inanimate form (yes, it matches the noun, huzzah).
If you're listening to the song at home, you may have noticed an interesting thing (if you also happen to read Cyrillic). The -ого ending is transliterated, technically, as -ogo. But pronounced as "-ovo". This is one of the very few inconsistencies in Russian pronunciation. In general, what you see is what you get. This is the main exception, and as exceptions go, it's remarkably predictable. As far as I know, you *only* get it at the end of a word, only for adjectives in the genitive or masculine animate accusative, and it will take one of two forms - either "-его" or "-ого", which will both always be pronounced as "-evo" or "-ovo". And that's it.
So. All together: "из прекрасного далёка" - "From the beautiful afar". Google will tell you it means "Far from perfect". In a sense, I suppose :) The context, again, is someone far from home - Dorothy hearing a voice from over the rainbow, if you will. "Слищу голос из прекрасного далёка". I hear a voice from the beautiful distance, perhaps, we would translate.
(A sidenote on google translate, because I notice it would give "difficult" for "сложно". "Сложно" certainly has implications of difficulty, but it's more like "complicated". Not inherently difficult, just complicated. I mention this mostly in the spirit of "Mistakes I have made so you don't have to". If a Russian woman describes herself as "сложная", you can probably safely agree so long as you make the right "but I like that! It gives you a mysterious allure!" noises. If she describes herself as "трудна", you should probably immediately dissent. Just, y'know, so you know.)