Russian language questions

[madviking]

свинья comes from Proto-Slavic *svinьja, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sū-. seemingly no direct germanic influence.

 

[Daw]

свинья comes from Proto-Slavic *svinьja, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sū-. seemingly no direct germanic influence.

Right. Instead, the German word appears to be a different development of the same core thing: From Old High German swīn (akin to Old Saxon swin), from Proto-Germanic *swīną, from an adjectival form of Proto-Indo-European *sū-.

In fact, it's seeing "поросёнок" (reads: porosyonok or parasyonak) "young pig" in the article you linked what took me to realize that it must be related to "prasnice" Mech mentioned as Czech original for "pig".

 

[madviking]

hence why i said "direct"

 

[REDY]

помыть посуду - wash dishes....can I use умыть? Where to use по- and where у-, whats the difference?

 

[red_elk]

помыть посуду - wash dishes....can I use умыть?

That would sound funny, like if a dish was alive and you wash it like baby's face.
Generally умыть is used in context of face washing.

Where to use по- and where у-, whats the difference?

Edit: I think prefix "по-" indicates here that the verb is in perfective aspect form.

 

[Daw]

In numbers I hate четыре and сорок. All numbers are similiar to Czech but these two are for some reason outside system Why not чтыри and чтыридесят?

I just made an accidental follow-up on the track of the "сорок" thing.

The recent discussion in a different thread made me search for Crimean Tatar things and I came over some video lessons of their language on Utube. And it appears that "forty" is "qirq" in Crimean Tatar language. So I thought that "сорок" (sohrok / sohroq) might be of Turkic origin.

Interestingly, wiktionary also mentions this version. Though it is uncertain with a competing version of a Greek origin (τ&#949σσαρακοντα (absolutely no idea how that reads; seemingly "sahrahkoutah").

But what's more interesting, the wiktionary says that сорок is a newer word, which replaced the older one - четыре десѧте, which was exactly what you asked for but won't get, thanks to the Greek or the Turkic influence on the language.

 

[REDY]

Is there some difference between:
Я любю
Мне нравится

Are they completely interchangeable?

 

[red_elk]

The first statement is stronger. Both of them can be quite precisely translated in English.

Я люблю - I love. (notice a typo in your message)
Мне нравится - I like.

So, if you apply them to a person, they are not completely interchangeable ("I love Anna" is not the same as "I like Anna"). But "I love ice-cream" and "I like ice-cream" have similar meaning.

 

[REDY]

My boss shared link to digitalization of interesting azbuka school book from 1938

http://pudl.princeton.edu/viewer.php?obj=44558f67b#page/4/mode/2up


I am still learning, but not intensively. In fact, only duolingo right now:/

I guess I should try to talk more Russian in work, but I do not want embarass myself.
I understand texts and slow speech but I am not able to create sentence without mistakes.
That genders, declensions and usage of ь are difficult to use properly.