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Russian colloquialisms?
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Posted by: richbreen

I am a raw beginner with Russian...I have this Russian published ABC book...when trying to translate the text and teaching instructions I find several words that don't come up in either online translators or in my Langenscheidt or Oxford dictionaries...I thought that I could go to a root word and guesstimate the meaning but find that I can't...one word in question is села which either won't machine translate or else it comes up село for village...I find nothing close in the dictionaries...the ABC book seemed like an effective way to learn simple sentence structure but the unknown words are distracting me.

What am I dealing with here? Am I just too green to understand what I am doing or am I looking at native variations that I don't understand?

richbreen

Posted by: Cheburashka

I come up with the word "villages". How was it used and what is the context of the sentence it came from? Luckily we have some awesome Russian speakers on this board.

Welcome to the forum Rich.

Posted by: Ellen

села could be "sit down" in past tense with female's gender Она села на стул
or
села could be cЁла ( mostly in books Ё and E are printed the same way) in this case it's villageS

The root of the words is the same СЕЛ with the same meaning ( down to some place)
(oopps not the root actually but a base for understanding a menaing, root would be just CE here I guess

and Л is suffix but it's hard to get a meaning here by only root)

Posted by: richbreen

The illustration(s) of the sentence using the question word:

1. A cat is shown sitting on a window sill:

кошка села на окошко
(cat sits at window ?)

2. A wasp is shown sitting on the nose of a pinochio-type boy:

Оса села на нос
(wasp sits on nose ?)

3. A cat dressed as a human is sitting on a quilted blanket or bed:

Кошка села на перинку
(cat sits on feather bed/blanket ?)

4. A cat dressed as a human is sitting in a row boat:

Кошка села в подку
(cat is sitting at boat ?)

5. And the last offering shows a young boy...in sitting position... riding a sled or sleigh down a snow covered hill:

Наш Миша сел (note the missing "а") на сани
(Our Misha ........ on sled/sleigh ?)

I have been through several books on Russian verbs and find nothing that helps...I keep looking to find some variant of сидеть hiding in the куст but nothing jumps out!

richbreen

Posted by: Ellen

Yes in all cases it was "sit down" meaning But it should be translated in past tense - "sat down"

Сидеть has the same meaning But it's slightly different as it means mostly an action which is lasting in time while the word СЕСТЬ ( which was a base for that селА/сел has a meaning of "finshed" actualy action

Она села (*from сесть) и сидит (*from сидеть). She sat down and is sitting ( okay I do know I am wrong with English grammar but just wanted to show you a difference in using words сесть/сидеть

Сядь(*from сесть) и сиди (*from сидеть) там. - Let sit down and keep sitting there

(селА because of female gender There is A at the end because кошкA has female gender as well. If it was a case of кот ( male gender) it would be cел)
Миша has male gender ( I hope

he is not a gay) so it's Миша сел...

Posted by: Ellen

I re-read your post and got another meaning what you asked about

In a case you ask how to desribe what is showing at pictures it shoud be rather

Кошка СИДИТ на окне ( на перине, в лодке and etc) ( because such action most probably is lasting in time and it's impossible to say how long it would be lasting)

but I think think it should be

Оса села на нос

(because I think that a wasp did that just few seconds ago and such action could not be lasting too long

)

Posted by: richbreen

Ellen

I certainly appreciate your help in trying to overcome my ignorance of the Russian language but now I have another difficulty...I don't know how to decode your type face.

richbreen

Posted by: EasyTarget

Rich:
Make sure your character encoding is set to Cyrillic.

Posted by: Ellen

Ok I hope you solved your prolem with decoding.

So I continue with my attempts. ( after refreshing my own knowledge in Russina language)

So it's a case of word SIT - verb (глагол)

In Russian you would deal with such type of verbs which is called вид (aspect)

perfective aspect (совершенный вид) it's used for action which is limited in time, archived ( or will archive) some result or will happen one ( but not several) time . In Russian such verbs "answer" the question что Сделать? ( Ps sorry I don;t know English variant for that)

imperfecrive aspect ( несовершенный вид) - These verbs answer a question что делать? and describe action wich are not limited in time, could be lasting in time or done several times.

Russian verbs in perfective and imperfective aspects go in couples for majority cases ( with some exceptions)

So your case for word SIT (down)

1. action wich describes a moving of your bamp from some high position down to some low place - ( sit down) - would be
САДИТЬСЯ ( что делать? imperf.) - СЕСТЬ ( что сделать?, perfect.)

2. action wich describes a position of your bamp stuck to some place - sit

СИДЕТЬ (что делать? imperf.) - ПОСИДЕТЬ (что сделать? perfect.)

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So if a pic is showing somebody with one leg outside a car and second leg already inside a car then it should be

Он(а) САДИТСЯ в машину (He(she) is sitting down into a car)

* (садится here is in present tense so there is no Ь in it like it's in infinitive form садитЬся)

If NEXT ( after the first one) pic is showing somebody already complitely in a car and you want to say that such moving is finised - then it sould be

Он(а) СЕЛ(а) в машину (He(she) sat down into a car)

If a pic is showing somebody inside a car and you want to describe only a fact that his/her backside stuck to some place inside a car ( and you can't say for sure how long it would be lasting) then it should be

Он(а) СИДИТ в машине ( He(she) is sitting inside a car)

if that action was in past then it should be

Он(а) СИДЕЛ(а) в машине ( He(she) was sitting ( or sat) in a car )

If you want to describe an action when somebody was sitting at some place for some time and then stood up and did something else then it should be

Он(а) ПОСИДЕЛ(а) на скамейке, отдохнул(a) и пошел(пошла) дальше

He(she) took a sit at a bench, rested and continued a walk

( yep my own English grammar is not such good to translate what I meant in Russian)

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Enough for today

Posted by: richbreen

Ellen,

Yes, I found the proper encoding. I will need some time to go over the definitions you sent me but first I would like to offer this bit of my Russian verb knowledge...as my basic verb book would have me believe the word сидеть ("to sit, be sitting") would be an И-Type Verb and the conjugation for the cat sitting at the window would change it to third person singular (he/she/it sits) present tense : СИДИТ. I must do some more study of your offering to get to СЕЛА.

Even though I do not fully understand what you have tried to explain I certainly appreciate your help because now I have a basis for further study and investigation.

Rich

Posted by: stevo

Quote:

Originally Posted by richbreen

I will need some time to go over the definitions you sent me but first I would like to offer this bit of my Russian verb knowledge...as my basic verb book would have me believe the word сидеть ("to sit, be sitting") would be an И-Type Verb and the conjugation for the cat sitting at the window would change it to third person singular (he/she/it sits) present tense : СИДИТ. I must do some more study of your offering to get to СЕЛА.

Села comes from сесть, not сидеть. Сесть means "to sit down", сидеть means "to be sitting down". I think part of the confusion is that if you were writing sentences to describe the illustrations, you'd probably go for сидеть instead.