Categories: "Time phrases"
В (frequency)
In English when you want to say how often something happens and the period over which it occurs, you can use two constructions. The first uses no preposition, and the second uses the preposition ‘per’:
We meet in Prague two times per year.
In English the ‘per’ version sounds more formal and stilted, and the prepositionless version sounds normal. In Russian the prepositionless version is not an option; you must use the preposition в:
Мы встречаемся в Праге два раза в год. | We meet in Prague two times a year. |
At first glance it might seem that год is in the nominative case, but that is because it is a masculine inanimate noun. If we see a feminine noun in that context it is clearly accusative:
Я всё ещё читаю газету в печатном виде пять раз в неделю. | I still read a hardcopy newspaper five times a week. |
If you want to ask how often something happens, then the phrase to use is как часто:
— Как часто ты получаешь критику от читателей? — Наверно два раза в день. |
“How often do your receive criticism from readers?” “Probably twice a day.” |
— Как часто ты меняешь мобильный телефон? — Раз в год. Мне вседга нужна новейшая техника. |
“How often do you change your mobile phone?” “Once a year. I always need the latest technology.” |
Этот сотовый телефон определяет своё местонахождение пять раз в секунду. | This cell phone checks its [geographical] position five times a second. |
На мобильник сына я скачал софт, который сообщает мне его местонахождение четыре раза в час. Он больше не будет пропускать уроки. | I downloaded an app to my son's cell phone that tells me his location four times an hour. He's not going to skip class any more. |
That last example is interesting because you could rephrase it with minutes and skip the preposition:
На мобильник сына я скачал софт, который сообщает мне его местонахождение каждые пятнадцать минут. | I downloaded an app to my son's cell phone that tells me his location every fifteen minutes. |
Note the interesting use of the plural form of каждый before a number greater than one.
День (часть третья)
Although normally in Russian you refer to the days of the week using nouns like понедельник and среда, there is an alternate way to do it. You make an adjective out of the day of the week and then combine it with the word день ‘day’. It is not as common as simply using the nouns, but it is still possible. Here is a list of the nouns and their corresponding adjectives:
Noun | Adjective |
понедельник | понедельничный |
вторник | вторничный |
среда | — |
четверг | четверговый |
пятница | пятничный |
суббота | субботний |
воскресенье | воскресный |
Note carefully that there is no adjectival equivalent for среда, and notice also that the adjective from суббота is soft. When translating the phrases into English, simply use the noun. Here are a few examples:
Это был воскресный день, но «мусора» не отдыхают. (source) | It was a Sunday, but cops don't get days off. |
Псковский почтамт планирует выдавать пенсии по воскресным дням. (source) | The Pskov main post office is planning to distribute pension money on Sundays. |
Ребята, сегодня последний пятничный день осени. (source) | Guys, today is the last Friday of fall. |
Наступил четверговый день. (source) | Thursday arrived. |
It would be a mistake to think that all the adjectives are equally acceptable. The phrase «воскресный день» is very common. The next most common is «субботний день». The others you will find in good dictionaries, but they are encountered very rarely. And why is there no adjective from среда? Hard to say. Sometimes in language you have to give up and say, “That's just the way it is.”
День (часть вторая)
Previously we discussed день ‘day’ in the nominative/accusative singular. What about the other forms? Here's where it gets tricky. The -е- is a fleeting vowel, which means any time you add a grammatical ending to the stem, the -е- drops out. The -ь at the end makes the stem soft, but it also drops out when endings are added, and the endings are always soft, so the declension turns out like this:
Sg | Pl | |
Nom | день | дни |
Acc | ||
Gen | дня | дней |
Pre | дне | днях |
Dat | дню | дням |
Ins | днём | днями |
Notice that except in the nominative/accusative singular, the д is immediately followed by н, which is tricky for us Americans to pronounce. It is a nasally-released soft [d]. In other words, you make the soft [d] sound, but then you let no breath out through the mouth, releasing the breath through the nose as you say the [n]. Here are a few sample sentences.
Я не хочу говорить о том дне. | I don't want to talk about that day. |
Всё должно быть готово к тому дню. | Everything must be ready by that day. |
С того дня мы с ней ни разу не виделись. | Since that day she and I haven't seen each other even once. |
Мне было так грустно, что я сидел дома целыми днями. | I was so sad that I stayed at home for days at a time. |
День (часть первая)
The Russian word for day is день. Since it is an incredibly common word, we are going to talk about it quite a few times. Today we will start with something simply. День is an inanimate masculine noun, so it's accusative case form is the same as its nominative form. That's fortunate because we mostly use the word in the nominative and accusative case. Here are some examples of it in the nominative:
— Какой сегодня день? — Сегондя четверг. |
“What day is today?” “Today is Thursday.” |
— Какой вчера был день? — Вчера была среда. |
“What day was it yesterday?” “Yesterday was Wednesday.” |
— Какой завтра будет день? — Завтра будет пятница. |
“What day is tomorrow?” “Tomorrow is Friday.” |
— Какой сегодня день? — Сегодня дождливый день. — Нет, нет. Я хочу сказать, какой сегодня день недели? — Ах, понял. Сегодня четверг. — Я думаю, ты меня хорошо понял в первый раз. Ты просто любишь доставать. |
“What day is it?” “It's a rainy day.” “No, no. I mean what day of the week is it?” “Oh, now I understand. Today is Thursday.” “I think you understood me fine the first time. You just like to annoy me.” |
You will remember that to say “on Monday” or “on Tuesday”, you have to use the preposition в + accusative in Russian. Similarly, to say “on that day” in Russian you say «в тот день» or «в этот день». Oddly enough, in English we usually leave out the “on” when combining it with “that day,” so in translation you will have to remember to add it in:
Я помню, когда Петя в первый раз поцеловал меня. В тот день я очень скучала по семье. Он увидел мою грусть и решил отвлечь мои мысли. Этот неожиданный поцелуй так поразил меня, что я почти неделю не думала ни о маме ни о папе. | I remember when Peter kissed me for the first time. That day I really missed my family. He saw my sadness and decided to distract my thoughts. That unexpected kiss stunned me so that for nearly a week I didn't even think of my mom and dad. |
Я хочу рассказать тебе о том, как я познакомился с президентом США. В тот день я надел новый костюм-тройку и новый галстук. Я очень нервничал, но когда он пожал мне руку, он поговорил со мной просто и дружелюбно, как будто бы я был его коллегой, а не иностранцем с Камчатки. | I want to tell you how I met the President of the USA. That day I had put on a new three-piece suit and a new tie. I was really nervous when he shook my hand, but he spoke with me simply and kindly, as if I were a colleague of his instead of a foreigner from Kamchatka. |
Надолго
Today my second-year Russian students encountered the word надолго, which means ‘for a long time.’ Despite knowing what the word meant, the students had a difficult time translating it well in actual sentences. It turns out not only human beings have trouble with these sentences. I typed the question «Таня надолго пришла в библиотеку?» into a couple of online translation apps, and this is what they came up with:
babelfish.yahoo.com: Tanya is for a long time alien into the library?
translate.google.com: Tanya came in for a long time library?
When I finally stopped laughing, I understood it was time discuss approaches to translating it. Let's start by glossing the sentence word for word:
Таня | надолго | пришла | в | библиотеку | ? |
Tanya | for-long | has-come | to | library | ? |
The context of the sentence is that Tanya is now at the library and someone else at the library is asking a third party a question. The sentence means “Has Tanya come to the library for [the purpose of spending] a long time [here]?” There are a couple ways to put this in English that more or less corresponds to the Russian original, and they are:
B. Has Tanya come to the library for a long time?
Sentences A and B probably sound normal to some speakers of English. They sound slightly awkward to me, and they also have the potential of being misinterpreted as meaning “How long has Tanya been coming to the library?” But the main problem with them is this: when we want to ask in English how much time someone intends to spend in the place they have just arrived at or just departed for, we most commonly phrase the question quite differently. The most normal way to ask these questions is not to use a motion verb at all, but instead use a plain verb "be" or the verb "stay":
D. Will Tanya be at the library for long?
E. Will Tanya be at the library for a long time?
Let's say you are a translator. These sentences will put you in a bit of a pickle, and to resolve it, you will have to consider your target audience. If your target audience for the translation consists of people who have the regrettable desire of getting translations that maximally reflect the wording of the original, then you want to choose translations modeled on A or B. But remember this: the purpose of a professional translation is to accurately reflect the communicative goals of the original text/speech, and a professional one should always flow decently in the target language. The best professional translation will choose C, D or E. Sad to say, there are times when a really professional translation is rejected by an unsophisticated purchaser, and to get paid we translators have to dumb it down to a more awkward translation. Such is life. Not much you can do about it.
Let's take a look at five more sentences from our textbook. First we will give a word for word gloss and then a good translation.
Лена | надолго | пришла | к | подруге | ? |
Lena | for-long | has-come | to | friend | ? |
Will Lena be at her friend's place for long? | |||||
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Кевин и Оля | надолго | уехали | в | Звенигород | ? |
Kevin & Olya | for-long | have-departed | for | Zvenigorod | ? |
Will Kevin and Olya be in Zvenigorod long? | |||||
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Оля | надолго | уехала | в | командировку | ? |
Olya | for-long | has-departed | on | business-trip | ? |
Will Olya be on her business trip for long? | |||||
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Кевин | надолго | приехал | в | Москву | ? |
Kevin | for-long | has-arrived | in | Moscow | ? |
Will Kevin be in Moscow for a long time? | |||||
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Даша | надолго | уехала | в | Америку | ? |
Dasha | for-long | has-departed | for | America | ? |
Will Dasha be in America long? | |||||
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