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  5. "Я подарил сестре два белых с…

"Я подарил сестре два белых свитера."

Translation:I gave my sister two white sweaters.

November 7, 2015



Why the translation 'I gave sister...' (without 'my') isn't right? There is no 'моей' in sentence.


You can't use "sister" here without an article or a posessive pronoun.


True, but the program here is inconsistent. In other exercises, if I add an article like "my" to the English translation when none was indicated in the Russian, Duolingo tells me that I'm incorrect. I understand both sides here, but I just hope that the inconsistencies here are dealt with.


This is true.

I stand by my statement above, but I've run into the same problems you have with the "assumed my" in previous lessons. It only seems to happens in lessons early in the tree. (but I could be wrong)

I suspect what the creators were going for, early on, was to just translate what's in front of you. I know when I try to learn languages I tend to insert words that just aren't there.

That said, I agree with you on the consistency/inconsistency. I'd say this could be something addressed in the tips, but reading comments on the questions I don't think a lot of people refer to those very much. If at all.

That said - overall I think this has been one of the best courses I've tried out here and I think the creators have done a fantastic job with the variety of material, the sneaking in of new stuff on the review and pretty much everything else. So I can forgive them for this, mostly :-)


Белых is a genitive plural adjective, but свитера is a genitive singular noun? How can these go together?


Read the tips and notes section (you can only see it on the full, non-mobile version). If you've missed all the tips and notes in Russian so far, you're gonna have a mountain of reading to do, cuz there's more in Russian than I've seen in any other language!

  1. I do read all the notes, and 2. That doesn't answer my question.


From skill Numbers 2: USE OF ADJECTIVES WITH NUMBERS In Nominative expressions like "2/3/4 big cats" the agreement of the adjective may not match the noun. For masculine and neuter nouns, you use the adjective in Genitive plural.

If you're asking why this is, there's probably no answer. Languages always have exceptions :/


Is there a difference between подарить and дать?


Why is белых genitive plural and свитера genitive singular? Спасибо!


Not "ситерА" but "свИтера" here


What about 'offer'??


"I offered," would be "Я предложил," a completely different meaning.


Why not: "I gave as a present to a sister two white sweaters."?


Shouldn't it be "Два белого свитера"?


"I gave as a present my sister two white sweaters" is wrong. "I gave my sister two white sweaters as a present" is correct. Is there any principal difference between these two constructions? At first I thought " gave as a present" is the complex form of the verb.


Спустя год, отвечаю сам себе. Нет, принципиальной разницы я не вижу. Скорее всего, этот вариант просто вылетел из программы по какой-то причине. Отправь отчёт, чтобы включили снова. Касаемо второго вопроса - по аналогии с put on и др глаголами с предлогом, которые можно разделять, например, дополнением: to put the coat on. Так и здесь.

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