Russian to English?

pariah · Post by **pariah** » 22 Jul 2004 22:18

What does

я твое маленькое летящее пони

mean?

kajtek · Post by **kajtek** » 22 Jul 2004 23:27

I suppose it means:

I am your little flying poney

pariah · Post by **pariah** » 23 Jul 2004 15:50

Hah, ok. Thanks.

sv · Post by sv » 24 Jul 2004 14:25

where did you find that phrase?

meanwhile it's incorrect to say - я твое маленькое летящее пони

the one should say - я твой маленький летящий пони

cause пони is "he", it's masculine gender, not neutral.

svernoux · Post by **svernoux** » 26 Jul 2004 09:43

sv wrote:cause пони is "he", it's masculine gender, not neutral.

I think people until now don't agree about the gender of such words, just like for кенгуру : some say it's neutral, some say it's masculine...

sv · Post by sv » 26 Jul 2004 20:29

i think it's not a disagreement but illiteracy, to say оно about these two words. what you mean under "such words"? i can recall at a time, e.g. такси, looks also as "such", but it's оно.

from animate nouns i can recall only животное и насекомое of neutral gender. i can't recall other animate nouns which could be оно. could you recall any? i don't know why but for my ears the idea to call any particular alive thing "ono" (except those two above) sounds strange. maybe there is something with my ears....

svernoux · Post by **svernoux** » 27 Jul 2004 10:05

Are you a native Russian speaker, sv ?

I can remember that all teachers agreed to say that kangaroo is neutral and I think that's what grammars say too (but I'm gonna check this)

But you're right, native speakers that I know say kangaroo and poney are masculine. But it might as well be illiteracy, because some Russian people make mistakes in their own language (just as any other people, actually).

I'll check this (if I don't forget...

)

sv · Post by sv » 27 Jul 2004 12:13

yes, i'm a native russian speaker.

if your teachers said so, they were wrong. inform them

you can check it e.g. on www.gramota.ru
main dictionaries show that those two words are definitely masculine.
sometmes there are differencies, e.g. with кофе, it's considered that this word could be used either as neutral or as masculine.
but for those two words it's no doubt, using them as neutral is illiteracy. though since those things constantly change, i can imagine that some time ago there were two variants. but not now.