vip in the city

A case of Russian

Having missed last week’s class, it was up to me to review on my own some of the materials we covered last Wednesday.

In Russian, the instrumental case (tvorítel’nyj padézh) is used to mark the means by which an action is done. The “instrument” can be a physical entity (“by car,” “with friends” or “with a pen“) or more abstract (“with enthusiasm“). It is also used to denote spatial relationships (behind, between, under), a time during which an action occurs (“in the evenings“), a change of state or status (“After eating all those apricots, I became ill“), or to emphasize a profession (“She works as a doctor.”) All this I ascertained from the supplemental Russian study guide I ordered through Amazon.com this week. Because the topic wasn’t covered in the textbook  we’re using for the course. Yes, this class is proving to be quite a challenge.

Someday… I want to read Tolstoy in the original Russian.

“The aim of an artist is not to decide a question indisputably, but to compel us to love life in all its countless, inexhaustible manifestations.”

— Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1865)

There are 3 Comments ... A case of Russian

Qsoz
October 17, 2006

I think I’d be sick of apricots.

H20Buffalo
October 18, 2006

V, did you learn the case to read Russian literature? Written Russian (for literature) is different from spoken and everyday written Russian. crazy difficult.

vipnyc
October 18, 2006

There is a separate case for Russian literature? Egads. I’m still working on recognizing the font where the “p”-sounding characters look like lowercase n’s and the T’s look like lowercase m’s… Very confusing.

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