{"id":103,"date":"2008-03-05T11:54:49","date_gmt":"2008-03-05T15:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/?p=103"},"modified":"2014-07-16T17:30:26","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T17:30:26","slug":"the-russian-emotion-to-like-or-not-to-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/the-russian-emotion-to-like-or-not-to-like\/","title":{"rendered":"The Russian Emotion: to like or not to like"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Everybody knows how to say I love you. <strong>\u00ab\u042f \u043b\u044e\u0431\u043b\u044e \u0442\u0435\u0431\u044f\u00bb<\/strong> is as much a given as vodka and borsch \u2013 and just as much of a clich\u00e9. But what about saying \u201cI like you\u201d instead? Not as romantic perhaps, and perhaps not as thrilling, either. Perhaps I find Russians expressions of liking and disliking rather meager only because I was brought up in a country that was afraid to hail its own flag whereas Russians tend to wear white, red and blue whenever the occasion doesn\u2019t forbid them. The new learner will know how to express boundless love for everything from his motherland and his parents to coffee and soccer long before even thinking about emotions a little less heated. The verb to love, <strong>\u00ab\u043b\u044e\u0431\u0438\u0442\u044c\u00bb<\/strong>, is a wonderful verb not only because of its simplicity and clarity, but also for how it interacts with those dreaded six cases. It has the logical subject in nominative and the logical object in accusative, and to illustrate this I present to you a translation of what the beginner above could express after Russian 101: <strong>\u00ab\u042f \u043b\u044e\u0431\u043b\u044e \u0441\u0432\u043e\u044e \u0440\u043e\u0434\u0438\u043d\u0443, \u044f \u043b\u044e\u0431\u043b\u044e \u0441\u0432\u043e\u0438\u0445 \u0440\u043e\u0434\u0438\u0442\u0435\u043b\u0435\u0439, \u044f \u043b\u044e\u0431\u043b\u044e \u043a\u043e\u0444\u0435 \u0438 \u044f \u043b\u044e\u0431\u043b\u044e \u0444\u0443\u0442\u0431\u043e\u043b\u00bb<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\">How about this sentence: <strong>\u00ab\u042f \u043b\u044e\u0431\u043b\u044e \u0434\u0435\u043c\u043e\u043a\u0440\u0430\u0442\u0438\u044e, \u043d\u043e \u043c\u043d\u0435 \u043d\u0435 \u043d\u0440\u0430\u0432\u044f\u0442\u0441\u044f \u0432\u044b\u0431\u043e\u0440\u043d\u044b\u0435 \u043a\u0430\u043c\u043f\u0430\u043d\u0438\u0438\u00bb<\/strong> [I love democracy, but I don&#8217;t like the election campaigns].<\/div>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nIn Swedish, my native language, there are two different verbs used to articulate liking something and a third verb to articulate disliking something. If you\u2019re thinking that this has everything to do with the fact that chilly and modest Scandinavians are afraid of speaking about their feelings in a too emotional way \u2013 you\u2019re thinking absolutely right. Russians do not share our problem with love. Love is everywhere \u2013 literally \u2013 in Russian language and Russian life. And this is to blame for the strange construction you have to use when you want to say that you wouldn\u2019t go to GULAG for something but you\u2019re not completely indifferent toward it either. The verb <strong>\u00ab\u043d\u0440\u0430\u0432\u0438\u0442\u044c\u0441\u044f\u00bb<\/strong> is one of those annoying but just as juicy for it little verbs that put our knowledge of Russian grammar to the test. It takes the logical object in the dative \u2013 yes, you heard me \u2013 and the logical subject in nominative. In the sentence <strong>\u00ab\u042f \u0435\u043c\u0443 \u043d\u0440\u0430\u0432\u043b\u044e\u0441\u044c\u00bb<\/strong> I am not the one who likes him; it is actually he who likes me. The same goes for <strong>\u00ab\u041d\u0430\u043c \u043d\u0440\u0430\u0432\u0438\u0442\u0441\u044f \u042e\u0440\u0430\u00bb<\/strong> [we like Yura] and <strong>\u00ab\u042e\u0440\u0435 \u043d\u0440\u0430\u0432\u0438\u043c\u0441\u044f \u043c\u044b\u00bb<\/strong> [Yura likes us].<\/p>\n<p>This kind of twisted thinking can be tough on anyone in the beginning, but the trick is to try to think of this verb as the equal to the English \u201cto please\u201d. When I say <strong>\u00ab\u044f \u0435\u043c\u0443 \u043d\u0440\u0430\u0432\u043b\u044e\u0441\u044c\u00bb<\/strong> what I\u2019m really saying is I please him. And that, dear comrades, is far more flattering both to me and the Russian language.<\/p>\n<p>And for those of you who were wondering: the perfect tense is <strong>\u00ab\u043f\u043e\u043d\u0440\u0430\u0432\u0438\u0442\u044c\u0441\u044f\u00bb<\/strong>, and if, God forbid, he\u2019s maybe not just that into you what you say is <strong>\u00ab\u0435\u043c\u0443 \u043d\u0435 \u043d\u0440\u0430\u0432\u043b\u044e\u0441\u044c \u044f\u00bb<\/strong>. Do please note that in this case you put <strong>\u00ab\u0435\u043c\u0443\u00bb<\/strong> first, and not <strong>\u00ab\u044f\u00bb<\/strong> as you would\u2019ve if you were pleasing him. This is of course to underline the fact that you, never mind being in the nominative, has nothing to do with the situation. And, with the right intonation and facial expression, couldn\u2019t care less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everybody knows how to say I love you. \u00ab\u042f \u043b\u044e\u0431\u043b\u044e \u0442\u0435\u0431\u044f\u00bb is as much a given as vodka and borsch \u2013 and just as much of a clich\u00e9. But what about saying \u201cI like you\u201d instead? Not as romantic perhaps, and perhaps not as thrilling, either. Perhaps I find Russians expressions of liking and disliking&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/the-russian-emotion-to-like-or-not-to-like\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-language"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6015,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/6015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}