Unbearable Russian Grammar: pluralization

[Askmaxim]

Being a Russian native, I never gave a thought to how we Russians were handling pluralization. That is, until I was recently asked by a customer.

This forum is for English tips and tricks mostly, I understand, but I just thought this might be a fun piece, and hope it won't be objected badly.

What I want to convey also is that this is such a luck that our biggest challenge is to learn English. See below and cheer that you do not have to learn Russian (yet :D) Or - that you are a native Russian :-) .

So, here we go.

A client asked: "Do you have separate words for singular and plural in Russian, e.g. would you have one word for 'comment' and another word for 'comments'?"

Our Reply:

Re your question, yes, there are 'comment' and 'comments' in Russian, eg there may be a comment on a report, or a comments column in a table. (But there isn't plural for 'bikini', or, say, 'kangaroo', as these are foreign words that do not end in a consonant or -a like Russian.

"Another question regarding pluralisation:

With regards to the Russian words if we need to pluralize a words such as "item" does the pluralization depend on the quantity of items that are being pluralized?

Phrased in a more general way: Is there ever more than one way to pluralize a single Russian word?"

Our Reply:

* When explicitly used with a counting number, the form for 2,3 and 4 items is identical to singular genitive case.
For 5 - 20 items it's plural genitive.

Then,
21, 31, ..., 101 ... = 1 - always singular (like '21 item').
22-24, ..., 102-104, 122-124 ... = 2 - 4
25-30, ... 105-120, ... = 5 - 20

So, we have 1 item (singular), 2,3 and 4 'item-a', 5-20 'item-ov'

* When not counted, then it's a singular 'item' and plural 'item-y', either subject to 6 cases including the nominative (original).

Our Reply 2:

-- I just realised that it's a noun only that is singular genitive, but an adjective to it would be plural genitive.
It is a plural adjective coupled with a singular noun, both genitive.

In addition, if the numbers 2, 3 and 4 are themselves in the genitive or other indirect case ("Of 2 items...") then the trailing adjectives and nouns are all plural.

I guess we Russians don't get confused because 2, 3 and 4 end in a vovel, while 5-20 - in a consonant, and that reflects in our top-of-shoulders computers.

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Originally posted at englishdic.livejournal.com/1942.html

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Maxim Buyakov
Principal, Maxim Global Services
AskMaxim.com: Russian/English Technical and Legal Translation, Voiceover

[Kitosdad]

Wow Askmaxim, that was an interesting, if somewhat confusing, post. Thank you for it.

I am curious. What is a top-of-shoulder computer.?
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Keep it simple ... Keep it interesting.

[Askmaxim]

The head...

[Kitosdad]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

OK, I get it now. Thanks.
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Keep it simple ... Keep it interesting.

[Romashka]

What a scary life)) Ne srazu ponyal o chem rech =)