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808surfsniper
Just Starting
Joined: 09 Jun 2009
Posts: 4
Location: North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii
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 Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:32 am Post subject: Menya vs. Moy (Меня либо Мой?) |
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здравствуйте! Меня зобут 808surfsniper, и я из Гавайи.
(Hello! My name is 808surfsniper, and I'm from Hawaii).
While learning Russian I noticed that there are the words Меня and Мой, which would both seem to indicate possession/belonging. For example, I learned "My name is _____" as "Меня зобут ____". However, I also came across the word Мой, which I understand also means my/mine. How would I know when to use Меня, and when to use Мой?
Большое спасибо! |
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romdur
Just Starting
Joined: 17 Mar 2010
Posts: 0
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| Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 10:45 pm Post subject: Revised Answer |
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I'm only a student, but here's my take (big corrections from the first version of this post):
"мой" is a POSSESSIVE pronoun (like "my" or "their" in English) for masculine nouns, as in
мой друг = my (male) friend
"мой" is the form for nominative or accusative cases
"меня" is accusative or genitive form of a PERSONAL pronoun (like "me" or "her" in English). The accusative is used for the direct object of a verb (and several other uses, too). Genitive case expresses possession, but also has several other uses.
When we say in Russian "меня зовут Иван", this is literally, "me, they call Ivan," (зовут is third-person plural). What makes this confusing is that the English sentence the pronoun ("I") is the subject, but the idiomatic Russian sentence has the pronoun as the object; the subject is the "they" implied by the way the verb is conjugated.
Other places to use меня
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Several prepositions take the accusative or genitive case, so:
у меня есть мобилник - I have a mobile phone (lit. "at me is a mobile phone")
передайте семье "привет" от меня - say "hi" to the family from me (lit. "pass along to family "hi" from me)
этот подарок для меня - this gift is for me
Genitive is used when lack or absence is expressed:
меня не будет в Москве - I won't be in Moscow (lit. "of me not will be in Moscow" - but for positive, nominative case "Я буду в Москве") |
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romdur
Just Starting
Joined: 17 Mar 2010
Posts: 0
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| Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 2:41 am Post subject: |
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I made big changes to the preceding post... I did some reading on grammar, and saw I made big mistakes  |
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808surfsniper
Just Starting
Joined: 09 Jun 2009
Posts: 4
Location: North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii
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| Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 10:16 am Post subject: |
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спасибо, romdur!
Now it makes sense why I learned Меня зовут ____
I just realized a little while ago that in my first post I said зобут instead of зовут. Woops-mixing up those B's and Б's, haha. |
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YellowMelon
Frequent Guest
Joined: 28 Nov 2008
Posts: 65
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| Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 11:19 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I just realized a little while ago that in my first post I said зобут instead of зовут. Woops-mixing up those B's and Б's, haha. |
I did exactly the same thing when I started learning Russian. So confusing with all those characters! But for some reason I never seemed to confuse a western r with Russian r... |
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romdur
Just Starting
Joined: 17 Mar 2010
Posts: 0
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| Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | mixing up those B's and Б's |
I did this 3 or 4 times while typing up the above post  |
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