If you were to translate “so beautiful” from Engish to Russian, which of красивый / красивая / красивое would you use, in the absence of any other information about what is being described? Is «так красиво» a valid option?
In Russian there is no gender neutrality. Так красиво does not describe anything in particular but overall quality. If you try to describe something gender of which you do not know yet - either try to assume it out (like deer with antlers - "he", otherwise - "she") or just use whatever gender you want to, you'll be corrected.
Красиво can be either an adverb or a neutral gender adjective: голубое небо (каково́?) очень красиво (adjective) vs голубое небо выглядит (как?) красиво (adverb).
My linguistics education didn't mention adverbial adjectives; we were taught that cognate adjectives and adverbs share degrees of comparison. Otherwise, they serve different functions: adjectives modify nouns while adverbs modify verbs and adjectives.
Short forms of adjectives have a predicative function: they stand at the end of a simple sentence/ clause and tell us something about the subject:
Он здоров, а она больна / нездорова. "He is well, she is ill / sick".
In the sentence above short forms also imply that they describe the current state, not a permanent quality unlike spoken usage of full forms in this final position:
Он здоровый, а она больная. "He is robust, healthy (possibly big and strong too), and she is sickly, unhealthy (in slang can also mean weird to the point of mental illness).
Adjective neutral gender is красивое. It can be also красиво as an adjective but we don't say it very often. We more use it as n adverb. And I thought about it. It seems that it doesn't work with all adjectives
one is long/full form used as an attribute to modify nouns and placed before them (красивый автомобиль, красивая кошка, красивое дерево),
the other is short and used predicatively (он красив, она красива, оно красиво (which coincides in the latter case with the adverb form, but adverbs don't modify nouns - they modify adjectives and verbs: он красиво танцует; он хорошо подготовлен).
Directly it is impossible here. Directly - using the same stem. Will need a different one, as in other cases of suppletion (один год - много лет, один ребенок - все дети):
Эти ботинки для меня слишком большие. = Эти ботинки мне (слишком) велики́.
PS I know that великий is not just someone or something physically big, large, in modern Russian. But suppletion is not something new in very frequent adjectives: плохой has its comparative degree form хуже (плоше is an ad hoc form used in Vladimir Mayakovskiy's short poem about a horse falling down) and superlative худший (synthetic form, analytical being самый плохой), though originally these were forms of худой.
I agree that not everything possible in the system of a language is actually used in modern everyday speech. We study at school деепричастия and other participial forms, but almost never use them out of classroom, same as with full declension of long numerals.
I can think of using деепричастия in police reports describing an event with attending circumstances:
The suspect, moving stealthily (передвигаясь скрытно), reached the place.
No. This is a third, separate grammatical gender, and you don't use it for people. I mean, you can - as a dehumanizing insult - but that's not language-student level. :)
Что вы, моя теснейшая связь с лингвистикой - это что я когда-то слушал научно-популярные лекции академика Зализняка. В данной области я абсолютный профан. Я даже в школе не был способен выучить формальные правила грамматики - учился грамотно писать исключительно через интенсивное чтение русской классики.
It's not. "Так красиво" = "[it's] beautiful [here]".
Middle gender is used for inanimate objects and abstract concepts, it's dehumanising and we won't use it even for animals.
"They" would be an insult either, because comparison to an entitled royal, like , "we/they Napoleon Buonaparte" is used to humiliate people who act narcissistic. An overblown ego is often sarcastically compared to a royal crown.
You need a common gender (he/she) word but there's a very limited amount of common gender words and most of them are insults (crybaby, bully, etc).
Grammar and life don't always coincide - in Russian the words for man and woman by their meanings belong to different grammatical genders, masculine and feminine respectively, but follow the same (1st) declension pattern used for all nouns ending in -а, -я. All nouns of this declension pattern are either masculine or feminine regardless of their reference to animate or inanimate entities (вода, земля, бабушка , дедушка, дядя, тетя, мужчина, женщина, палка, папка).
The 2nd declension pattern we learn the spelling of at school has
all masculine nouns (again animate or inanimate) that end in a consonant sound (but not necessarily a consonant letter: картофель ends in a soft sign and can be mistaken for a feminine noun)
all neutral gender nouns (they end in -о/-е: солнце, облако, блюдце, блюдо, блюдечко) and denote inanimate objects or some abstract notions: сознание, понятие, дело. But some words of neutral gender can be applied to humans:
Дракула – не человек, а настоящее чудовище. "Dracula is not a human, he is a real monster".
3rd declension pattern includes only feminine nouns ending in sibilants (?) like [sh]: мышь, вещь, ночь.
Some words that typically have the same forms as 1st declension and may be deemed feminine, are considered to belong to common gender and be applied to male and female persons: староста (school class prefect or a head of a village self-government), плакса (cry baby), ханжа, задира, забияка. Adjectives modifying these nouns take masculine or feminine endings according to the real gender of the subject, and verbs do too:
Мой староста сказал / моя староста сказала.
Inanimate objects can belong to masculine, feminine or neutral grammar gender:
У меня синяя шариковая ручка, красный карандаш и маленькое зеркальце.
It is not like it in English. By the way, she for at least for ships in English is not an obvious choice for speakers of Russian - or take personifications of Time etc in John Milton or William Shakespeare: I still don't know how their genders were chosen, and these are meaningful for their interplay.
There are words that belong to the masculine gender, but can be used to denote both men and women. Quite often they name jobs, originally available only to men: журналист, преподаватель, редактор, врач / доктор. Many such words have acquired feminine suffixed counterparts like журналистка, преподавательница, студентка, учительница, школьница, but they usually are not official designations of the title, and some may be too informal and even derogatory like врачиха.
Another group of nouns in Russian are loanwords that do not change their form throughout the case system: метро, кофе, кафе, кенгуру, авокадо, рефери , пальто, киви, yet somehow linguists have assigned them grammar genders for agreeing with adjectives and verbs. It looks strange, yet кафе is neutral (большое кафе) while кофе should be correctly used with adjectives in the masculine gender. These are indeclinable nouns. Some of them are such despite having final -о/-е like second declension nouns, but in their case it is not counted as an inflection:
Спасибо большое. Я кое-что понимаю. I think I grasp the idea that the grammatical gender of a word, and the actual gender of the person/animal/object the word refers to, are two separate things. They may or may not coincide.
I will be coming back to what you have explained above as I continue studying Russian, and I am sure the details will become clearer to me and provide further insights. Thank you.
No problem. Wish you every success. I myself wouldn't be able to master such complex languages if I hadn't acquired it as a child.
Yes, the gender of a word in grammar is much more than biological gender of gendered creatures because grammar gender covers inanimate objects too; declension patterns do not coincide with genders; gender in grammar may have various types of inflection and may coincide in male and female nouns ending in -а -я. "Gender neutral" nouns, that is, nouns applicable to men and women may belong to the masculine gender in grammar like job titles.
Attributive adjectives modifying nouns agree with nouns in gender in the singular; in number; and in case in both numbers.
I think it's totally valid if you describe some objects or view, but if you talk about person and unsure about their gender, use something like "Вы красиво выглядите"/"Мне нравится ваш стиль"
in your case it's correct to use "красиво", it's completely neutral and can be used to any gender. If we're talking about a person and you want to say that they look beautiful, you can use plural "вы очень красивы" as a polite adress. However, if you're talking about a third person and want to use "he/she/they", then there's no gender neutral word for it, you can only assume their gender like "да, он красивый".
You can use "красиво" sometimes if someone's asking you "как я выгляжу?" (how do i look?) you can say "красиво". But if someone's asking "как тебе этот человек?" (do you like that person?) then "красиво" doesn't fit.
We can say "так красиво," but only as an assessment applied to something generalized, without gender. For example, in relation to the environment, appearance, to an act or gesture. "Ёлка мерцает огоньками. Так красиво." or "он сделал ей предложение на вершине Эйфелевой Башни. Так красиво" or "Ооо, этот карнавал в Рио. Так красиво." or "Мне нравится как ты выглядишь в этом платье. Так красиво". etc.
With a person you have to guess, with a thing you don't have to guess - because languages are pointlessly gendered and you simply have to know. With a general sense of witnessing beauty "(это) так красиво" feels right, but it doesn't apply to individual things, you would have to specify "выглядит красиво" in which case the gender isn't involved because the verb looks the same for all genders. Maybe point at the object to make yourself understood.
Russians uses 3 genders, 2 for people(male/female) and one neutral for animals and things(not all animals or things neutral gender), so it would be awkward to use Красивое for a human. It's either Красивый or красивая if you talk about a person.
If you not sure about person's gender, I recommend you using male gender, this way it's less awkward imo if you mistaken.
In Russian there is no gender neutrality. Так красиво does not describe anything in particular but overall quality. If you try to describe something gender of which you do not know yet - either try to assume it out (like deer with antlers - "he", otherwise - "she") or just use whatever gender you want to, you'll be corrected.
Красиво is an adverb. Adverbs don't have gender
Красиво can be either an adverb or a neutral gender adjective: голубое небо (каково́?) очень красиво (adjective) vs голубое небо выглядит (как?) красиво (adverb).
Красиво is adverbial form of adjective (краткое прилагательное). It is not neuter gender form.
My linguistics education didn't mention adverbial adjectives; we were taught that cognate adjectives and adverbs share degrees of comparison. Otherwise, they serve different functions: adjectives modify nouns while adverbs modify verbs and adjectives.
Short forms of adjectives have a predicative function: they stand at the end of a simple sentence/ clause and tell us something about the subject:
Он здоров, а она больна / нездорова. "He is well, she is ill / sick".
In the sentence above short forms also imply that they describe the current state, not a permanent quality unlike spoken usage of full forms in this final position:
Он здоровый, а она больная. "He is robust, healthy (possibly big and strong too), and she is sickly, unhealthy (in slang can also mean weird to the point of mental illness).
Adjective neutral gender is красивое. It can be also красиво as an adjective but we don't say it very often. We more use it as n adverb. And I thought about it. It seems that it doesn't work with all adjectives
Russian adjectives like this one have two forms:
one is long/full form used as an attribute to modify nouns and placed before them (красивый автомобиль, красивая кошка, красивое дерево),
the other is short and used predicatively (он красив, она красива, оно красиво (which coincides in the latter case with the adverb form, but adverbs don't modify nouns - they modify adjectives and verbs: он красиво танцует; он хорошо подготовлен).
How do you make short form from word большой?
Directly it is impossible here. Directly - using the same stem. Will need a different one, as in other cases of suppletion (один год - много лет, один ребенок - все дети):
Эти ботинки для меня слишком большие. = Эти ботинки мне (слишком) велики́.
PS I know that великий is not just someone or something physically big, large, in modern Russian. But suppletion is not something new in very frequent adjectives: плохой has its comparative degree form хуже (плоше is an ad hoc form used in Vladimir Mayakovskiy's short poem about a horse falling down) and superlative худший (synthetic form, analytical being самый плохой), though originally these were forms of худой.
Well, but when I think about it I personally don't really use short forms when I talk
I agree that not everything possible in the system of a language is actually used in modern everyday speech. We study at school деепричастия and other participial forms, but almost never use them out of classroom, same as with full declension of long numerals.
I can think of using деепричастия in police reports describing an event with attending circumstances:
The suspect, moving stealthily (передвигаясь скрытно), reached the place.
Word Большо would not be a big mistake. Kind of funny word actually. Моё разочарование большо, пойду вздремну.
It sounds weird. As it written in another comment велико is better instead of большо
Isn’t the neuter gender, well, gender neutral?
No. This is a third, separate grammatical gender, and you don't use it for people. I mean, you can - as a dehumanizing insult - but that's not language-student level. :)
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Никогда не слышал, чтобы это выражение употребляли без иронии. Так что тоже своего рода оскорбление. :)
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Да, вы правы. Но все же Герцен может быть для вас и солнышком, и светилом, и зеркалом, но Герцен не может быть любимое, умное и выдающееся.
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Что вы, моя теснейшая связь с лингвистикой - это что я когда-то слушал научно-популярные лекции академика Зализняка. В данной области я абсолютный профан. Я даже в школе не был способен выучить формальные правила грамматики - учился грамотно писать исключительно через интенсивное чтение русской классики.
Not exactly. It is still a gender but not defined, like it is 'personless'.
You can use красиво for anything in a separate sentence or clause or as an adverb:
Море блестит на солнце, и это так красиво!
Ты улыбаешься так красиво!
neuter gender is rather it/its than they/them
It's not. "Так красиво" = "[it's] beautiful [here]". Middle gender is used for inanimate objects and abstract concepts, it's dehumanising and we won't use it even for animals.
"They" would be an insult either, because comparison to an entitled royal, like , "we/they Napoleon Buonaparte" is used to humiliate people who act narcissistic. An overblown ego is often sarcastically compared to a royal crown.
You need a common gender (he/she) word but there's a very limited amount of common gender words and most of them are insults (crybaby, bully, etc).
Grammar and life don't always coincide - in Russian the words for man and woman by their meanings belong to different grammatical genders, masculine and feminine respectively, but follow the same (1st) declension pattern used for all nouns ending in -а, -я. All nouns of this declension pattern are either masculine or feminine regardless of their reference to animate or inanimate entities (вода, земля, бабушка , дедушка, дядя, тетя, мужчина, женщина, палка, папка).
The 2nd declension pattern we learn the spelling of at school has
all masculine nouns (again animate or inanimate) that end in a consonant sound (but not necessarily a consonant letter: картофель ends in a soft sign and can be mistaken for a feminine noun)
all neutral gender nouns (they end in -о/-е: солнце, облако, блюдце, блюдо, блюдечко) and denote inanimate objects or some abstract notions: сознание, понятие, дело. But some words of neutral gender can be applied to humans:
Дракула – не человек, а настоящее чудовище. "Dracula is not a human, he is a real monster".
3rd declension pattern includes only feminine nouns ending in sibilants (?) like [sh]: мышь, вещь, ночь.
Some words that typically have the same forms as 1st declension and may be deemed feminine, are considered to belong to common gender and be applied to male and female persons: староста (school class prefect or a head of a village self-government), плакса (cry baby), ханжа, задира, забияка. Adjectives modifying these nouns take masculine or feminine endings according to the real gender of the subject, and verbs do too:
Мой староста сказал / моя староста сказала.
Inanimate objects can belong to masculine, feminine or neutral grammar gender:
У меня синяя шариковая ручка, красный карандаш и маленькое зеркальце.
It is not like it in English. By the way, she for at least for ships in English is not an obvious choice for speakers of Russian - or take personifications of Time etc in John Milton or William Shakespeare: I still don't know how their genders were chosen, and these are meaningful for their interplay.
There are words that belong to the masculine gender, but can be used to denote both men and women. Quite often they name jobs, originally available only to men: журналист, преподаватель, редактор, врач / доктор. Many such words have acquired feminine suffixed counterparts like журналистка, преподавательница, студентка, учительница, школьница, but they usually are not official designations of the title, and some may be too informal and even derogatory like врачиха.
Another group of nouns in Russian are loanwords that do not change their form throughout the case system: метро, кофе, кафе, кенгуру, авокадо, рефери , пальто, киви, yet somehow linguists have assigned them grammar genders for agreeing with adjectives and verbs. It looks strange, yet кафе is neutral (большое кафе) while кофе should be correctly used with adjectives in the masculine gender. These are indeclinable nouns. Some of them are such despite having final -о/-е like second declension nouns, but in their case it is not counted as an inflection:
Моё пальто, моё окно. Моего пальто, моего окна. Моему пальто, моему окну...
Спасибо большое. Я кое-что понимаю. I think I grasp the idea that the grammatical gender of a word, and the actual gender of the person/animal/object the word refers to, are two separate things. They may or may not coincide.
I will be coming back to what you have explained above as I continue studying Russian, and I am sure the details will become clearer to me and provide further insights. Thank you.
No problem. Wish you every success. I myself wouldn't be able to master such complex languages if I hadn't acquired it as a child.
Yes, the gender of a word in grammar is much more than biological gender of gendered creatures because grammar gender covers inanimate objects too; declension patterns do not coincide with genders; gender in grammar may have various types of inflection and may coincide in male and female nouns ending in -а -я. "Gender neutral" nouns, that is, nouns applicable to men and women may belong to the masculine gender in grammar like job titles.
Attributive adjectives modifying nouns agree with nouns in gender in the singular; in number; and in case in both numbers.
I think it's totally valid if you describe some objects or view, but if you talk about person and unsure about their gender, use something like "Вы красиво выглядите"/"Мне нравится ваш стиль"
Cats will commonly use the neuter ‘красивое’ when interacting with street fish vendors. EG
in your case it's correct to use "красиво", it's completely neutral and can be used to any gender. If we're talking about a person and you want to say that they look beautiful, you can use plural "вы очень красивы" as a polite adress. However, if you're talking about a third person and want to use "he/she/they", then there's no gender neutral word for it, you can only assume their gender like "да, он красивый".
You can use "красиво" sometimes if someone's asking you "как я выгляжу?" (how do i look?) you can say "красиво". But if someone's asking "как тебе этот человек?" (do you like that person?) then "красиво" doesn't fit.
We can say "так красиво," but only as an assessment applied to something generalized, without gender. For example, in relation to the environment, appearance, to an act or gesture. "Ёлка мерцает огоньками. Так красиво." or "он сделал ей предложение на вершине Эйфелевой Башни. Так красиво" or "Ооо, этот карнавал в Рио. Так красиво." or "Мне нравится как ты выглядишь в этом платье. Так красиво". etc.
With a person you have to guess, with a thing you don't have to guess - because languages are pointlessly gendered and you simply have to know. With a general sense of witnessing beauty "(это) так красиво" feels right, but it doesn't apply to individual things, you would have to specify "выглядит красиво" in which case the gender isn't involved because the verb looks the same for all genders. Maybe point at the object to make yourself understood.
Russians uses 3 genders, 2 for people(male/female) and one neutral for animals and things(not all animals or things neutral gender), so it would be awkward to use Красивое for a human. It's either Красивый or красивая if you talk about a person.
If you not sure about person's gender, I recommend you using male gender, this way it's less awkward imo if you mistaken.