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Virginia Alabamovna Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

Native speakers, do you use the articles?=)

One of my students asked me: "A...An...The...By the way, do they use them in real life?" My answer was: "Sure. All the time"=) To be honest, I`ve never thought about it. It may be a stupid question to ask. Anyway=)
  

Top answer

" My answer was: "Sure. All the time"=) You should have answered that we only use them in real life when we want to show off that we can speak English! ) CJ

— CalifJim

  • " My answer was: "Sure.
  • All the time"=) You should have answered that we only use them in real life when we want to show off that we can speak English!
  • ) CJ
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29 Answers
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Virginia Alabamovna"A...An...The...By the way, do they use them in real life?" My answer was: "Sure. All the time"=)
You should have answered that we only use them in real life when we want to show off that we can speak English!
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Hahaha! That`s funny=) I`ll tell themEmotion: it wasnt me
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And how about declining numbers and other adjectives according to case? You Russian speakers don't really bother with that in real life, do you?
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khoffAnd how about declining numbers and other adjectives according to case? You Russian speakers don't really bother with that in real life, do you?
I have tried with most adjectives, but the numbers? Forget it. Try that once too often and you'll go insane!

(I'm sure Russians don't decline the numbers in real life, no matter what the books s
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I really didn`t get what you meant. Why do youu think so?
The problem is that we have different grammar and we don`t have articles or something similar at all. The learners can hardly understand this
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CalifJim no matter what the books say!
And what do the books say????Emotion: surprise
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Oh, no, I didn't mean to suggest that your students are dull. I meant that Russian grammar is so different, and complicated (for us), that when we study it we can't believe that you really follow all the complicated rules. Declension of nouns and adjectives, especially numbers, seems so difficult and pointless to us.

Thinking about this, I pulled out my old Russian grammar book and look
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khoff I meant that Russian grammar is so different, and complicated (for us)
Yes. That's exactly what I meant as well.

I'm sure that it would take me 12 years of practice before I'd be able to say in Russian, without having a nervous breakdown:

We packed 45 oranges, 33 bananas, 13 lemons, 87 peaches, and 31 pears in that box.
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khoffand complicated (for us)
Well I guess every foreign grammar is complicated for those who study it=)
khoffwe can't believe that you really follow all the complicated rules.
That`s true, we don`t!
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CalifJimwithout having a nervous breakdown
Hahaha! Have you ever had it? And was Russian the reason?
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