(лу́чше по́здно, чем никогда́...)
Illuminatus wrote:Спасибо за корректур!
...
за исправле́ния (or perhaps
за пра́вку). The word
корректу́ра exists, but it normally refers to professional activity of a
корре́ктор.
basilius wrote:Отличные тексты means, literally, 'excellent texts'. Was it what you meant?
No, I actually meant something like "other types of texts", my dictionary told me that
отличный meant "other", but which word would you use in this context?
Just
друго́й (
други́е тексты). 'Other' (or rather 'differing', 'featuring a difference') is indeed the original meaning of
отли́чный, but currently the word won't be understood this way without a pressure from context; the default meaning is now 'excellent' (cf. the semantic development in e. g.
outstanding).
basilius wrote:Also, в этом времени = 'in this time/tense'. Did you mean somethuing like 'by now'?
No, something like "in/during that time" (in my case during the last year and ~4-5 months). Again, which phrase should I use in that context? :)
A possible interpretation:
Мы ещё ма́ло вы́учили за э́то вре́мя. Although it's tempting to replace that with just
Mы пока́ ма́ло вы́учили/изучи́ли (
Einstweilen haben wir zu wenig erlernt - is this grammatical, and close enough to the intended meaning?).
basilius wrote:Я ещё не умею/могу читать такие сообщения, как в этом топике. (General skill, not bound to specific situation.)Я ещё не могу читать сообщения в этом топике. (Ability to do sth. in specific situation.)
So
уметь underlines the ability to do something in general (for example sth. like "I am able to draw [but I can't / won't do it right now]"), while
мочь is used for the possibility or chance you're having right now? (for example "I have a piece of paper so I could draw something [whether I'm able to draw or not]")
More-less, but
мо́чь can refer to abiliy as well (it's not an opposite of
уме́ть in this respect, rather just less specific; cf. my translations).
basilius wrote:Даже не учили вид ~ haven't even started to study verbal aspect
Даже не выучили вид ~ haven't finished even with studying verbal aspect
(Not very apt translations, I'm exaggerating the difference.)
(Also, note the position of the negation; не вид учили is in fact possible, but will mean 'it wasn't aspect that we studied'.)
Thanks, I think
Даже не учили вид would fit best in my case. I start to understand the way verbal aspect works better, even though we haven't started talking about them in class haha.
Be careful, the above is the shade of meaning that emerges when there's a negation; by themselves, Russian aspects don't directly imply starting or finishing anything.
In a nutshell, and with a great simplification.
Russian verbs come as an aspectual pair (
видова́я па́ра) when the verb's semantics is potentially
telic, else (when the meaning is strictly atelic) the verb is always imperfective (
несоверше́нного ви́да). In other words, if the verb's meaning implies a change in the situation which may be in principle either complete or not, you'll mostly have an aspectual pair, and if the verb refers to a static situation or condition without immediately implying a change, you'll have a single imperfective verb (and if there's a related perfective verb, there's a difference in lexical meaning). For example, the meaning of the verb
спа́ть 'sleep' doesn't imply a change (it simply refers to the state of sleeping), so it's imperfective and doesn't have a perfective pair; while 'fell asleep' or 'wake up' do imply a change, so they come as aspectual pairs:
засну́ть/засыпа́ть and
просну́ться/просыпа́ться (the perfective verb =
глаго́л соверше́нного ви́да cited first in each pair); note that both ideas, of starting and ending of the condition of 'sleeping', make the semantics telic; however, a telic verb may also refer to both or neither - cf. another derivate of
спа́ть, the pair
проспа́ть/просыпа́ть whose original meaning is 'to spend <a specific amount of time> sleeping' (where the "change" is about the state of sleeping
having covered a specific timespan).
Now, the core meaning of the two aspects is rather simple: the perfective verb in an aspectual pair presents the implied chage as complete, which the imperfective verb does not - i. e. it either presents the change as incomplete (mostly) or makes its completeness somehow irrelevant (in certain uses). With a semantically telic verb, the imperfective typically refers to repetitive actions (indefinite number of "complete changes"), or the process of "change" perceived ad continuing, or a continuing activity aimed at the change, or even potential change.
A complete change cannot be something that is in progress at the moment of speaking, so perfective verbs don't have a present tense (instead, they use the historical simple present as future). Conversely, imperfective verbs have all the three tenses (past, present, and <analytical> future).
The above is an attempt to explain the core meanings of the two aspects; in reality, there are lots of individual lexical idiosyncrasies and metaphorical shifts in usage, as well as shades of meaning popping up in specific contexts.
In particular, with negation, the perfective simply means that the implied change hasn't become complete (hence my English translation:
не вы́учили ви́д = 'haven't finished with studying aspect'), while a negation with the imperfective sort of denies the activity as such, so a very probable interpretation is that the activity hasn't begun at all (which I tried to convey by translating
не учи́ли ви́д as 'haven't started to study verbal aspect').