# послышаться vs услы́шать



## Anita hk

I found this sample sentence on internet:  Послы́шался крик о по́мощи.  But I can't find послышаться in the dictionary.  It's not the first time that this happened.  On many occasions when a word has a prefix or end with ся, they don't appear in the dictionary, or at least not directly.  I thought послышаться is perfective of слышать plus ся to make it passive, but in fact the perfective of слышать is услы́шать.  Is послышаться a totally different word?  Or if I add ся to услы́шать (услы́шаться), would it mean the same as послышаться?  Is there a page that explains the adding of prefixes?  Thanks in advance.


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## Rosett

You may want to follow this link for explanation.


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## Awwal12

Anita hk said:


> Is послышаться a totally different word?


Basically yes. In principle, "услышать", "слышать" and "слышаться" are all different words, but in the case of "послышаться" there is no regular morphosemantic relationship, i.e. it isn't formed according to some productive model but rather simply exists. Even "слышаться" is something more semantically than a plain passive (while there is always the underlying idea that at least someone hears the sounds, the main point is that there are some sounds, not that they're heard; in English, passive constructions with "hear" can be idiomatically used in a similar fashion, although to a more limited extent).


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## Vovan

Anita hk said:


> On many occasions when a word has a prefix or end with ся, they don't appear in the dictionary, or at least not directly


Do use Викисловарь to look up those words.


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## Enquiring Mind

> Is there a page that explains the adding of prefixes?


 Prof Terence Wade explains some of the principles of prefixation and what they can mean (according to context) in his book 'A Comprehensive Russian Grammar' here (§242 Submeanings of perfectives, page 274).
Using prefixes often changes the meaning of verbs, and *по* might indicate the start of the action or a semelfactive (instantaneous) action (as in your case - _there came a cry for help, a cry for help made itself heard_). In another context it might indicate (as Wade describes it) "intermittent performance of a short-lived action", and in other contexts it can impart other nuances. When verbs are prefixed in this way to indicate a nuance of meaning, they don't necessarily form an imperfective/perfective pair. Some do, some don't.

And then there's the interesting examples of the reflexive form послышаться used impersonally here (academic.ru)


> 2. Если вам что-то послышалось, значит, вам ошибочно показалось, что раздался какой-то звук. _— Кто-то пришёл? — Нет, тебе послышалось. | То ли телефон звонит, то ли послышалось_.... _ | Мне послышалось, что здесь разговаривают._


_No, you (must have) misheard / you must be hearing things. |  Either the phone's ringing or I'm hearing things / ... or I (must have) misheard.  |  I thought I heard people talking here._

Note that what I write here doesn't necessarily apply to verbs of motion, where prefixation is best studied with regard to that particular group of verbs in its own right, and you can find notes on that in Wade too.


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## Awwal12

Enquiring Mind said:


> Using prefixes often changes the meaning of verbs, and *по* might indicate the start of the action (as in your case


I must note that по- in the inchoative meaning is basically restricted to motion verbs (those formed from the stems of directed motion). It's unproductive as an inchoative prefix, and won't be normally analysed as such by native speakers in verbs like послы́шаться, regardless of the possible etymology. As I said, for native speakers such verbs simply exist; they can only make guesses about the detailed meaning of their morphological composition. It's quite different from verbs formed according to some more productive models (понабежа́ть, посверли́ть etc.), which have transparent morphology and thus usually do not require a separate entry in the dictionary.


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## nizzebro

I agree with Awwal12' s comment which is well considered; anyway, after some analysis, it can be seen that the function of по- even for unidirectional motion verbs is internally the same as for other verbs: just a chunk of a homogeneous process, a portion of a loop - since, in order to notice the launch of a process, you have to observe its flow for some while.
There are the verbs  "политься", "посыпаться" (that are not of the motion verbs category) which could be understood as both the beginning of a process and one more action since there's actually no difference as long as it is a portion, just 'some amount' of it:
Внезапно вода полилась из крана. После этого вода полилась ещё немного.
In the same way, the verb послышаться, in its plain meaning, just says that the described sound was heard for a period of time. It was a chunk of sound and nothing else. To me, Wade's definition of по- as "intermittent performance of a short-lived action" is something extra and ambiguous. Any past action is in some sense short-lived when described as a single whole by the means of  the perfective aspect.  Also, I fail to see any relevance to 'semelfactive (instantaneous)' actions except that these are opposite to по-.


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## Enquiring Mind

> ... Wade's definition of по- as "intermittent performance of a short-lived action" is something extra and ambiguous


 In that comment, I think Wade is quite correctly referring to this sense:


> *ПОСВЕТИ́ТЬ*, посвечу, посветишь, совер.
> *1.* без доп. Дать освещение, свет на некоторое время. _Луна посветила и скрылась за тучами. _(academic.ru)
> *ПОПИВАТЬ*, попиваю, попиваешь, несовер. (разг. фам.). 1. что. Пить понемногу, изредка. _Сидит, чаек попивает._) (academic.ru)


It's a grammar book, so it seeks to explain to the learner general principles which can then be discussed on the basis of specific examples by a good teacher.


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## nizzebro

Enquiring Mind said:


> In that comment, I think Wade is quite correctly referring to this sense:
> *ПОСВЕТИ́ТЬ*, посвечу, посветишь, совер.
> *1.* без доп. Дать освещение, свет на некоторое время. _Луна посветила и скрылась за тучами. _(academic.ru)
> *ПОПИВАТЬ*, попиваю, попиваешь, несовер. (разг. фам.). 1. что. Пить понемногу, изредка. _Сидит, чаек попивает._) (academic.ru)
> It's a grammar book, so it seeks to explain to the learner general principles which can then be discussed on the basis of specific examples by a good teacher.


Anyway these two verbs differ by aspect: попивать is a secondary imperfective form marked by the suffix and that is exactly what provides the iterative sense (that was probably meant by "intermittent" -  if I understand correctly).  Each iteration of the activity denoted by an iterative verb is short-lived, each action denoted by a perfective verb is short-lived too - in that sense, no matter what prefix is used, everything is short-lived except a pure imperfective (пить). It is a good idea to explain general principles to the learner only if the explainer himself realizes those principles fully.


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## Anita hk

Sorry for getting back late.  I'm a beginner trying to learn the language on my own so it took me some time to digest the discussion.  
Actually the page where I found the sentence Послы́шался крик о по́мощи, gives this translation:   We heard (there was) a cry for help. 
If I'm to translate 'We heard (there was) a cry for help', could I say 'услы́шался крик о по́мощи'  or 'услы́шали крик о по́мощи'?
(by the way, what is the difference between using the reflexive ся and the plural form to indicate passive or impersonal?)

Using Wade's explanation of *по,*  'Послы́шался крик о по́мощи' would it be something like 'a cry for help was heard intermittently' or 'there was an intermittent cry for help'?


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## Enquiring Mind

> Using Wade's explanation of *по,* 'Послы́шался крик о по́мощи' would it be something like 'a cry for help was heard intermittently' or 'there was an intermittent cry for help'?


No, because *послышаться *is a perfective aspect, and therefore unlikely in standard usage to refer to an intermittent action. I would understand that to mean there was a cry for help, a cry for help was suddenly heard.
Wade's explanation on the use of the prefix *по *to denote "intermittent performance of a short-lived action" occurs in §249: 'submeanings of some prefixed *im*perfectives', as with the *ПОПИВАТЬ* example I correctly referred to in #8, which illustrates this meaning.

With verbs in Russian, you've really got to be clear about whether you're dealing with the imperfective or perfective aspect.


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## Vovan

Anita hk said:


> Послы́шался крик о по́мощи.


There came a cry for help. (More or less unexpectedly and, maybe (!), not very loudly/distinctively - as if in the distance or from a shelter/trap).


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## Vovan

Anita hk said:


> could I say 'услы́шался крик о по́мощи' or 'услы́шали крик о по́мощи'?


"Услышаться" (=hear one another) is slang only: radio deejays sometimes use this word when finishing their shifts (e.g.: _"Услышимся в воскресенье! Всем удачи!"_). Some people may also erroneously use the word to mean "seem to sound like" in a situation when they are trying to make sense of imcomprehensible words in an audio recording which they have to play again and again, so that to understand what was said/sung (e.g.:  «Мне услышалось "в вагоне", а не "в агонии"»).

_"Мы услышали крик о помощи"_ is a perfectly normal sentence (=_"We heard a cry for help"_). As for the subtle differences between it and _"(Нам) послышался крик о помощи"_, please see my previous post. Basically, the latter sentence means something like _"A cry for help seemed to reach us"_.


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## SamSim-18

Anita hk said:


> could I say 'услы́шался крик о по́мощи'


No.


Anita hk said:


> or 'услы́шали крик о по́мощи'


No, but you can say Они/Мы услы́шали крик о по́мощи.


Anita hk said:


> 'Послы́шался крик о по́мощи' would it be something like 'a cry for help was heard intermittently' or 'there was an intermittent cry for help'?


It means they just heard a cry for help. Once.
But I cannot explain why. I don't know the rules of Russian. Sorry.


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## nizzebro

Anita hk said:


> could I say 'услы́шался крик о по́мощи' or 'услы́шали крик о по́мощи'?
> by the way, what is the difference between using the reflexive ся and the plural form to indicate passive or impersonal?


You could say услы́шали without the subject this way:
Его крик о помощи услышали.
Его крик о помощи был услышан.
As for the reflexive -ся, it can be combined with some but not all verbs. There's the verb слышаться, but no reflexive for the perfective услышать. The reflexive увидеться exists but means 'to meet and see each other'. The meaning of -ся  depends on a particular verb; generally, it like lets the subject, even inanimate one,  to be 'active' in some sense - but it's hard for me to define it clearly. Anyway, look at this:
Его крик слышался в лесу в течении часа. Когда его крик послышался возле деревни, его наконец услышали.
In the first clause, the sound of his cry was like emitting itself, giving an opportunity to hear it (this is denoted by the imperfective reflexive verb слышался); Then, the sound performed one piece of that action near the village (the perfective reflexive послышался). After that , the sound was heard, that is, caught by the neighbors (они услышали) - that is a result that depends entirely on listeners - on their active perception, a reflexive wouldn't work here.


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## Anita hk

Thank you nizzebro for the excellent example.  I have some more questions.
Is there any difference in meaning or nuance between Его крик о помощи услышали and  Его крик о помощи был услышан?
Is it correct to say that the first one is impersonal and the second one passive?

My original suggestion  'услы́шали крик о по́мощи', would it be correct if I switch the sequence of the words to 'крик о по́мощи услы́шали'?  (but I have read somewhere that word sequence in Russian is not that important)

As for the use of  ся, is it correct to say that if the dictionary does not show it, then the form verb+ся doesn't exist and I cannot add ся to any verb to make it passive (the only way to make it passive in such case would be like in your example Его крик о помощи был услышан)?

I think I understand what you mean by ' it like lets the subject, even inanimate one, to be 'active' in some sense '.  It is like making a transitive verb into an intransitive verb by adding ся (eg. начина́ться ), correct?   In fact, this is another aspect that Russian verbs are giving me problems.  In the dictionary, they never indicate whether a verb is transitive or intransitive.


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## nizzebro

Anita hk said:


> Is there any difference in meaning or nuance between Его крик о помощи услышали and Его крик о помощи был услышан?


Not so much, to me, the latter sounds more formal; anyway, the closest to the everyday speech would be something like
"(Люди) в деревне услышали, как он зовёт на помощь"
Where 'люди' could be omitted because the verbal form 'услышали' marks the function of 'they' by its ending. What are 'they'? Just people of this village, its inhabitants - since 'в деревне' is fronted. The word order always matters!


Anita hk said:


> Is it correct to say that the first one is impersonal and the second one passive?


Probably, yes - except that услышали, as noted above, needs some reference to the subject, at least like that 'В деревне услышали..." Otherwise, it sounds a bit bookish and, like in  'Его крик о помощи услышали ', makes the object (cry) focused (so this pattern is better to use with, e.g., 'finally': 'Его крик о помощи наконец услышали').
Anyway you cannot say Услы́шали его крик о по́мощи except as a enumeration (Мы пришли туда. Услышали его крик о помощи. Вызвали полицию).

Pure participles are not common in everyday speech but sometimes they look like short adjectives:
'Дверь сломана.' just means this door is broken: the door is not functioning properly etc
Once you hear 'Дверь сломали' this could imply that the door is not just broken but broken by _someone _- some bad guys who like to break doors and whatever. 'Дверь сломалась' - it got broken and  there's not only no indication on someone's will but the very reason is rather inside this door - bad construction or is too old.


Anita hk said:


> As for the use of ся, is it correct to say that if the dictionary does not show it, then the form verb+ся doesn't exist and I cannot add ся to any verb to make it passive (the only way to make it passive in such case would be like in your example Его крик о помощи был услышан)?


It probably depends on a dictionary - whether it shows all these -ся or not.  I'd recommend to add -ся yourself only when you are ensured about the presence of a common pattern: for example,  the reflexive -ся works fine in constructions like 'this thing is easy to ... (meaning to process)' - 'этот материал легко режется/обрабатывается/ломается';


Anita hk said:


> It is like making a transitive verb into an intransitive verb by adding ся (eg. начина́ться ), correct? In fact, this is another aspect that Russian verbs are giving me problems. In the dictionary, they never indicate whether a verb is transitive or intransitive.


However, услышать is a transitive verb but you couldn't obtain its intransitive form with -ся. It is more related to semantics.


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## Anita hk

nizzebro said:


> Pure participles are not common in everyday speech but sometimes they look like short adjectives:



What would be the difference between 'Дверь сломана (past passive participle)' and  'Дверь сломанна (short adjective)'  ?

As to the usage of plural verb form like ' услышали', so it is ok to put it at the end of a sentence without subject as in 'Его крик о помощи услышали', but if I'm to put it before the noun, I need to put a subject like ' Мы услы́шали его крик о по́мощи ', unless I have already referred to Мы in some previous sentence.  Correct?


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## nizzebro

Anita hk said:


> What would be the difference between 'Дверь сломана (past passive participle)' and 'Дверь сломанна (short adjective)' ?


There's the word сломана only. It is a short passive past participle with the full form сломанная; such formation is common for many past passive participles. What I mean by the look of an adjective is that, in everyday informal language, it is not common to use a passive participle with specifying the actor like this one: 'дверь сломана вашим соседом'. Usually, this idea is conveyed just by putting the object first: 'эту дверь сломал ваш сосед' but, as for short participles, they are mostly used without specifying 'by whom' and, as post-modifiers of a noun, function in the same way as short adjectives.

Эта сломанная дверь лежит на полу. The full form of the participle
Эта дверь давно сломана.  The short form of the participle
Эту дверь сломал сосед.   A common pattern to specify the actor.
Эта дверь сломана неустановленными лицами.   Formal language
Эта дверь сломалась. 'Got broken' - no acting person is assumed.



Anita hk said:


> As to the usage of plural verb form like ' услышали', so it is ok to put it at the end of a sentence without subject as in 'Его крик о помощи услышали',


Yes; the sentence 'Его крик о помощи услышали' acts in the same way, emulating a passive construction by making the object fronted.


Anita hk said:


> but if I'm to put it before the noun, I need to put a subject like ' Мы услы́шали его крик о по́мощи ', unless I have already referred to Мы in some previous sentence. Correct?


There's actually no reason to omit the subject here - except a rare expressive uses like replacing comma with a new sentence or other nonstandard cases.


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## Anita hk

nizzebro said:


> It is a short passive past participle with the full form сломанная


I don't quite follow.  I thought сломанная is the normal long adjective and сломанна is short adj, and  сломана is past passive participle formed from the verb сломать.  You mean the past passive participle also has a long and short form (сломанная and сломана)?



nizzebro said:


> as post-modifiers of a noun, function in the same way as short adjectives.


Just to confirm, so this means that there is no difference between  'Дверь сломана' and 'Дверь сломанна'  ?


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## nizzebro

Anita hk said:


> I don't quite follow. I thought сломанная is the normal long adjective and сломанна is short adj, and сломана is past passive participle formed from the verb сломать. You mean the past passive participle also has a long and short form (сломанная and сломана)?


There's no such word as сломанна   The rest are past passive participles formed from сломать and yes, they are the long and the short form; participles have two forms like adjectives.
However, there's a number of adjectives such as жареная, вязаная which are formed from verbs, these have only the long form with a single -н- in the suffix.  As for adjectives, only a number of them have the short form and this form is used rarely.


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## Anita hk

Thanks nizzebro.  I'm very confused.  The book (The New Penguin Russian Course) which I used for self study does talk about a bookish construction of past passive participle with endings  -нный  and - тый which can replace a clause beginning with который.   And the long past passive participle of сломать would indeed be сломанный / сломанная.  But on the other hand, if I look up сломанный in the dictionary, it is labelled as an adjective.  So I thought that short form adjectives can be formed from this and that's how I got  сломанна.  But you say this word doesn't exist.  So now I have 2 questions: 
1.how do I distinguish a word formed from long past passive participle and a simple long adjective when they both end in -нный  or - тый?
2.if not all adjectives can have short form, how could I identify those adjectives that I cannot form the short form?

I haven't learnt the formation of adjectives from verbs.  Is there a page somewhere on internet that talks about this?  Thanks.


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## nizzebro

Anita hk said:


> So I thought that short form adjectives can be formed from this and that's how I got сломанна.


Short forms of -ный/-нный end in a single н (-ан/-ян/-ен/-ён), whether those are adjectives or participles.


Anita hk said:


> 1.how do I distinguish a word formed from long past passive participle and a simple long adjective when they both end in -нный or - тый?


Those ending in -нный and_ formed from verbs_ are mostly passive participles, words ending in -ный (with a single -н-) are adjectives. There is also a number of adjectives ending in -нный (but those mostly are not derived from verbs, you can find some of them here). Some words exist in two forms e.g. жареный /жаренный; the latter should be used in writing when an acting person is specified or an adverb is present (but it is anyway used rarely though - or used incorrectly). Words ending in -тый are either participles or adjectives but still, if these are formed from verbs they can function as participles - that is, be accompanied by arguments and adverbs.
In any case a dictionary is necessary. Such common words like сломанный, when used as just pre-modifiers without any arguments or adverbs ('Cломанная дверь.'), could be indeed called adjectives but they are primarily participles. We always can say 'сломанный им'; if we could not do then it would be an adjective and nothing else.


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## Anita hk

Thanks nizzebro for the explanation.  Is there any comprehensive Russian-English online dictionary that you could recommend?  Very often I encountered a sentence and I had to look up 3,4 dictionaries to find an explanation that fits.


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## nizzebro

Anita hk said:


> Is there any comprehensive Russian-English online dictionary that you could recommend? Very often I encountered a sentence and I had to look up 3,4 dictionaries to find an explanation that fits.


I'm afraid there's no universal online solution. I've tested some online services for сломанный, only yandex.translate marked it as a participle and linguee.ru as both participle and adjective;  dictionary.reverso.net marks it as an adjective - however, at least for 'broken' it gives both сломанный and сломан; multitran.com - as an adjective but provides all forms and the table of declension.


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## Anita hk

Thank you for the ideas nizzebro.  I use reverso also and I noted that it marks  сломанный as adjective under English but participle and adjective under Spanish.


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## Vovan

nizzebro said:


> Short forms of -ный/-нный end in a single н (-ан/-ян/-ен/-ён), whether those are adjectives or participles.


Not really: _болезненная -> болезненна, ценные -> ценны, _etc. Short adjectives normally follow the pattern of their full counterparts in this respect (with some peculiarities in masculine forms).


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## nizzebro

Vovan said:


> Not really: _болезненная -> болезненна, ценные -> ценны, _etc.  Short adjectives normally follow the pattern of their full counterparts in this respect.


Really, I've made a mistake.  These my words 'whether those are adjectives or participles' are valid to the cases like сломанный -> сломана only (discussed above), which, in different dictionaries, are marked as either adjectives or participles; but, that is not true for 'pure' adjectives (except the masculine forms in any case).


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## Anita hk

Thanks for the clarification, Vovan and nizzebro.


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