# В подходившей ко мне даме я не узнал своей сестры.



## englishman

"В подходившей ко мне даме я не узнал своей сестры."

1. Does this sentence mean:

"I didn't recognise my own sister in the woman who was approaching me" ?

2. If so, is this standard Russian ? It strikes me as though it is almost a literal translation from the English.


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## Natalisha

Your translation is correct and it's standard Russian.


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## Maroseika

Maybe both English and Russian constructions are French calques.


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## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> Maybe both English and Russian constructions are French calques.



Aber warum?? It is composed of two absolutely standard slavic constructions.


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## Maroseika

So many calques have appeared in Russian since the beginning of the 19 century, that you never know actually. And such a coincidence in 3 languages looks rather suspicious. 

Just a few illustrations: 
Выглядеть  < aussehen
У меня нет времени - ich habe keine Zeit 
Это меня устраивает < cela m'arrange

All these Russian expressions are so habitual, that one would never think all of them are nothing else than calques. And of course, it's quite natural that calques consist of natural words. Only their combination was not that natural some time ago.


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## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> So many calques have appeared in Russian since the beginning of the 19 century, that you never know actually. And such a coincidence in 3 languages looks rather suspicious.
> 
> Just a few illustrations:
> Выглядеть  < aussehen
> У меня нет времени - ich habe keine Zeit
> Это меня устраивает < cela m'arrange
> 
> All these Russian expressions are so habitual, that one would never think all of them are nothing else than calques. And of course, it's quite natural that calques consist of natural words. Only their combination was not that natural some time ago.



But what is wrong with the phrase we are discussing? I see no reasons to suspect a calque.


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## Maroseika

Strange enough, but it doesn't sound too Russian for me - узнавать кого/что в ком/чем. And besides, quite the same English construction. It's not very typical for such different languages as French, English and Russian, each one with it's own logic, but with a long history of contacts and loans.
Modern Russian literary language goes back to the beginning of the 19 century, and so many new words and expressions and even grammatical construction appeared that time, that it was just impossible to invent them right then. Naturally, in many cases they just calques foreign ones. And if there was not such construction in the 18 century, most likely it really has been calqued.
Of course, it's nothing more than my wild guess and only special investigation might clarify the issue.


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## morzh

It is absolutely normal and, I'd say, good Russian.

I also do not see the necessity to call it a calque, as this, even if it was a calque initially, became part of normal Russian.
If you think of it, ginormous part of Russian, starting end of 18-th century, was formed from some Western calques, so what?

When you say it is  calque today, this may bring the person asking the question to thinking that he should shun this type of expressions, because they somehow are not in good taste, and this is not true.


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## morzh

I also wanted to add, that, I think, accusative in this case is used more than genitive.

"Я не узнал в ней свою сестру" vs "я не узнал в ней своей сестры". 
The genitive, I think, is a little old-fashioned, though perfectly fine.


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## Maroseika

morzh said:


> It is absolutely normal and, I'd say, good Russian.
> 
> I also do not see the necessity to call it a calque, as this, even if it was a calque initially, became part of normal Russian.


I just tried to explain why it is so much alike with the English one. And if it is a calque, why shouldn't we call it calque?




> When you say it is  calque today, this may bring the person asking the question to thinking that he should shun this type of expressions, because they somehow are not in good taste, and this is not true.


I don't think anybody here might make such strange conclusion from my supposition, but if this nevertheless happened, I can only sign off your words: this is normal and good Russian nowadays.


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## morzh

This is why I had to comment:

>>Strange enough, but it doesn't sound too Russian for me - узнавать кого/что в ком/чем.

if you are saying it does not sound too Russian to  you, it means that you, a contemporary Russian native, still do not find this an appropriate way to build a phrase in Russian.
And for validity of something being Russian you use 18-th century criteria.

Otherwise too Russian will be "Не лепо ли ны бяшет, братие...." exclusively 

You might've said "it does not sound like the phrase was Russian originally and at some point was calqued, but since became a normal Russian usage". Which later you did, but the statement "does not sound too Russian" stays. Just a bit confusing, that's all.


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## Maroseika

It really doesn't sound too Russian for me when I look at it intently. And what can I do with my feelings? Maybe just our criteria are different: интернет evidently doesn't sound Russian, but it is evidently Russian. Already.
Well, I think there is nothing to argue about. I even cannot bet it is really calque.


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## morzh

Maroseika said:


> It really doesn't sound too Russian for me when I look at it intently. And what can I do with my feelings? Maybe just our criteria are different: интернет evidently doesn't sound Russian, but it is evidently Russian. Already.
> Well, I think there is nothing to argue about. I even cannot bet it is really calque.




Well, it has indeed originated from a calque - this is pretty obvious, and you are right.
And I am not even arguing, just bringing up a point. About an appropriate depth range of an in-depth linguistical analysis for those starting studying a language. 
To me it is pretty simple: this is right, this is not; use this, do not use that.

For those advanced enough - sure. Let's go to Vassmer and have fun!.


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## Maroseika

At least my conscience is clear - the topicstarter was notified with all possible confidence by everybody that was ABSOLUTELY STANDARD AND GOOD RUSSIAN.


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## englishman

morzh said:


> Well, it has indeed originated from a calque - this is pretty obvious, and you are right.


Which part is the calque ? And a calque from which language ? "узнать в" ? That is what struck me as sounding too English to be standard Russian.


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## morzh

Russian is full of time revered accepted calques.

Be it "so to speak" - "так сказать", which is so popular it became a parasite buzz-phrase, to "присутствие духа" from French "presence d'esprit".

I keep finding those every day almost, while sometimes stopping to think about one or another English expression.

It may even be the case of both English and Russian calquing some expressions in parallel from some third language, like the same French, and then again something in Russian will sound English to you.

So next time something sounds too familiar - this just may be quite good standard Russian, just possible a century or two ago copied from something foreign.


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## giorgiob

englishman said:


> "В подходившей ко мне даме я не узнал своей сестры."
> 
> 1. Does this sentence mean:
> 
> "I didn't recognise my own sister in the woman who was approaching me" ?
> 
> 2. If so, is this standard Russian ? It strikes me as though it is almost a literal translation from the English.



I am an Italian native speaker and I am learning Russian.
Regarding the translation, wouldn't it be more appropriate to translate as

"I hadn't recognised my own sister in the woman who had been approaching me" ?
I mean, подходившая is a past tense. In my (actually poor) understanding,

"I didn't recognise my own sister in the woman who was approaching me" ?

would be translated using подходящая. Does this make any sense?

Thanks
Bye
Giorgio


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## ahvalj

giorgiob said:


> I am an Italian native speaker and I am learning Russian.
> Regarding the translation, wouldn't it be more appropriate to translate as
> 
> "I hadn't recognised my own sister in the woman who had been approaching me" ?
> I mean, подходившая is a past tense. In my (actually poor) understanding,
> 
> "I didn't recognise my own sister in the woman who was approaching me" ?
> 
> would be translated using подходящая. Does this make any sense?
> 
> Thanks
> Bye
> Giorgio



No. Unfortunately, the usage of present and past participles in Russian after verbs in the past tense is still not regulated enough: in most such cases you can use both past and present participles without any difference in meaning; the participle then agrees either with the verb (then the present participle is used to express simultaneity) or with the overall situation (then the past participle expresses precedence not to the main verb but in general). Hopefully this ambiguity gets settled during the future codification of the language.


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## englishman

giorgiob said:


> I mean, подходившая is a past tense. In my (actually poor) understanding,
> 
> "I didn't recognise my own sister in the woman who was approaching me" ?
> 
> would be translated using подходящая. Does this make any sense?


It doesn't really make sense to me. You say that подходившая is in a past tense, but then so is my suggested English translation. It's not clear to me why you would expect an English pluperfect tense here. However, given the flexibility of the past tense in Russian, I expect that both translations are possible.


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## giorgiob

englishman said:


> It doesn't really make sense to me. You say that подходившая is in a past tense, but then so is my suggested English translation. It's not clear to me why you would expect an English pluperfect tense here. However, given the flexibility of the past tense in Russian, I expect that both translations are possible.


I am not sure either, I was trying to interpret what I read in my Russian grammar. As far as I understand, a present participle like подходящий indicates an action that is contemporary to that of the main clause, whereas a past participle like подходивший indicates an action that precedes the action of the main clause. In other words, подходящий corresponds roughly to "approaching" / "someone who is approaching" and подходивший to "having approached" / "someone who has been approaching".

If I understand correctly, this is also what ahvalj meant.

Therefore, if the main clause is in the present, I would translate a present participle with a present or a present progressive on one hand, and a past participle with a present perfect or a present perfect progressive on the other hand. If the verb of main clause is in the past, I would translate a present participle with a simple past or a past progressive, and a past participle with past perfect or a past perfect progressive.

For example.

1. Present in the main clause, present participle in the subordinate clause.

"В подходящей ко мне даме я не узнаю своей сестры."
"I don't recognise my own sister in the woman who approaches / is approaching me" (She is approaching me right now.)


2. Present in the main clause, past participle in the subordinate clause.

"В подходившей ко мне даме я не узнаю своей сестры."
"I don't recognise my own sister in the woman who has approached / has been approaching me" (She is not approaching me right now. She has come and gone.)


3. Past in the main clause, present participle in the subordinate clause.

"В подходящей ко мне даме я не узнал своей сестры."
"I didn't recognise my own sister in the woman who approached / was approaching me"  (She was approaching me and at that time I did not recognize her.)


4. Past in the main clause, past participle in the subordinate clause.

"В подходившей ко мне даме я не узнал своей сестры."
"I didn't recognise my own sister in the woman who had approached / had been approaching me"  (She had been approaching me and, later, while thinking about her or looking at her photo, I did not recognized her.)


I do not know if all this is correct. As I said I am learning Russian and I am not a native English speaker either. So my translations may be incorrect. I would be interested in having more information on this topic, since we are learning participles right now in my Russian course.


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## ahvalj

«В подходящей ко мне даме я не узнал своей сестры» and «В подходившей ко мне даме я не узнал своей сестры» mean exactly the same: simultaneity with the verb in the past tense. To express precedence to it you should use the perfective verb: «В подошедшей ко мне даме я не узнал своей сестры».


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## englishman

ahvalj said:


> «В подходящей ко мне даме я не узнал своей сестры» and «В подходившей ко мне даме я не узнал своей сестры» mean exactly the same: simultaneity with the verb in the past tense. To express precedence to it you should use the perfective verb: «В подошедшей ко мне даме я не узнал своей сестры».


Thanks. That makes complete sense, though I would never have thought to use a perfective verb in that way. I guess this usage is entirely natural to a native Russian speaker ?


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## Natalisha

englishman said:


> Thanks. That makes complete sense, though I would never have thought to use a perfective verb in that way. I guess this usage is entirely natural to a native Russian speaker ?


Yes.


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## ahvalj

To make things more complicated, the usage of present and past imperfective participles after verbs in the past tense will not always give a synonymous meaning: that will depend on the verb. Say, «в приходящей ко мне даме я не узнал...» and «в приходившей ко мне даме я не узнал...» are not interchangeable: the first variant in most situations will mean the habit ("the lady who comes to me on a regular basis"), while the second one means, depending on the context, a single event ("the lady who came to me once", the aorist meaning) or a cancelled repeated action ("the lady who used to come to me, but doesn't anymore", the cancelled iterative meaning). 

This is an example of what I had written in another thread about the contextual meaning of the perfective and imperfective verbs in various binary oppositions. Ideally, each element of each opposition should have had a separate personal form, participle, adverbial participle etc., but since the language resources are currently limited, these meanings are expressed only through the context (unfortunately).


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## giorgiob

ahvalj said:


> To make things more complicated, the usage of present and past imperfective participles after verbs in the past tense will not always give a synonymous meaning: that will depend on the verb. Say, «в приходящей ко мне даме я не узнал...» and «в приходившей ко мне даме я не узнал...» are not interchangeable: the first variant in most situations will mean the habit ("the lady who comes to me on a regular basis"), while the second one means, depending on the context, a single event ("the lady who came to me once", the aorist meaning) or a cancelled repeated action ("the lady who used to come to me, but doesn't anymore", the cancelled iterative meaning).
> 
> This is an example of what I had written in another thread about the contextual meaning of the perfective and imperfective verbs in various binary oppositions. Ideally, each element of each opposition should have had a separate personal form, participle, adverbial participle etc., but since the language resources are currently limited, these meanings are expressed only through the context (unfortunately).



The use of aspects in Russian is really fascinating to me. As soon as I think I got it, there comes a new example and I realize that I still have quite a lot to learn.

For example: «в приходившей ко мне даме я не узнал...», you say that this can mean, depending on the context, a single event ("the lady who came to me once", the aorist meaning). Is this related to that fact that a past imperfective can indicate an action that occurred in the past, without any further information?  If one wanted to stress that the action occurred only once, then one would have to use a perfective aspect here («пришедшей», I guess), right?

As another example, if I say «Я вчера читал книгу», I am using the imperfective even if it is not a repeated action, because I am only reporting the action as such. Is this kind of use what you call the aorist meaning?


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## ahvalj

giorgiob said:


> The use of aspects in Russian is really fascinating to me. As soon as I think I got it, there comes a new example and I realize that I still have quite a lot to learn.
> 
> For example: «в приходившей ко мне даме я не узнал...», you say that this can mean, depending on the context, a single event ("the lady who came to me once", the aorist meaning). Is this related to that fact that a past imperfective can indicate an action that occurred in the past, without any further information?  If one wanted to stress that the action occurred only once, then one would have to use a perfective aspect here («пришедшей», I guess), right?
> 
> As another example, if I say «Я вчера читал книгу», I am using the imperfective even if it is not a repeated action, because I am only reporting the action as such. Is this kind of use what you call the aorist meaning?



True. The perfective verb here will convey a perfect (past actual) meaning. But, depending on the verb and situation exactly the same construction may mean quite a different thing: «5 мая войска Цезаря входили в город»/«5 мая войска Цезаря вошли в город» — the imperfective verb denotes a process, the Imperfect of the Romance languages, while the perfective verb is used in an aorist sense, the Simple Past of the Romance languages.

Again: there are lots of nuances in the surrounding reality, and the language has to express them with the tools it possesses. Spanish has much more past tenses (all the Italian + estar haciendo, i. e. x2), so a Spahish speaker will depend much less on the context, but even there I can imagine lots of things the Spanish verb cannot easily convey. Many things for the ideal future language to obtain.


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## giorgiob

ahvalj said:


> True. The perfective verb here will convey a perfect (past actual) meaning. But, depending on the verb and situation exactly the same construction may mean quite a different thing: «5 мая войска Цезаря входили в город»/«5 мая войска Цезаря вошли в город» — the imperfective verb denotes a process, the Imperfect of the Romance languages, while the perfective verb is used in an aorist sense, the Simple Past of the Romance languages.
> 
> Again: there are lots of nuances in the surrounding reality, and the language has to express them with the tools it possesses. Spanish has much more past tenses (all the Italian + estar haciendo, i. e. x2), so a Spahish speaker will depend much less on the context, but even there I can imagine lots of things the Spanish verb cannot easily convey. Many things for the ideal future language to obtain.



For the reasons explained in my previous post, there are cases in which the past imperfective is not translated with a with an Imperfect in a Romance language. My previous example «Я вчера читал книгу.» would be translated with a Simple Past or a Present Perfect in Italian. I guess this is because in this context the perfective aspect denotes the action as such, without further connotation: it just expresses that the action took place some time in the past. In Italian I would use an Imperfect only if the context implies an ongoing process, e.g. «Когда я читал книгу, жена пришла домой.»

This was for me the main difficulty learning the imperfective aspect, because at the beginning I thought it corresponded to the Italian Imperfect (at least in the past), but it does not.

(Btw, in Italian there is also a "stare facendo" form, which as far as I know corresponds to the Spanish "estar haciendo".)


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