# Happy Women's Day!



## Grefsen

I gave flowers to my two favorite Russian women two  days ago in advance of women's day because one is traveling to San Francisco  tomorrow and the other is going to Moscow on Saturday. I wanted to follow up  with an SMS greetings today to both of them and was wondering how you would say  "Happy Women's Day" in Russian?  (Be so kind and give me the Latin alphabet version please - I haven't learned the Cyrillic alphabet yet and even if I did understand it, I couldn't use it in an SMS.)

"Spasibo" in advance.


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## driveofstuff

"Happy Women's Day"

Pozdravlyayu s mezhdunarodnim zhenskim dniom !

Поздравления с Международным женским днем !


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## Maroseika

S vos'mym martom!


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## Thomas1

driveofstuff said:


> "Happy Women's Day"
> 
> Pozdravlyayu s mezhdunarodnim zhenskim dniom !
> 
> Поздравления с Международным женским днем !


Hi driveofstuff, and wlecome to the forums, 

Out of curiosity, do you always use Международным or it would be fine to say Поздравления с женским днем?
Another question concerns capitalisation: do you capitalize only Международным, or the whole name is capitalized, or a version in the lower case is also possible?


Thanks in advance,
Tom


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## Athaulf

driveofstuff said:


> "Happy Women's Day"
> 
> Pozdravlyayu s mezhdunarodnim zhenskim dniom !
> 
> Поздравления с Международным женским днем !



Um... I don't speak Russian, but the above is not the right transcription of the Cyrillic text below! If the Cyrillic text is right, the first word should be something like "Pozdravlyenya." So wait for someone to confirm which is right before SMS-ing it to anyone.


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## Ptak

Maroseika said:


> S vos'mym marta!


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## Grefsen

"Spasibo" to everyone for your replies.  



driveofstuff said:


> "Happy Women's Day"
> 
> Pozdravlyayu s mezhdunarodnim zhenskim dniom !



So what would be the direct translation of this into English?



Maroseika said:


> S vos'mym martom!



And what would be the direct translation of this into English?  I'm also curious to know about this correction made by *Ptak*.

				"S vos'mym marta!"


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## Ptak

Grefsen said:


> Pozdravlyayu s mezhdunarodnim zhenskim dniom !
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So what would be the direct translation of this into English?
Click to expand...

Congratulations on the International Women's Day!



Grefsen said:


> S vos'mym martom!
> 
> 
> 
> And what would be the direct translation of this into English?
Click to expand...

"S vos'mym mart*a*" means "Congratulations on the eighth of March!"
"S vos'mym mart*om*" is incorrect. ( http://www.gramma.ru/RUS/?id=13.26 )


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## Grefsen

Ptak said:


> Congratulations on the International Women's Day!



"Spasibo!"  Now I know exactly what I will be sending soon in an SMS to my very special Russian friend.


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## Etcetera

Поздравляю с международным женским днем sounds very odd and clumsy to me. Just C Восьмым марта! is much better, and it's the commonly used congratulation.


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## vince

Ptak said:


> Congratulations on the International Women's Day!
> 
> 
> "S vos'mym mart*a*" means "Congratulations on the eighth of March!"
> "S vos'mym mart*om*" is incorrect. ( http://www.gramma.ru/RUS/?id=13.26 )



My Russian isn't good enough to read the article. Why isn't it martom?


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## Maroseika

Ptak said:


> "S vos'mym mart*a*" means "Congratulations on the eighth of March!"
> "S vos'mym mart*om*" is incorrect. ( http://www.gramma.ru/RUS/?id=13.26 )


Yes, grammatically it's incorrect. 
But it's correct semantically, because this holiday name is "Восьмое марта" as a whole and exactly like this holiday is percieved. Therefore it is declines also as a whole. Compare with день рождения.
Most of the natives decline it as a whole because it's more natural, especially if they are looking after themselves. 
But yes, formally it's incorrect.


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## Etcetera

Because the name of the month should be in the Genitive - like in Polish.
So we have 25 декабря, 8 марта, 1 июня and so on. Even if the day is in Nominative, the month still is in Genitive. 
Hope I explained it clearly enough.


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## Ptak

Maroseika said:


> Yes, grammatically it's incorrect.
> ...
> But yes, formally it's incorrect.


Maroseika, it's just incorrect. If someone says so, it's very sad, but it doesn't mean that it's "informally" or somehow else correct.



> Compare with день рождения


Exactly! You never say "Поздравляю с днём рождень*ем*", but only "с днём рождень*я*".



> My Russian isn't good enough to read the article. Why isn't it martom?


Because *я тебя поздравляю (с чем?) с Восьмым (числом) (какого месяца?) марта.*


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## Maroseika

Ptak said:


> Maroseika, it's just incorrect. If someone says so, it's very said, but it doesn't mean that it's "informally" or somehow else correct.
> 
> 
> 
> Sure it's incorrect, no doubt. And still millions natives say so and only so.
> What does it mean? That gramarians know Russian better than millions of natives? I have some doubts...
> There is a lot of examples when incorrect variant became correct in the course of time.
> For example, *спасибо вам* formally is quite wrong, should be *спасибо вас*.
> But nobody uses this correct form since very long ago because nobody percieves *спасибо *literally.
> Here we may see the process completed, while in the case of 8.03 it's still in process.
> Compare with 1.05: *Первомай, поздравить с Первомаем* - quite correct, isn't it?
> I guess for perfect language knowledge one should know not only correct versions, but "incorrect", though live and widespread ones as well. Only such a way he will know up-to-date language.
Click to expand...


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## Ptak

Maroseika said:


> And still millions natives say so and only so.


I'm in doubt very-very much about "millions".



> There is a lot of examples when incorrect variant became correct in the course of time.


Yes. But _this _example is still incorrect.


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## Maroseika

Ptak said:


> I'm in doubt very-very much about "millions".
> 
> 
> 
> Rambler: мартом/марта - 1500/11200.
> Even if only 14% of natives use "incorrect" version, it means 20 millions.
> In fact even more, because usually written speech is more correct grammatically than verbal one.
> For "с первым маем/с первым мая" - 200/700.
> "Рождением/рождения" - 3000/130000.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes. But _this _example is still incorrect
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Sure! Who argues?
Click to expand...


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## Ptak

Maroseika said:


> Rambler: мартом/марта - 1500/11200.
> Even if only 14% of natives use "incorrect" version, it means 20 millions.
> In fact even more, because usually written speech is more correct grammatically than verbal one.
> For "с первым маем/с первым мая" - 200/700.
> "Рождением/рождения" - 3000/130000.


Internet gives also "канфиренция", "кросивый", "немогу/нехочу/незнаю" etc. Don't be so trusting to Rambler and Google.

There is no point for me in disputing about it further. "S 8 mart*om*" is very illiterate, and IF some day it will be right (I have some doubt on it), why should one to defend this variant today?

Maybe some day "_проезжая мимо станцЫи, у меня слетела шляпа_" will be ok too? So when? We are waitnig for it already 100 years. Thank God, it's still incorrect.


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## Etcetera

I agree with Ptak. 
C восьмым мартом sounds very, very incorrect to me. As for "millions of natives" - well, millions of natives also say позв*о*нит and новор*о*жденный.


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## Maroseika

Ptak said:


> Internet gives also "канфиренция", "кросивый", "немогу/нехочу/незнаю" etc. Don't be so trusting to Rambler and Google.
> 
> 
> 
> These are quite different things. Orthograghy is nothing more than a kind of the convention among the natives, especially in Russian, where it rarely matches with pronunciation.
> But expressions we are talking about is not the matter of orthography.
> Such words like *спасибо, пожалуйста* are percieved by the natives as separate interjections, and not verbs or word-combination.
> Первомай is also quite legal word.
> Восьмое марта is also percieved as word-combination, like диван-кровать or государь-батюшка.
> That's why they have to make a mental effort to match with the formal rule.
> Usually necessity of such an effort designate divergence of the grammar and semantics.
> Sometimes it results in the change of the rule (спасибо, т[э]рмин, 1.05, грейпфрут), sometimes - not (звонит, 8.03).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe some day "_проезжая мимо станцЫи, у меня слетела шляпа_" will be ok too? So when? We are waitnig for it already 100 years. Thank God, it's still incorrect
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Interesting thing: formally it's incorrect. But any native will easily understand what's meant.
> This means that Russian has a lack of such form. Doesn't this mean that we may use it when necessary - to enrich our language?
> We have a lack also of Future Participle; however anybody would understand what does mean "напишущий". Doesn't this mean that we may use them when necessary?
> Language has developed much faster before the epoch of the universal literacy...
> Que pena!
Click to expand...


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## Maroseika

Etcetera said:


> I agree with Ptak.
> C восьмым мартом sounds very, very incorrect to me. As for "millions of natives" - well, millions of natives also say позв*о*нит and новор*о*жденный.


Sure!
Inasmuch as it's more convinient for any native.
Doesn't this mean that the rule becomes obsolete? Can anybody explain why *звонит *should be accented on the last syllable?
As for *новорожденный* even Ozhegov permits already two equal forms.


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## Ptak

Look, Maroseika, if you'd like to speak illiterate, please do it.
As you wish.
But please, don't teach foreigners to do the same.

No dispute more.


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## Maroseika

Ptak said:


> Look, Maroseika, if you'd like to speak illiterate, please do it.
> As you wish.
> But please, don't teach foreigners to do the same.
> 
> No dispute more.


Language is for people and not vice versa.
Let's be in a bit less earnest about the language and in a bit more earnest about the people who speak it, and a bit more humour in respect of both.
As for the foreigners, please don't worry: I always explain in all the details I know what's wrong and what's not, and why - if only can.
And the last: I have firm confiction that any widespread error is not an error, but a variant of a norm.


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