# Сегодня жарче, чем было вчера.



## wonlon

Translation exercise.
Chapter topic: comparatives and superlatives of adjectives and adverbs.

Question: (free translation from Chinese.)
*Today is hotter than yesterday**.* or *It is hotter today than yesterday.*

The reference answer:
*Сегодня жарче, чем было вчера.*

My answer:
*Сегодня* *жарче* *вчера.*

Is my answer OK?
1.    I didn't mark the time for *вчера*. I don’t know if I must.
2.    As I know *вчера *(adv.) (as well as *Сегодня*(adv.)) if used as a noun is neuter indeclinable, so I mean genitive here. Is my use here OK?


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## ExMax

Your answer is incorrect, we never say that way. It can be either _Сегодня жарче, чем было вчера or Сегодня жарче, чем  вчера_.


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## morzh

The reason your sentence is wrong is this: in this sentence "сегодня/вчера" are adverbs, not nouns. With adverbs you typically have to use "чем" when doing comparison.
With nouns you do not have to - it's a choice. With adverbs it is not a choice.

Яблоко вкусней груши. Яблоко вкусней, чем груша.
But: Сладко лучше чем горько. Сладко лучше горько.

Высокий лучше низкого. Высокий лучше, чем низкий.
But: Высоко лучше, чем низко.  Высоко лучше низко.


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## wonlon

I see. But when I did the translation, I checked if *сегодня* and *вчера* can be used as nouns:

Under *сегодня* (as noun), there is an e.g.:
*Наша сегодня неизмеримо лучше нашего вчера.*

But it looks like in the case of weather, Russian do not say like this.


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## Maroseika

wonlon said:


> *Наша сегодня неизмеримо лучше нашего вчера.*




In this case сегодня and вчера are substantivated adverbs. And even in this case you have to use наше to show grammatical relationship in your phrase, because наше is declinable unlike the nouns сегодня and вчера. Without наше (or any other declinable attribute such as прекрасное, ужасное, etс.) the phrase would be unclear and therefore wrong.

As for the case of weather, these words are adverbs and therefore cannot be used without чем at all.


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## Sobakus

Вчера, as well as сегодня, is already the word вечер declined for, I guess, the Genetive case. So even if you _probably can_ decline the undeclined (-о/е) adverbs as an author's occasionalism, you certainly can't show any kind of case for the already declined ones.


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## morzh

Вчера (and завтра/сегодня), it is both an adverb and an indeclinable noun.

Now, as an adverb it requires "чем" when being compared.

However as a noun it does not. It creates interesting implicit meanings when used as either one.

Вчера лучше, чем завтра - this clearly shows those two are treated as adverbs, and so the meaning of the phrase automatically construed as "it is better for it to be done yesterday, than tomorrow". The task to be done is probably have already been discussed prior to.

- Гравий должны были пивезти вчера. Но привезут только завтра.
- Завтра лучше, чем вчера. Вчера мы были неготовы.

Now, I actually can say: "Вчера лучше сегодня".
This clearly treats them as nouns. It is a direct comparison of yesterday and today.

- Цены растут. Дети хамеют. Доллар падает. Везде стреляют.
- Да. Вчера лучше сегодня. Куда этот мир катится!


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## Sobakus

morzh said:


> Вчера лучше сегодня


But then it's supposedly no different from *wonlon*'s Сегодня жарче вчера! Which to me it isn't. So I can only guess it's due to the fact that сегодня is still separatable into сего дня, so it's understood as Вчера лучше сего дня. While вчера can no longer be equated to вечера and thus it doesn't really pass for a Genetive, unlike сегодня.


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## morzh

Sobakus said:


> But then it's supposedly no different from *wonlon*'s Сегодня жарче вчера! Which to me it isn't. So I can only guess it's due to the fact that сегодня is still separatable into сего дня, so it's understood as Вчера лучше сего дня. While вчера can no longer be equated to вечера and thus it doesn't really pass for a Genetive, unlike сегодня.



No it is not the same at all.

"Сегодня жарче, чем вчера"  implicitly has "оно/погода" or some implicit subject that is "жарче". "Сегодня" - not the subject; it is not "сегодня" that is hotter, but the implied weather.

However in my example "сегодня/вчера" are nouns.


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## ExMax

morzh said:


> Now, I actually can say: "Вчера лучше сегодня".


 Undoubtedly, Morzh is losing his native language, indeed. I never heard something like that. It can be "Вчерашний день лучше сегодняшнего" or "Вчера было лучше, чем сегодня" as a matter of course.


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## morzh

It's a good question which one of us is loosing what.

For your information, "Вчера" as a noun has figurative meaning of "past / recent past". As such I am free to use it this way. If you hadn't heard it, it is because this indeed would be a very figurative thing  to say, but not impossible.

And mind your manners, will you.


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## wonlon

morzh said:


> No it is not the same at all.
> 
> "Сегодня жарче, чем вчера"  implicitly has "оно/погода" or some implicit subject that is "жарче". "Сегодня" - not the subject; it is not "сегодня" that is hotter, but the implied weather.
> 
> However in my example "сегодня/вчера" are nouns.


Well, actually I am thinking what forbids me from treating сегодня as noun in the case of weather.
But maybe I should not draw a parallel between  English / Chinese (Today is hotter than yesterday) and Russian.

In Russian, you can say Сегодня жарко. It is an impersonal construction. Сегодня is an adverb of time.
Building up a comparative sentence as an expansion of the impersonal construction.  Сегодня жарче, чем было вчера. вчера should still remain as adverb of time.

I think the logic is like this.


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## morzh

In most cases "вчера/сегодня/завтра" are adverbs.
But they still have the noun incarnation. Not that it is used often.


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## giorgiob

Sobakus said:


> Вчера, as well as сегодня, is already the word вечер declined for, I guess, the Genetive case. So even if you _probably can_ decline the undeclined (-о/е) adverbs as an author's occasionalism, you certainly can't show any kind of case for the already declined ones.


Can you analyze сегодня as сего дня, where сего is the genitive of some demonstrative adjective? I guess this adjective also appears in the expression до сех пор (up to now). Is this correct?


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## morzh

giorgiob said:


> Can you analyze сегодня as сего дня, where сего is the genitive of some demonstrative adjective? I guess this adjective also appears in the expression до сех пор (up to now). Is this correct?



Yes, "сегодня" is "сего дня" having become one word.
Same as "Спасибо" is "Спаси Бог".


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## Sobakus

giorgiob said:


> Can you analyze сегодня as сего дня, where сего is the genitive of some demonstrative adjective? I guess this adjective also appears in the expression до сих пор (up to now). Is this correct?


It's a demonstrative pronoun сей/сия/сие - сии = этот. Archaic or poetic.


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