# I would like to ask him how he felt



## bonjouur

so far I've got

я бы хотель спрашивать

I'm only a beginner at russian :3 please help!


----------



## k1ddo

I would like to ask him how he felt Я бы хотел спросить как он себя чувствовал.


----------



## Sobakus

k1ddo said:


> *I would like to ask him how he felt*
> 
> Я бы хотел спросить как он себя чувствовал.


  This translates to "I wanted to ask him how he had been feeling, (but I didn't)". There is no change of tenses in reported speech in Russian, the Present remains the Present.

Anyway, the original phrase is ambiguous and requires context. It could be как он себя чувствует, что он думает, or something else even.


----------



## morzh

Context is required. The phrase doesn't even have a period after it.

I would like to see a full sentence, preferably with the context, so everyone could understand what it's about.


----------



## Christiano27

можно сказать:

я хочу спросить у него, как он себя чувствовал?


----------



## Natalisha

Sobakus said:


> This translates to "I wanted to ask him how he had been feeling, (but I didn't)". There is no change of tenses in reported speech in Russian, the Present remains the Present.
> 
> Anyway, the original phrase is ambiguous and requires context. It could be как он себя чувствует, что он думает, or something else even.


Isn't there any difference between 'я хотел' (I wanted) and 'я бы хотел' (I would like)?

P.S. I agree, context is needed.


----------



## Natalisha

Christiano27 said:


> можно сказать:
> 
> я хочу спросить у него как он чувствовал (об этом)?


This Russian version doesn't make much sense, especially with 'об этом'. Reread post 4 please. I completely agree with Morzh.


----------



## Sobakus

Natalisha said:


> Isn't there any difference between 'я хотел' (I wanted) and 'я бы хотел' (I would like)?
> 
> P.S. I agree, context is needed.


     Of course there is, but I can hardly imagine subjunctive expressing a past wish in Russian. I'd rather understand such a sentence in the way I translated it: expressing an unrealised possibility in the past. "Although I wanted to ask him, I didn't."


----------



## Christiano27

So how do I make it make sense if that makes sense? haha!

What should be used instead of об этом in order to say about it then?

e.g.

How do you feel about it?


----------



## LilianaB

Что ты об этом думаешь?


----------



## Natalisha

Christiano27 said:


> So how do I make it make sense if that makes sense? haha!





Christiano27 said:


> я хочу спросить у него как он чувствовал?


You could say for example 'я хочу спросить у него, как он  себя чувствовал'. 



> What should be used instead of об этом in order to say about it then?
> 
> e.g.
> 
> How do you feel about it?


I'd translate it as _Что Вы думаете (ты думаешь) по этому поводу? _


----------



## Christiano27

Aaah! I didn't realise I had omitted себя! Oops!

Thanks!


----------



## LilianaB

Just to make it clear: _how do you feel about it_ has nothing to do with the word feel in Russian.


----------



## Natalisha

Sobakus said:


> Of course there is, but I can hardly imagine subjunctive expressing a past wish in Russian. I'd rather understand such a sentence in the way I translated it: expressing an unrealised possibility in the past. "Although I wanted to ask him, I didn't."


I can't begin to understand why you are talking about a past wish at all. "Я бы хотел" actually means "я хочу" but the expression is not that straightforward. 

Neither do I understand your point about the unrealised possibility in the past. How do you know that I wanted to ask him and I didn't?


----------



## Sobakus

Natalisha said:


> I can't begin to understand why you are talking about a past wish at all. "Я бы хотел" actually means "я хочу" but the expression is not that straightforward.
> 
> Neither do I understand your point about the unrealised possibility in the past. How do you know that I wanted to ask him and I didn't?


   The unrealised possibility comes from the usage of the particle бы, for example without it the phrase would look like: "Я хотел спросить его, как он себя чувствовал". Adding бы doesn't make it subjunctive in the past, because it's impossible in Russian, you can express it only with other constructions like "Я тогда хотел его спросить, как он себя чувствовал". Putting the first part in the Present and the second in the Past doesn't make any sense in Russian from my point of view.

On a second thought, maybe it does make some sense if it's a part of a sentence or even a text:
"Можно с ним поговорить? Я хотел бы спросить, как он себя чувствовал во время операции". Are the actions in the original phrase simultaneous or not? I've got really confused now.


----------



## Syline

Sobakus said:


> Putting the first part in the Present and the second in the Past doesn't make any sense in Russian from my point of view.


And what about such a phrase like "Я бы спросил, как он себя чувствовал в тот момент, но не могу"? (настоящее, выраженное сослагательным, + прошедшее)


----------



## Sobakus

Syline said:


> And what about such a phrase like "Я бы спросил, как он себя чувствовал в тот момент, но не могу"? (настоящее, выраженное сослагательным, + прошедшее)


That's exactly how I understand бы in the discussed phrase. Я бы хотел спросить=Я бы спросил=\=Я хочу спросить.


----------



## Enquiring Mind

bonjouur said:


> я бы хотель спрашивать - I'm only a beginner at russian :3 please help!


(1) Hello bonjouur, and *welcome* to the forums. 

(2) As morzh says in #4, we really need more *context*, We don't know, either, whether "felt" is the end of the sentence, as there's no full stop, so it's important to give the full sentence.  (And the need for context is explained in forum rule 3).  
(3) Are you sure have the *right tenses* in *English*? 
(a) I know he had a bad cold yesterday, so I would like to ask him how he felt (past tense, i.e. how he felt yesterday maybe)  
(b) I know he had a bad cold yesterday, so I would like to ask him how he feels/is feeling (present tense - how he feels today)
(c) Mum asked why I was using the phone. I said I rang my friend as I wanted to ask him how he felt (correct sequence of tenses in reported speech)
In your phrase, the conditional followed by past tense, can only be meaning (a) above.
Russian grammar is precise, so you need to be clear about the use of tenses in English first before you translate it into Russian. Many of the posters'  comments so far are about the tenses. This is not surprising, because I don't think they're correct in English.   

(4) Meaning of *felt*
As Sobakus says in #3, the meaning of "felt" is not clear, especially since we don't know if it is at the end of the sentence.
Compare these two different meanings:
I know he had a bad cold yesterday, so I would like to ask him *how he feels*. (whether he is ill or not)
I've got a spare ticket for the football match, so I would like to ask him *how he feels* about coming with me.  (what his opinion is)

(5) No-one has explained this yet: спрашивать - you'll note that all the other posters have used спросить, which is the perfective form of спрашивать. If you haven't done so already, at some point you'll learn that most verbs have an imperfective and perfective form. Cпрашивать - the imperfective form - means (in the infinitive) to ask questions in general, any questions, maybe lots of questions, to ask a question repeatedly.  In your context, you want to ask one specific question (how does he feel?), so you need the perfective form спросить.  
The bad news: the choice of imperfective or perfective is one you have to think about pretty much every time you use a verb; 
The good news: it gets a bit easier to understand as you read more and more Russian, but in some contexts, the nuances are so subtle that even native Russian speakers argue about which aspect to use.


----------



## Syline

Sobakus said:


> That's exactly how I understand бы in the discussed phrase. Я бы хотел спросить=Я бы спросил=\=Я хочу спросить.


Это просто был не самый удачный пример с моей стороны. Я так поняла, "бы" для вас в данном случае выражает исключительно нереальность/невозможность действия. Для меня же "я бы хотел спросить" = "я хочу спросить" аналогично "я бы порекомендовал вам обратиться к юристу" = "я рекомендую вам обратиться к юристу". "Бы" в подобных случаях смягчает фразу, делает ее менее категоричной и прямолинейной.


----------



## bonjouur

thanks everyone for your help  I don't actually know the context, we had to translate that (as well as many other sentences/phrases) for our homework


----------



## Enquiring Mind

Sorry if we appeared to give you a hard time, bonjouur, and don't let it put you off the forum. We are a friendly bunch, really!
I have to say (as a qualified language teacher) that your homework-setter should be sent to the gulag for introducing *two* ambiguities (tense, and meaning) in the question. A homework question like this should be crystal clear, only ever have one possible correct answer, and contain no ambiguities. Alas and alack ...


----------

