Is it the use of Dative vs Acc usative that clarifies the meaning of Учить?
R. M. Cleminson
rmcleminson at POST.SK
Tue Sep 21 14:08:12 UTC 2010
A quick look at the Russian National Corpus makes it quite clear that учить языку means to teach a language and учить язык means to learn a language. There do not seem to be any instances of ambiguity.
----- Originálna správa -----
Odosielateľ: "Mark Kingdom" <k2kingdom at GMAIL.COM>
Komu: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Dátum: utorok, september 21, 2010 02:14:27
Predmet: [SEELANGS] Is it the use of Dative vs Accusative that clarifies the meaning of Учить?
Hi All,
Я *учу** *друга русскому языку.
My sources tell me this sentence would translate as: I am *teaching *a
friend Russian.
Yet: Я *учу** *стихотворение. This translates as, "I am *learning** *a
poem."
So, a sentence like this: Я учу русский язык.
...is it clear if I am *learning *it, or *teaching *it? I realize a greater
context will clarify,
but without such context, does it have dual meaning?
Or does accusative vs dative clarify? For example:
Я учу русскому языку.
Does the dative case there somehow imply that now you are teaching an
unnamed person
the Russian language?
I really despise this verb. (In a loving sort of way, of course.)
Thanks all,
Mark
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