Is it the use of Dative vs Acc usativ e that clarifies the meaning of Учить?

[Alina Israeli]

Учу стихотворению while theoretically possible, not very likely due to  
the meaning of the verb учить, to teach. It works only with skills:  
учить читать, писать, ходить, рисовать, дышать, работать, заучивать  
стихи, писать стихи; учить иностранному языку, танцу, пению,  
вышиванию, стихосложению etc.

"Мemorizing a poem by heart" is not a skill, cannot teach it to others.

AI

Sep 21, 2010, в 10:11 AM, Mark Kingdom написал(а):

> ...and thus, YES, it seems to be the usage of Dative vs Accusative  
> that
> determines meaning?
>
> Я учу стихотворени*ю*.  ....now has the meaning of, "I am teaching a
> poem..." (to an unnamed person.)
>
> Just clarifying.  Thanks in advance!
>
> Mark
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 5:08 PM, R. M. Cleminson  
> <rmcleminson at post.sk>wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>> -

Alina Israeli
Associate Professor of Russian
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington DC 20016
(202) 885-2387 	fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------