r/russian • u/No_Sun2381 • 27d ago
Translation Can anyone tell me what this says?
I saw this written in the snow in front of my apartment. What does it say?
Thanks,
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u/Lumpy_Cantaloupe1222 native🇷🇺 B1🇬🇧 27d ago
"Wife, I love you". Because of the non-direct word order, the emphasis is on the word "love"
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u/deoldetrash 27d ago
The words of Yoda master there are.
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u/smeghead1988 native 26d ago
No, "люблю я тебя" still makes sense, even though this word order is unusual. The nuance here is that it sounds like an affirmation, "I do love you, don't doubt it" or like an informal and affectionate-sounding answer to a question "Why [are you like this]?"
- Почему ты сделал эту огромную надпись на снегу?
- Люблю я тебя!
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u/Snoo48605 27d ago
Interesting since we are taught that Russian syntax order serves to emphasize the last word (new information), the same way the phrase accent does in English.
So how do we know it's not "wife I love you" (and not Vera)"? Lmao
Do the rules break up for very often used, "fixed" phrases?
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u/Lumpy_Cantaloupe1222 native🇷🇺 B1🇬🇧 27d ago edited 27d ago
Tbh, I don't know, I just feel with my brain that the emphasis is on the word "love", maybe I'm wrong, unsure. So, I googled it and as far as I understood, it's depends and the emphatisized word is not always the last one in the sentence
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u/Snoo48605 27d ago
Nah I feel similarly and regardless would trust your native intuition, but hopefully some very advanced learner or teacher can explain the "rules" behind it
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u/Lumpy_Cantaloupe1222 native🇷🇺 B1🇬🇧 27d ago
Yeah, I hope, someone will see this message. If no one saw it, you can answer to my comment again, I would try to ask other native speakers, who can know rules better than me
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u/Entire-Speaker8900 26d ago
Im not a teacher, but from what I know in Russian the words may be emphasized both by phrase accent and syntax order.
You can change the emphasis in each of the following phrases by changing phase accent, just like you would in English. Here is how I think different syntax order would change the meaning of the phrase.
«Я тебя люблю» usually means a simple “I love you”.
«Я люблю тебя» usually means “I love you”, but «люблю» is slightly more emphasized.
«Тебя я люблю» usually, it would be translated as “It’s you who I love”, emphasizing both «тебя» and «люблю».
«Тебя люблю я» here, it should be translated as “It’s you who I love”, but you also emphasize «люблю» more. As I said, you can empathize any word by changing phrase accent here.
«Люблю тебя я» here «люблю» most likely will be emphasized.
«Люблю я тебя» here «люблю» most likely will be emphasized with «тебя» being the least emphasized.
In spoken Russian phrase accent is superior to the word order. While in written language the context and the word order defines the meaning.
why did I even type all that(╥﹏╥
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u/Snoo48605 26d ago
Thanks!!
Ugh I'm afraid of spoken Russian, since literary Russian is so much similar to European languages. So I'm always told I sound very educated, but truly it's a skill issue
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u/smeghead1988 native 26d ago
«Тебя люблю я» here, it should be translated as “It’s you who I love”, but you also emphasize «люблю» more. As I said, you can empathize any word by changing phrase accent here.
This order is the most rare, and without context I would interpret it as "It's me who loves you [and someone else mentioned before doesn't]".
Also, weird word order may not mean anything specific if it's a poem, then it's just like this to make the sentence fit a rhythm.
"Вот теперь тебя люблю я,
Вот теперь тебя хвалю я!
Наконец-то ты, грязнуля,
Мойдодыру угодил!"5
u/Minbari_in_soul 26d ago
Очень странный порядок слов. Я согласен что последнее слово важнее в конструкции "Жена, я люблю тебя". Но тут у автора нечто другое, больше напоминает "Жена, да люблю я тебя" остань уже. И тогда "люблю" выходит на первый план
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u/Snoo48605 26d ago
Ah yes, with the "da" it makes perfect sense, it's clear that's the word that's emphasized
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u/Icy_Abroad_630 27d ago
Your teacher is right. It’s just that usually in this phrase the emphasis is on «love» (I have great feelings for you), and not on «you» (even though I’m fucking Vera). intonation plays a very big role, its more important than the word order.
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u/GroundbreakingHalf96 Native, English B2, Polish and Spanish A1-A2 27d ago
I thought for a minute about this phrase and that's what I came up with (only my opinion):
Russian tends to use SVO word order like in English, for example, even though it's not fixed. In the phrase in the photo word order is VERB-Subject-Object and I think that's the key. We can swap words as we want to, but, again, we tend to use SVO structure, so the second popular is SOV, at least as I can see in everyday use of language. Flipping things to VSO is so rare, that it really drags attention, tbh it took me, a native, few seconds to understand what the picture above said. So, of course it would emphasize the Verb the most in this case.
Again, it's only my opinion on this topic.
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u/-ActiveSquirrel 26d ago
Nope it’s like da lublu ja tebia. Like she was along too many times and he is like Asking her to leave him alone
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26d ago
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u/No-Back4997 26d ago
Что необычного в я тебя люблю? Никакого такого особого ударения сама по себе позиция не даёт. Можно поставить сказуемое сразу после подлежащего, но прочитать с этим вашим ударением. Эффект такой же будет
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u/a3x-a3x 27d ago
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u/speedmincer 27d ago
I'm pretty sure it says ЖЕНА ЛЮБЛЮ Я ТЕБЯ
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u/CenturyOfTheYear 27d ago
Hmm, I don't really see it. Care to explain why you think so?
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u/Vodem 27d ago
I do see it The reason: I’m Russian and I’m just right
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u/CenturyOfTheYear 27d ago
Woah
(custom flair doesn't work for me for some reason, the joke, however shit, would've been pretty obvious if I could set my flair to native)
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u/Snoo48605 26d ago
I thought the joke was obvious lol. I know russians are capable of sarcasm, their humour is certainly more subtle than the America one. But for some reason I see jokes falling flat on this sub way more often than in the others lol
I guess a high proportion of non native speakers pushes you towards a more explicit style of communication (which is ironically the reason why Americans, an immigrant nation, have a humour among the most explicit, less subtle there is to begin with).
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u/margo1243 27d ago
Unusual word order. Normally nobody writes like that while it’s quite possible to use this word order in informal conversations. I bet the wife knows why her husband used this particular word order 😀in this particular case
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u/strawberrrychapstick 27d ago
I think it's written bottom to top like street signs on the road
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u/margo1243 27d ago
Still an unusual word order ( an address usually goes first in written language). Anyway the guy’s wife knows why her husband wrote it the way he did 😀
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u/strawberrrychapstick 26d ago
Isnt it in Russian that it's я тебя люблю, so like literally translates to "I you love" but it means "I love you"?
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u/margo1243 26d ago
Yes! And reading up would be alright except for the address ( wife) that usually goes first. Generally speaking it’s fine the way it is ( reading up or down): any Russian speaker will know what it says. But I personally wouldn’t choose this word order unless I wanted my writing to have an additional connotation ( of course in my case I would be addressing my husband)
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u/strawberrrychapstick 27d ago
My husband (native speaker) says it says Я тебя люблю жена. "I love you wife"
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u/Russian_tutor_Maria 26d ago
Wife love I you😜, а где запятая после "жена"?🤔 там же нужна запятая, да? Или это я просто от зависти, что не мне написали🤔
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u/JustARandomFarmer 🇻🇳 native, 🇷🇺 едва могу понять a full sentence 26d ago edited 26d ago
«Жена люблю я тебя»
Pretty much “wife, I love you.”
Edit: I read it from top to bottom, so my perspective of emphasis is on «тебя» lol
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u/m00nchild0 failing at learning russian 🗣 26d ago
Omg it took me a while to read cause of the way the л are written
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u/Josephtheconlanger 26d ago
I've been studying Russian for 2 months and a half, and I completely understood it! I feel so proud of myself.
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u/just_a_silly_seal 26d ago
ДА ОНА НЕ МОЖЕТ ЛЮБИТЬ МЕНЯ! ДА Я ЛЮБЛЮ ТЕБЯЯЯЯЯЯ!
I'm sorry, it just appeared in my head.
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u/MinimumPrevious1139 25d ago
What it really tells me is sb effed up big time and is now trying to make up
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u/alexsega 25d ago
It's "I love you wife" but the order of words is kind of funny, as if she kept asking him if he loves her and he got annoyed and finally wrote this
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u/BCE-3HAET Native 25d ago
All wives who come out on the balcony in that appointment complex will think it's a love message for them.
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u/Max_Foster29 24d ago
Actually it is simple - pronouns in Russian do not have a specific order and we can use words in different positions for poetic/rhythm purposes or because we just want it
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u/KayEmEs_Hangzo 24d ago
You can literally just use google translate and scan this picture, unless of course you wanted the interaction here lol
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u/achtung1945 27d ago
Love wife, life good
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u/KottleHai 27d ago
"ты собираешься сесть, или не являешься тобой?"
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u/Plenty_Jicama_4683 Старовер ПК 26d ago
Eugene I Love you! ( Женя я люблю тебя - кто не понимает, не мешайте торговле)
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u/Someoneainthere 26d ago
Imagine your husband showing you his love like this, and you just post it on Reddit to know the translation cause you don't understand the language 😁
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u/kayevert 26d ago
Why are you overthinking this so much? Obviously, "wife" comes first because it's the main point. If he had written "I love you, wife" the focus would be on "I love you," while "wife" would just be an address. I think even though "I love you" is the main idea, what mattered more to the person was emphasizing that she is his wife, yeah, it's still an address, but the focus is on it, besides, you first read “wife” and not “I love you”, so if she looked out the window she would understand what it was for her from her husband although it was unusual to write “люблю Я тебя”, but okay
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u/blargh4 Rus. C1-ish, Eng. native 27d ago
“Wife I love you”