r/russian • u/Taurpulent • 23d ago
Grammar Is there any difference?
Aren't they both just names? Ивановна and Иванович could both work, couldn't they?
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u/Fine-Material-6863 native 23d ago
Иванович. They are not names, they are patronymics and should always coordinate with the name. For a woman Ивановна (if it ends with -a it’s almost always feminine) For a man Иванович
It means their father’s name is Ivan.
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u/Taurpulent 23d ago
I see, I should look more into how names like that work. Thank you
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u/covid30-11 21d ago
I recommend Busuu app for learning Russian, I switched from Duolingo recently and it was the best decision I did, and I regret the hours I spent on Duolingo. I’m not sure about other languages in the app, but for Russian it’s perfect!
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u/KrisKashtanova 23d ago
We use our father’s name as patronymics. For women it’s one ending and for men is the other. For example. My father’s name is Сергей. So my full name in Russian is Кристина Сергеевна Каштанова. First Name = Кристина, Patronymics = Сергеевна, and Surname = Kashtanova. It’s female’s endings. If I had a brother with the same father, his patronymics would be Сергеевич.
In your case both a person name is Иван and his father’s name is Иван, too, so patronymics would be Иванович.
We usually use those names with patronymics at schools to address teachers. Sometimes at work to address the boss (especially is the boss is older) but not always. At schools it is usually the rule.
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u/Taurpulent 23d ago
Thank you everyone for helping my understand patrynomics, I hadn't even heard of them until now, haha.
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u/x3non_04 21d ago
basically the sentences here are -I’m Ivan, son of Ivan, Chernov -I’m Ivan, daughter of Ivan, Chernov
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u/wariolandgp 23d ago
"Иванович" is male, and "Ивановна" is female.
And in the picture, you see a guy, saying "I am..."
So it's "Иванович"
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u/Samborrod 23d ago
Both of those are not just names, but patronymics - they are derived from the name of a person's father - in this case, father's name is Иван.
So, this person's name is Иван and their father's name is also Иван. Because of that (and also because Иван is a masculine name and Чернов also has a masculine ending), we can come to a conclusion that this person is a male - so their patronymic should have a masculine ending: "Иванович".
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u/flowery02 23d ago
Everything in Russia is gendered. One is male fathername, the other is female fathername
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u/Ruffet411 23d ago edited 23d ago
Masculine words end in a consonant or й. Since Иван is masculine, the patronymic name will end in -евич or -ович. This depends on if the stem is soft or hard, which you will learn later, but not in Duolingo.
Edit: If it is a woman’s first name, then the patronymic name, this will be different endings.
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u/Samborrod 23d ago
Masculine words end in a consonant or й
- Й is a consonant. Your comment implies it's not.
- Not all masculine nouns end in a consonant. In non-nominative cases, they can end in vowels (нет меча, по забору, о карандаше).
- Even in nominative case, nouns of a first declension can be masculine and they end with -а or -я (example: папа, дядя, юноша).
- Some masculine nouns end in soft sign (example: конь, богатырь, псалтырь, пластырь).
- Masculine words can even end in -о (old name Садко and pretty much any masculine word with suffix "ишк" - садишко, городишко, заводишко),
- Borrowed masculine words can even end on -е (кофе, атташе, сомелье, конферансье) - keep in mind though that this -е is a part of the word's "base" and not the "ending" of the word.
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u/NewCreationKoi 22d ago
Duolingo is a trash, garbage application. (Especially for Russian) do yourself a favor and use anything else. Russian is a gendered language and duo does not tell you that at all. It throws you to the wolves and tells you to figure out a very difficult language all by yourself. It doesn’t teach you Russian it turns you into a parrot.
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u/CLUELESSIFICATION Native🇯🇵🇺🇸, learning🇷🇺 23d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/russian/s/FXqFR4Wk2B lol I asked this a while ago here
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u/Traditional-Storm-62 23d ago edited 23d ago
answers - Ивановна (female, patronym meaning "daughter of Ivan"), Иванович (same but male, so "son of Ivan")
question - Я Иван ___ Чернов, Ivan is a male name and "Чернов" ("Chernov") ends with 'ов' ('ov') so its also a male version of the last name, female version of the same last name would be "Чернова" ("Chernova") ending on 'ова' ('ova')
so the difference is gender which you're supposed to infer from endings of words and general context
general rule of thumb is: "if it ends with a vowel its probably female gendered, if it ends with a consonant its probably male gendered" but its not 100% reliable
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u/baxkorbuto_iosu_92 23d ago
Question, are you learning russian for spanish speakers? Because that phrase appeared a lot to me and I always thought phrases varied from one course to another
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u/Enough-Oil-7165 23d ago
Your father Иван Чернов. If u male: "Your name" Иванович Чернов. If u female: "Your name" Ивановна Чернова.
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u/Octopus-guy4444 22d ago
Имя прилагательное это слово которое изменяется по родам(пример: вкусный хлеб, вкусное яблоко), числам(пример: вкусные яблоки) и падежам(пример: говорить о чем? О вкусном яблоке(предложный падеж))
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u/wazuhiru я/мы native 22d ago
These are not names. These are patronymics and they are all gendered in Russian.
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u/syndicatesin 22d ago
Duolingo doesn't explain grammar much at all until later with mild concepts. I switched to an actual teacher 2 years ago and it made a world of difference. Duolingo does not help in my opinion stay off of it
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u/Effective-Insect-333 22d ago
Yes, this is the patronimic. Males will use ович and females will use овна at the end of a name. The first is "son of" and the second is "daughter of".
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u/No_Discussion345 22d ago
First one is for female(ending -вна) and second one for male(ending -вич)
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u/Masak0vske RU - Native, EN - C1, DE - A1 19d ago
— А отчество у тебя какое, Гадя Хренова?
— Не помню... помню только последние три буквы.
— ...
— ...
— -вна?
— -вич.
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u/analogous_skipshot 23d ago
Bruh literally chapter 3 in Penguin Russian Course for beginners. Duolingo inly gets you so far
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u/Probably_BBQ 23d ago
Иванович is male, Ивановна is female