Russian Grammar

Open Forum
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I was reading the bible in both Russian and English, and found this verse in Luke 11:16

“Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. 18 If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? "

" Любое царство, разделившееся на враждующие части, приходит в запустение, и дом, где есть распря, рушится. 18 И если сатана враждует против самого себя, то как устоит его царство? "

Why is его used instead of свой to refer to Satan? There is no other figure Jesus is talking about, unless of course using свой would somehow refer to Jesus himself ( unlikely ) .

similarly, in another verse:

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side."

" Один человек шёл из Иерусалима в Иерихон. По дороге на него напали разбойники, которые раздели его, избили до полусмерти и ушли. 31 Случайно по той же дороге проходил священнослужитель и, увидев этого человека, прошёл мимо по другой стороне дороги. 32 Так же поступил и левит[g]: дойдя до этого места и увидев пострадавшего, он обошёл его стороной."

In the last verse его is again used. I assume it refers to the man who was rubbed and beaten, not to левит. In which case the verse would be translated as : the Levite circumvented/went around the victim’s side of the road.

I need to make sure my grammar is reasonably good while progressing with Russian, so I only need to build up vocabulary without being slowed down by grammar. There will come a time where I have no access to an English text to disambiguate grammar issues, so my understanding of Russian’s grammar needs to be nearly flawless.
Having to learn thousands upon thousands of words is a massive task as it is, without being bogged down with grammar.

On a more positive note, reading the bible every day seems to be doing a very good job of teaching me vocab. I some times read the Russian text without referring to the English at all because of the number of words I’ve suddenly become familiar with.

This will take well over five years, but I’m up to the task.

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Привет!

“Если сатана враждует против себя, то как устоит его царство?” Как я понимаю, вся заковырка в слове “его”, почему бы не испольсзовать “свой” вместо “его”. Тут если так сделать, то не поймешь, о ком речь идет, несмотря на то что Иисус говорит только о сатане. Вот если бы было вот такое предложение “если сатана враждует против себя, то как он (или сатана) сможет удержать СВОЕ царство”. Я попробовал, конечно, объяснить, но думаю, вышло не очень. Задай какой-нибудь уточняющий вопрос, если есть :slight_smile:

Еще можно проверять вопросом. “Если сатана враждует против себя, то как устоит (чье?) его царство (царство сатаны).” “Дойдя до этого места и увидев пострадавшего, он обошел (кого?) его (того, кто лежал там) стороной.”

3

Hello

" Тут если так сделать, то не поймешь, о ком речь идет, несмотря на то что Иисус говорит только о сатане. Вот если бы было вот такое предложение “если сатана враждует против себя, то как он (или сатана) сможет удержать СВОЕ царство” "

I see your point. " СВОЕ " being used in the neuter gender might have caused ambiguity as to whom it referred to, because
сатана is feminine. Even though it would have been ambiguous, would it still have been grammatically correct if СВОЕ had been used?

" Еще можно проверять вопросом. “Если сатана враждует против себя, то как устоит (чье?) его царство (царство сатаны).” “Дойдя до этого места и увидев пострадавшего, он обошел (кого?) его (того, кто лежал там) стороной.”

I totally misinterpreted его in the second verse, apparently. I thought it was a possessive pronoun as in " my book, his book ".

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I don’t find many people reading the Bible, so it’s nice to know that I am not the only one who finds it helpful for language learning. I started learning Dutch end of February, and about a week ago finished reading the Gospel of John, mostly without the help of a dictionary. Knowing a passage/excerpt very well makes it so much easier to read and understand due to already being familiar with the content.

Have also read chapters from Romans, Isaiah, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians and Hebrews as well. What I really find helpful is to read it out LOUD! Helps me get the feel of the language.

Wish you lots of fun, cheers!

1 Like
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Sorry for responding in English but I don’t like using American keyboard without Russian letters to type. iphone much better and it spell checks )))

To the original question isn’t it as simple as in “устоит его царство” царство is the subject and you never use свой in the subject because свой connects the object of a sentence to the subject - ie, telling the user the object belongs to the subject.

I pulled out my very old The New Penguin Russian Course book. Haven’t looked at this in a very long time. From the book:

Сергей не знал, что Иван взял свой билет.
Sergei didn’t know that Ivan had taken Ivan’s ticket.

Сергей не знал, что Иван взял его билет.
Sergei didn’t know that Ivan had taken Sergei’s ticket.

Book does given the following nominative examples:
у каждого свое мнение - Everyone has their own opinion
у каждого свой дом - Everyone has their own home
у него своя машина - He has a car of his own

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" To the original question isn’t it as simple as in “устоит его царство” царство is the subject and you never use свой in the subject because свой connects the object of a sentence to the subject - ie, telling the user the object belongs to the subject "

I misunderstood the verse again, what a shame; I thought Satan was the subject, not Kingdom, as in " How will Satan build/establish his kingdom ". I should not have ignored the precise meaning of устоит . I’m really beginning to worry that I misread many other verses. Maybe I should read John’s gospel again later.

" I don’t find many people reading the Bible, so it’s nice to know that I am not the only one who finds it helpful for language learning. I started learning Dutch end of February, and about a week ago finished reading the Gospel of John, mostly without the help of a dictionary. Knowing a passage/excerpt very well makes it so much easier to read and understand due to already being familiar with the content. "

I’ve been doing it for quite a while now ( I attempted then skipped the OT for the time being, though) , and I share your observation regarding the familiarity of the content and its helpfulness. However, I do think there is one detrimental effect to this: it conditions you to only read parallel texts and rely on the English text for clarification, making you less inclined to figure out the meaning of a problematic target language sentence on your own. It also renders word look ups much more tedious in the long run, because you will have become used to having the native language text for reference. The only benefit is the rapid learning of contextualized vocabulary.