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Is there a difference between болен and заболел or they are just synonyms? The context is "I am sick". (Я болен vs. Я заболел)

shabunc
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Influx
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6 Answers6

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  1. In most cases they are synonyms.
  2. Я болен means I am sick at the moment. (I am sick)
  3. Я заболел means I wasn't sick before, but now I am (I got sick)

The context:

-You don't look well. How are you? -Я болен.

-Why didn't you come to the party? Everybody was waiting for you! -Я заболел.

sr9yar
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Grammatically, "болен" — is imperfect form (like "I'm ill") while "заболел" is perfect (like "I've caught cold"). Also "болен" is used in more serious or chronical cases, so if you want to tell your team that you want a sick-day, better choice would be "заболел".

Alissa
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  • Thank you 1^. What is perfect or imperfect form? I don't know such thing in English (it doesn't say that it doesn't exist, I just sat that I don't know what it is. I made some googling as well but I didn't find an answer for that) – Influx Apr 25 '17 at 12:00
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    It is the same kind of perfect/imperfect as in English tenses. In Russian most of verbs have several forms some of which are perfect and some are imperfect. I think you can consider it to be more or less same as changing tenses (present perfect instead of present simple and so on) – Alissa Apr 25 '17 at 12:08
  • I thought that they're nouns. Are not they? – Influx Apr 25 '17 at 12:12
  • @Alissa болен is not a verb, it is a noun between an adverb and a participle, so it cannot be perfective or imperfective. Only verbs can. – Manjusri Apr 25 '17 at 14:23
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    Damn, sorry, болен is definitely not a verb. But not a noun as well. – Alissa Apr 25 '17 at 14:25
  • A noun is not существительное. A noun is what grammarians use as a Russian equivalent for имя (существительное или прилагательное). Or a причастие. – Manjusri Apr 25 '17 at 14:28
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    @Manjusri That usage is extremely rare nowadays, and frankly, I don't see how the confusion created by using it this way is justified, outside of the "gotcha" value it provides for pedantic posturing. – Nikolay Ershov Apr 25 '17 at 15:55
  • @Nikolay Ershov I wouldn't say the usage being so rare. http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAVerbalNoun.htm – Manjusri Apr 25 '17 at 20:03
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    @Manjusri But that proves my point. A verbal noun like "description" or "walking" is still a substantive noun. Just like "описание" or "ходьба". And the more general question linked to quite unambiguously identifies nouns with nomina substantiva, not all nomina. – Nikolay Ershov Apr 25 '17 at 22:54
  • @Nikolay Ershov I'd rather say that this, together with what you said, proves the shifty nature of borderlines between parts of speech and the word for 'noun' covering all 'nomina' in general. – Manjusri Apr 26 '17 at 00:55
  • @Manjusri No. A verbal noun is a noun, as in substantive noun. Nothing is particularly shifty here. I see that you're apparently fond of the idea, as a piece of trivia concerning historical terminology that you happen to know, but nouns being all nomina is an outdated, gratuitous and confusing notion. – Nikolay Ershov Apr 28 '17 at 17:13
  • @Mr.Influx see https://russian.stackexchange.com/questions/14512/are-there-truly-empty-perfectivizing-prefixes-in-russian-aspectual-clusters

    Perfect/Imperfect is the rather general concept. Sometimes it is explicitly shown in language structures (like Perfect and Simple tenses in English) sometimes not, and then you convey the same conception with different means. So I second this difference. Just think that English tenses are not some primary artifacts but merely tools to reflect your inner ideas. Russian language has different toolset, etc. But the unspoken ideas are the same.

     – Arioch May 30 '17 at 15:48
  • @Manjusri the Verbal Noun in Russian school books is named "отглагольное существительное", that is "имя существительное" derived "от глагола". Whether "noun" can be used as "adjective" (имя прилагательное) I am not sure, I cannot remember such examples. – Arioch May 30 '17 at 15:52
  • @Arioch There is no English terms in Russian schoolbooks. The terms 'nomina' had been already defined as early as at the days of Latin being a living language. – Manjusri May 30 '17 at 16:48
  • @Manjusri well, then - as much as words of different languages can ever be mapped - the English term "noun" corresponds to Russian term "имя существительное". Subsequently Russian term "имя" maybe corresponds to Latin terms "nomina" but none of them corresponds to English term "noun". Maybe there is some distinct term in English that can mean имя/nomina, maybe not. – Arioch May 30 '17 at 16:51
  • @Arioch I use the definition going back to Latin 'nomina', covered by both Russian 'имена [существительные и прилагательные]' and English 'nouns'. Dixi. – Manjusri May 30 '17 at 16:53
  • @Manjusri Can you show an example where "noun" in essential modern English is used to mean "adjective" ? – Arioch May 30 '17 at 17:22
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    @Manjusri: did you maybe mean "nominal" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominal_(linguistics) ? "Noun" is not a word which can be applied to adjectives. – Quassnoi May 31 '17 at 10:28
  • @Quassnoi, right, exactly. https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BC%D0%B5_(%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0) – Manjusri May 31 '17 at 19:07
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There's an important difference in meaning. Болен and больной can be used to say "mad", "nuts" while заболел is never used for this purpose.

Ты болен?! — Are you mad?!

Больной придурок! — Sick bastard!

Compare:

Ты заболел?! — Have you become ill?! (e.g. caught a cold, flu etc., I'm worried about your health)

[Этот] придурок заболел! — This idiot became ill. (e.g. caught a cold, flu etc. and now we have problems because of his absence)

Community
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ttaaoossuuuu
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  • "mad" is more about enraged and aggressive, I guess. Better "are you nuts", or at least "are you crazy". – Arioch May 30 '17 at 15:54
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    @Arioch is correct. The meaning of "mad" has shifted from "insane" to "angry". English speakers will also be puzzled by the concept of "inadequate" conduct or an "inadequate" person. To them if something is inadequate, then more is needed. – David42 May 30 '17 at 17:44
  • So it became specialised up to being but synonimous to "of inadequate quantity" ? – Arioch May 30 '17 at 17:55
  • And i'd say one can say "Ты, часом, не заболел?" as "You are coherent, aren't you?" – Arioch May 30 '17 at 17:58
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Он болен <= He is sick,
Он заболел <= He became sick

igoryonya
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Grammatically, болен is a noun on a bordeline between a Participle and an Adjective (from больной / болеть and in this sense it is close to verbal nouns in English) and заболел is a perfective verb (заболеть).

The difference is personal attitude / modality, as Alissa has already pointed out.

The other difference is that болен (as most of other shortened adjectives) are used for closing a topic, whereas заболел suggests further communication.

Manjusri
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    Could you please explain how a noun can be "between a Participle and an Adjective" According to Wikipedia: Noun is a thing, or a set of things. It's definitely far from Participles and Adjectives, – Vitaly Apr 25 '17 at 15:31
  • Pls. see the descriprion of имя as a linguistical term (not to be confused with "существительное"). http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/es/77054/%D0%98%D0%9C%D0%AF – Manjusri Apr 25 '17 at 19:58
  • Болен cannot be a noun since it can change the gender: болен (masc.), больна (fem.), больно (neut.). Also, since it can function only as a predicative, it has no other cases beside nominative. The Russian verbal noun from the verb болеть are болезнь and боль. – Yellow Sky Apr 26 '17 at 14:58
  • Adjectives and participles are nouns (имена), for gods' sake! – Manjusri Apr 27 '17 at 20:09
  • @Manjusri No they're not. And frankly people here have at least as much cause to run out of patience with you and your pet theory as you do with them. – Nikolay Ershov Apr 28 '17 at 17:15
  • @Nikolay Ershov Yes, they are. Shall we continue? As for 'people here', they are separate and free individuals, so I'd strongly advice you to withdraw from any unproven claims as well as from attempts of taking on a role of a 'collective opinion' speaker. – Manjusri Apr 28 '17 at 22:50
  • @Manjusri I said "cause" for a reason, the truth value of that does not depend on how other people here actually feel about you. No they're not; bring less ad hoc proof, or proof that turns out not to be what you make it out to be—or show integrity and drop that claim. I, too, have learned more than once from my own failed attempts to teach. – Nikolay Ershov Apr 29 '17 at 08:16
  • @Nikolay Ershov Right, true value doesn't depend on emotions, but mobbing is built upon emotions. Besides, structures and systems (including those regarding categories in general and categories of parts of speech in particular) are not permanent. As for the freedom of interpretation, the priority should be given to a party who had proopsed a system or a category first (regardless on existence of other systems and/or categories). – Manjusri Apr 29 '17 at 19:06
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Болен can be used as a noun to mean illness. It's also used as a short-form adjective (Он болен. Она больна.) We would translate он заболел as he got sick.

M. Irvine
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