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My instructor marked that sentence as wrong. He said it would have been fine to write, "Я свободна в четверг и могу в этот день сходить на свидание." Why is "в этот день" fine while "в него" isn't?

Update: A comment was made by Elena:

Всего секунда, но ЗА нее произошло слишком много is right.// Всего один день, но ЗА него произошло слишком многое is right. And more than that. Всего один день, но в него вместилось слишком много событий is right too. But я буду делать (пойду, займусь чем-либо) в него is wrong. I can't explain why

That's precisely my question. The question is why. Could anyone address it?

Jessica
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    heh... it's strange... we say in this manner never :> perhaps, cuz this "я могу сходить в него" could intertpretate as a time travel :>>> into this Thursday.... –  Пилум Aug 02 '21 at 22:13
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    That's a good observation, but for some reason replacing a named time interval (week day or month) with a pronoun doesn't work in English either. You have to use something like "that day", "that month" instead. – DK. Aug 03 '21 at 04:31
  • @DK perhaps pronouns originally were not designed to designate abstracts, but concrete or indefinite persons or objects. We also can use unions когда or который (analogs of "when" or "which"), but it doesn't always work in same way. "Why" is a question for linguists here. It's another reminder that Russian got more grammatical cases than six told us in school. Actually, the count of cases is quite similar to Latin , along with some rules - "exceptions" being similar to Latin, e.g. our locative case (cue Life of Brian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8) – Swift Aug 03 '21 at 06:06
  • @DK In Latin locative case exist but used only with certain words and proper nouns of locations - cities or islands. Otherwise they use a dative case, which normally requires a preposition, except when used as locative. Russian went other way around, and preposition is needed when used as locative , but there are words with which a true locative is used. – Swift Aug 03 '21 at 06:14
  • @Swift What is an example of such a word? – Omar and Lorraine Aug 04 '21 at 20:53
  • @OmarL First ones that come right away - лес, рай, край, снег. Locative forms would be different from prepositive which is usually used for adverbial: we are in the forest - мы находимся в лесу. Not в лесе. В раю, в снегу. Can be used to define movement toward it. – Swift Aug 04 '21 at 22:13
  • While I can't fully answer that great question, I just wanted to note that in spoken Russian the most reasonable and common way to say it is to omit that part entirely (Я свободна в четверг и смогу сходить на свидание). What your instructor proposed is somewhat often used in formal meetings. – Lodinn Sep 30 '21 at 10:38

5 Answers5

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В него is never used relative to the time interval (or the name of the time interval). You must say в этот миг, в этот час, в этот день, в эту минуту, в эту эпоху, в это мгновение, в это время, в это время суток. This is a feature of the language that a student must remember.

In terms of your phrase, it isn't clear enough, but it is indecent enough. Something vague along the lines of "I can enter into him."

(в = in, into

него = it, him)

CocoPop
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Elena
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    Всего секунда, но ЗА нее произошло слишком много is right.// Всего один день, но ЗА него произошло слишком многое is right. And more than that. Всего один день, но в него вместилось слишком много событий is right too. Bat я буду делать (пойду, займусь чем-либо) в него is wrong. I can't explain why – Elena Aug 02 '21 at 17:58
  • Is it really about time intervals? I'd say it's more about name (number) of the day (when vs how long). – Alex_ander Aug 02 '21 at 20:17
  • @Alex_ander Yes, the question was about the name of the day. But we can't say 'Я вспоминаю прошлый месяц, в нем у меня был отпуск. Ах, какой хороший был месяц, в нем я ездил на курорт' Is last month a name or a time interval according to your qualifications? :) – Elena Aug 02 '21 at 20:44
  • In my perception, it sounds more like 'last 30-day period' :) – Alex_ander Aug 02 '21 at 20:57
  • @Alex_ander this is that names of days and month aren't proper nouns in Russian (you can tell that by absence of capitalization). It's time period designations. – Swift Aug 03 '21 at 05:57
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    @Elena funny enough, that one actually happens, at least in informal speech. – Swift Aug 03 '21 at 06:05
  • Elena, great answer! Question: when you say that it is "indecent enough", do you mean that it may have a double entendre? – CocoPop Jan 09 '22 at 17:05
  • @CocoPop Oh, I don't even know what to call it. A double entendre means two full-fledged semantic variants. But here both options are strange. The first meaning is expressed grammatically incorrectly and can put a native speaker into a slight stupor. The second meaning is indecent, but with some stretch, because it will be a free interpretation of a strange phrase. Interestingly, Anixx pointed out another ambiguity, and his version also works. – Elena Jan 09 '22 at 19:42
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Counterexample: “У меня есть только час, но, думаю, мы в него уложимся» — I have only an hour [of free time] but I think we'll make it. [literally: fit into it]

The difference is very subtle. We usually don’t think of time as an object. And Russian в него strongly suggests some underlying object referenced by this pronoun. В четверг is not an object, but rather an adverbial phrase. That’s why it looks confusing to natives. We remove this confusion by saying: в этот день. This is the correct substitution for an adverbial phrase, while a pronoun is not.

CocoPop
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Sergey Kirienko
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I guess you used the pronoun "он" here in the accusative case "в него", and for some reason it isn't used like that. But you could use the form of the same pronoun "оный" and the sentence would be "и могу в оный сходить...", it is grammatically correct, though this pronominal form is archaic. Still, it's used by certain people who tend to like a slightly quirky and pompous manner of speech.

CocoPop
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Marina Ananova
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The phrase reads "I am free on Thursday and I can go into it for a date"

Possibly a word is missing? A theater? A restaurant? A toilet?!!! (сходить в него also means to defecate, poop, piss into). If the last letter was и rather than е, this definitely would be about erotic defecation.

Anixx
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  • "it - Possibly a word is missing?" - because this "it" is the Thursday. :> _____
    https://youtu.be/HFA4wwEe4BM?t=23     –  Пилум Sep 28 '21 at 18:05
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Я свободна в четверг, -- в него я смогу прийти на свидание. -- I see no problem here. For example,
-- Я в четверг не смогу прийти! -- Что такого ты в него делаешь?
and the same with other time periods.

The encountered confusion with the example sentence is caused by (1) thinking too much: within a fluent talk, you connect pronouns and mentioned words in milliseconds, and (2) by that it's hard to accurately determine a logical accent within text.
So, it is relatively wrong to use a pronoun here which isn't connected with grammar.

treueklesch_valalae
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