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To my knowledge Живое исполнение translates to live performance

I have the sentence I prefer live performances which I attempted to translate into Я предпочитаю живому исполнениям

I translated it like this because it is my understanding that I should use the Dative case to express feelings or to say you like something.

    Мне нравится Москва
    Как вам нравится фильм?

Also живомуis in Dative Singular and исполнениямis in Dative Plural because that's how it is in English, as far as I am aware anyway.

I am trying to disguise this "Is my translation correct?" question as best as I can with some hope that the answer will help someone other than myself.

shabunc
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Fred James
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  • In Мне нравится Москва, Москва is in Nomenative, only Я (I) is in Dative (so, the form is мне). – Anixx Jul 10 '15 at 21:17
  • How did u cocnclude that "live" is a singular adjective in English? It has the same form for singular and plural so from what have u conluded it is singular? – Anixx Jul 10 '15 at 21:21
  • Just curious how a native Russian speaker would translate "I prefer TV to live performances." Maybe, in that case, "live performances" would take dative case. –  Jul 10 '15 at 21:01

3 Answers3

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Your translation is wrong in several ways. The verb предпочитать is transitive, so it can have a direct object, and the direct objects are always in the Accusative case.

Also, исполнение in this sentence must be in the Singular, irrespective of what number is used in English. Although this noun does have a plural form, while talking about music the Singular form is used. And naturally, adjectives must agree with the noun they modify in number, you сannot have a singular adjective modifying a plural noun.

So the correct way to put it is:

Я предпочитаю живое исполнение.

Yellow Sky
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  • Ah, this is how I had it originally before I started messing around and doubting myself. I apologise to anyone who saw my poor Russian. – Fred James Apr 09 '14 at 15:33
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I'll revisit later the question of whether живое исполнение is the correct translation of live performance and whether in Russian you can use it in plural.

Using that translation, in the Russian translation of I prefer live performances, dative case is not correct and the accusative case needs to be used instead. In addition, you have a mismatch of singular/plural of adjective and noun (i.e. singular adjective with plural noun).

Overall, the sentence would be translated as

Я предпочитаю [кого/что] живые исполнения.

This however sounds rather unnatural to a native Russian speaker. While I have heard живое исполнение in the past, it usually was used as a word-for-word translation - and never in plural.

Personally, I would translate the phrase as концертное исполнение or концертное выступление (which can often be used in plural).

Тебе нравится последний диск этой группы?
Я предпочитаю концертные выступления.
    или
Я предпочитаю концертное исполнение.

Aleks G
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    Особенности национального шоу-биза: концертное выступление может быть не "живым" а под фонограмму. Ищите на афишах надпись "живой звук". – Artemix Apr 09 '14 at 19:39
  • @Artemix К сожалению, это так... – Aleks G Apr 09 '14 at 19:57
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    "Живое исполнение" sounds weird to my Russian ear, unless it's a recent development. – Vitaly Osipov Apr 10 '14 at 12:00
  • @VitalyOsipov Totally agree with you - as I stated in my answer. – Aleks G Apr 10 '14 at 12:03
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The part about cases is already answered, I just want to add that actually most probably you don't need to try to translate as живое исполнение at all. It's a valid Russian but in colloquial speech you'd rather hear вживую, so, the phrase will be:

Мне больше нравится, когда играют вживую.

or

Я предпочитаю, когда вживую исполняют.

shabunc
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