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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 19, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Question for Motteizeans who natively speak a language with cases(I know we have at least a few Russians and East Indians and one German, Finn, and Hungarian apiece)- in English, there's a pattern of young speakers mistaking cases which is shared with more-poorly educated ones, eg "Me and John got a burger" where the correct would be "John and I got a burger".

Is difficulty with cases English specific? I am a fluent Spanish speaker and it seems like most people speaking Spanish have no difficulty distinguishing "yo" from "me", but I also don't interact with children in it very much compared to in English and most of my Spanish communication is relatively unambiguous and/or omits or implies pronouns, either because of the verb or because it's obvious from context. I have some experience communicating in Latin but we can assume people who know Latin to be IQ selected and also using careful phrasing- does the average Russian or Tamil or Finn have some trouble figuring out how to use cases growing up, and is making errors with it a hallmark of a stupid or poorly educated speaker(which statistically must exist) as opposed to simply a second language speaker(which there are probably also plenty of)?

I know the Germans like to complain that no one uses genitive case anymore.

However I can't think of adult Russian native speakers that continue to make mistakes with the cases. Well, with one huge exception: cardinal numerals. "I wanted to buy a phone with 64 gigabytes of storage (instrumentative), 128 gigabytes tops, but the sales assistant told me that 128 won't be enough ("не хватит" genitive) and I should l look only buy those with 256 gigabytes" is impossible for the majority of Russians to get right and most people will switch to "a phone on 64" (accusative), "128 is too little" (nominative) and "those that have 256" (accusative again) to avoid complex cases.

Do Russian children make other mistakes with the cases? Yes, but in the language acquisition phase. I can't think of any typical mistakes schoolchildren make.

Do Russian children make other mistakes with the cases? Yes, but in the language acquisition phase. I can't think of any typical mistakes schoolchildren make.

I mean American toddlers say things like ‘I singed you a song tomorrow’, but double negatives and case are the big mistakes a school age child would be expected to make. It sounds like Russian children don’t make errors with case past the level of saying things like that.

Cardinal numbers make sense; I’m actually mildly surprised they’re declinable(in Latin they mostly aren’t and in Spanish only the number one is- because it’s identical to the indefinite article).