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Edit : My question is about preposition "IN" not about the verb "have" as you suggested.Can you open it again, please?

I'm studying with duolingo and this is the first time I saw this kind of "in" preposition usage as "У меня ...".

I always see it like " ... в ...".Can you explain this to me in terms of both grammar and colloquial speech aspects?Thanks in advance.

Burak
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    Possible duplicate of The usage of иметь – Abakan Sep 04 '17 at 21:10
  • Consider "they are living at my place", "he would be living at yours", etc. – Arioch Sep 05 '17 at 07:53
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    Also pay attention to cases. "....в мой дом" answers to where-TO question. Like when you make suggestion where to move to. (though even then more natural would be "...ко мне в дом"). If you describe the present situation, if you answer where-IS question, then it would be "...в моём доме" instead – Arioch Sep 05 '17 at 07:58
  • Additionally you got another can of worms. "дома/домой" in the 1st phrase is NOT a noun and translates as "home", "дом" in #2 is regular noun meaning "house" or "household". Difference? Think about "coming (to the) home", "i am (inside the) home" forms – Arioch Sep 05 '17 at 08:04
  • I'm trying to understand and as a grave error -actually-, most of the time I'm trying to relate it to my mother tounge -which is Turkish in which literally everything gets zillions of suffixes-.However, in Russian things not only take suffixes but also the whole prepositions, cases change.And this "У ... ...." is used in almost everything I guess.In "I have" sentences and also as a preposition. – Burak Sep 05 '17 at 12:00
  • For instance in #1, where's the "IN"? Is it "У" ? Normally isn't it "В"? Also, Doesn't it work like "Они живут в меня дома" or "Они живут в моя дома" ? Doesn't "моя" mean "my" either? And this way doesn't "дома" keep the meaning of "at my home"? – Burak Sep 05 '17 at 12:03
  • I can only bring example from English, not from Turkish. Where is "in" in "yankee go home"? There is none. "home" is not a noun in this phrase, thus no preposition. Prepositions may be used to attach a generic noun to the verb. But if there is no noun? Do u grok expressions like "поверни направо" or "едут слева" ? There is no prepositions either. Cause there is no noun. The same way "иди домой" and "сиди дома" need no prepositions as there is no noun in those expression. – Arioch Sep 06 '17 at 07:29
  • The control structure is like that: (они живут) -> где? -> дома -> а точнее? -> у меня. You can not replace "у меня" with an adjective or possessive adj-like pronoun: adjectives are linked to objects like nouns and pronouns. But in that specific phrase "дома" specifies direction not object and is NOT noun, thus you can not say "мой дома" or "твой вверху" or "мой быстро". – Arioch Sep 06 '17 at 07:47
  • You can replace it with noun though. Они живут в моём доме = they live in my home/house. Here it would be a noun. But you #1 example is like "go home" / "иди домой" and "stay home" / "сиди дома". No noun there in both Russian and English, thus no articles and no pronouns are allowed. – Arioch Sep 06 '17 at 07:51

2 Answers2

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It seems that your confusion stems from an inadequate translation.

Они живут у меня дома. means 'They are staying with me' or 'They are living at my place'. The emphasis is on me and my household. They are a part of my household.

Они живут в моём доме. means 'They live in the same building as I do'. The emphasis is on the building. We do not know whether they are part of my household or not.

The preposition y has the following meanings in Russian:

  • near, next to (около, рядом с ◆ Жить у моря./ to live near the sea);
  • from (от ◆ Узнать у друзей./ to learn (to get to know about something) from friends)
  • possession (обозначает владельца ◆ У меня есть./ I have...[I am the owner of...] )
  • indication of a part of a whole (обозначает часть целого ◆ Ножка у стула./a leg of a chair)

The general meaning of the preposition в is 'inside'. For other meanings please consult your grammar book.

These prepositions are not interchangeable and convey different relationships with an object. However, translations to other languages may not reflect these differences for one reason or another. Often times it is related to collocations used in a translation target language.

Olga
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The second sentence should be "Они живут в моём доме."

Они живут у меня дома - means "They live at my home."

Они живут в моём доме - means "They live at my house."

You can use the first sentence to point that you and others share the same living space. You can use the second one to say that:

  1. You and others are living in the same apartment building, but have different apartments.

  2. You and others are living in the same detached house. But then the first sentence is used more often.

Community
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Vitaly
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    In my house, at--на улице – V.V. Sep 05 '17 at 15:44
  • Ровным счетом наоборот. В моем доме (многоквартирном) живет много людей в других квартирах.У меня дома--together with me. – V.V. Sep 05 '17 at 15:49
  • So, I can safely use У ... ... pattern for other things as "I ... in ..." or does it just count for "at home" thing?This is the part I really did not understand.Which one for general "IN" use? Edit : Let's say, I want to say "I listen to music in my car" = Я слушаю музикы у меня машины / Ч слушаю музикы в моём машины? (Suffixes are probably incorrect, I know) – Burak Sep 05 '17 at 18:30
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    @Burak: Short answer is no. Constructions "у меня / у них / etc." are special in Russian and do not have direct translation to English. See for example this question and my answer. Although it may be not the best in explaining the issue, it contains an important point: "у меня ... the direct meaning correspondence would be "in my world" (including both internal and external worlds)." – farfareast Sep 05 '17 at 21:14
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    @Burak, the answer is correct, but I would like to add, that the phase "в доме" can sometimes mean "at home", usually when the one the speaker is talking about is the one he's talking to. Like "ты в моем доме". In that case it's about "at home". – d.k Sep 05 '17 at 21:42
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    @Burak About your question I can safely use У ... ... pattern for other things as "I ... in ...", no, you can't. I can't say, how widely this pattern "У меня" applies generally, but you already gave some examples like "Я слушаю музыку у меня в машине", which would sound odd. Normally one would say "Я слушаю музыку у себя в машине"/"Я слушаю музыку в своей в машине" – d.k Sep 05 '17 at 21:43
  • #1 is a bit incorrect. "In/at the/my home" sets "home" as noun. In the question it is NOT noun, but direction specifying наречие. No articles and no prepositions must be before "home" to translate syntax here. – Arioch Sep 06 '17 at 07:36
  • @Arioch 'дом' is always a noun regardless of preposition usage. An object expressed via noun can be direct (no preposition) or indirect (a preposition is required). In these examples we see noun 'дом' as a direct (ex.1) and indirect object (ex.2), which is possible in Russian, but not in English. – Olga Sep 06 '17 at 15:05
  • @Olga "дом" is a noun. But there is no such word in the #1 example of Burak. He uses word "дома" - the word which indeed happens to be written the same way as genitive single and nominal plural forms of your "дом" word. However while they are spelled the same - they are different words. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym – Arioch Sep 06 '17 at 15:10
  • @Olga or to put it another way, would "дома" really be a noun as you imply, then it could be replaced with ANY other similar noun. "Они живут у меня дома” -> “Они живут у меня заводы”, “Они живут у меня квартиры”, “Они живут у меня деревни” - I feel this does not work as it should if "дома" could had been a noun there. – Arioch Sep 06 '17 at 15:23
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    @Arioch, I stand corrected. It is an adverb of place both in English and Russian, although the usage is slightly different. – Olga Sep 06 '17 at 15:38
  • @Olga to think of it "домой" and "home" even phonetically are very close. I guess this shared quirk should be stemming from proto-European Aryan language. – Arioch Sep 06 '17 at 15:55