Two questions
1

What's the difference between стараться/пытаться? I know they both mean to try or to attempt, but I have the feeling the second is often a slightly higher register word. There's also (по)пробовать but that's used in slightly different contexts, as in "try this piece of food, try eating this, try going over there). Not in the "trying hard to accomplish something" sense.

2

Why "ничего страшного" is in the genitive case in the sentence below? Is it because it denotes an idea of quantity (when saying nothing)? I did understand that it cannot be nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental and prepositional case; therefore, by elimination it can be only genitive, but I wanted to know the reason(s). Could you please explain to me?

Question

Two questions
1

What's the difference between стараться/пытаться? I know they both mean to try or to attempt, but I have the feeling the second is often a slightly higher register word. There's also (по)пробовать but that's used in slightly different contexts, as in "try this piece of food, try eating this, try going over there). Not in the "trying hard to accomplish something" sense.

2

Why "ничего страшного" is in the genitive case in the sentence below? Is it because it denotes an idea of quantity (when saying nothing)? I did understand that it cannot be nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental and prepositional case; therefore, by elimination it can be only genitive, but I wanted to know the reason(s). Could you please explain to me?

Answer

стараться = do everything possible to achieve the necessary result
пытаться = try to achive some result
пробовать = try doing something

Answer

1. «Стараться» means that you make effort (look up «старание». It can be used in contexts that directly require this meaning (eg. "Он очень старался").
As an imperative "старайтесь" and "постарайтесь" mean that you want a person making an effort to make sure some condition is met or goal is reached ("Постарайся больше так не делать").

«Пытаться» means making an attempt. Quite popular for failures: "I tried, but to no avail" (Я пытался, но ничего не вышло). "Попытайся" sounds lighter as a demand than "постарайся".

«Пробовать» also means making an attempt, only less focused on success/failure. It is, actually, cognate to "probe". "Попробовать" is quite popular for making suggestions like "Try again tomorrow" or "Try asking the clerk". Obviously, the only of the three used with food.

"Пробовать" is the only one you can use with nouns. The other two can only be applied to verb infinitives.

2. The "ничего" is almost always in Genitive except some rare sentences like "Nothing will hinder us" (Ничто нам не помешает).

Normally, you imply something like "В этом нет ничего хорошего" or, generally "Ничего хорошего тут нет". Since "нет" automatically requires Genitive, "ничего" is almost the default form of this word. It is also used in Accusative: you see, verbs in negatives used to require Genitive objects in the past, like in "Я не знал ответа" (even though the current norm only keeps that strict for a limited number o verbs).

Answer

Почти нет разницы.а фраза *ничего страшного*=never mind

Answer

That's interesting. I will take some notes here.

Thank you very much for your explanations!

Answer

Just for stats: I agree both with Maria and ShadyArc. Regarding 'ничего'... i see here 3 explanantions:  'negation in general', 'trace of [нет]' and 'quantity'. Strangely all of these 3 correspond well to my felings as a speaker. 'negation' is just logical, 'hidden нет' is a specific case of negation... but I always have a subconscious desire to add this 'нет' - even if doesn't belong here etymologically:-) And it is _felt_ like 'quantity' beacuse of this genitive! Cf. Мало хорошего. Ничего хорошего. So here you have a whole pattern of intertvined grammatical phenomena.

Answers · 5

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