Questions & Answers about Я не понимаю, что он говорит.
In Russian, a comma is normally used before что when it introduces a subordinate clause (here, an object clause).
- Я не понимаю – main clause (I don’t understand).
- что он говорит – subordinate clause (what he is saying / what he says).
Russian punctuation rules are stricter than English about this: when что works as a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause, you almost always put a comma before it.
Here что is best understood as what, not that.
- что он говорит literally: what he says / what he is saying.
- So the whole sentence is: I don’t understand what he is saying.
In other contexts что can correspond to that (as a conjunction) – for example:
Я знаю, что он здесь. – I know that he is here.
So что can be:
- an interrogative/relative pronoun: что ты делаешь? (what are you doing?)
- or a conjunction: я думаю, что… (I think that…)
In this sentence it functions like what in English, introducing the thing you don’t understand.
Russian has only one present-tense form for most verbs, and it covers both:
- English he says (simple present)
- and he is saying (present continuous)
So он говорит can mean:
- he says (generally)
- he is saying (right now)
Context decides which English translation fits. In Я не понимаю, что он говорит, you can translate naturally as I don’t understand what he is saying (most common) or I don’t understand what he says (more general).
These verbs differ in both tense and aspect:
говорит – imperfective, present: he is saying / he says
- Я не понимаю, что он говорит. – I don’t understand what he is saying / what he says.
сказал – perfective, past: he said (once, completed)
- Я не понял, что он сказал. – I did not understand what he said.
скажет – perfective, future: he will say (once, in the future)
- Я не понимаю, что он скажет. – I don’t understand what he will say / what he is going to say.
So:
- говорит focuses on an ongoing or repeated action.
- сказал / скажет focus on a single complete act of saying (in the past or future).
Он is the subject of the verb говорит inside the subordinate clause.
- In что он говорит, the question is: кто говорит? (who is speaking?) – answer: он (nominative).
- его would be the object form (accusative / genitive), used when something is done to him:
- Я не понимаю его. – I don’t understand him.
So:
- Он говорит – he speaks / he is saying (he is the subject).
- Я не понимаю его – I don’t understand him (him is the object).
Yes, you can. Russian often omits subject pronouns because the verb ending already shows the person:
- Я не понимаю, что он говорит. – complete, neutral.
- Не понимаю, что он говорит. – perfectly natural, a bit more informal / conversational.
Both mean the same thing. In written, neutral style, including я is slightly more typical, but in speech people often omit it.
Yes, but the nuances change a bit.
Я не понимаю, что он говорит.
– Neutral word order, most common.Я не понимаю, что говорит он.
– Also correct, but sounds slightly more emphatic on он (as if contrasting with someone else: I don’t understand what *he is saying (but maybe I understand others)*). Still fairly normal in speech.Что он говорит, я не понимаю.
– Inverted order, more expressive; sounds like:
What he is saying, I don’t understand (at all).
– This has a bit of a dramatic / emphatic or literary feel.
So Russian word order is flexible, but the default, neutral version is the original: Я не понимаю, что он говорит.
They focus on slightly different things:
Я не понимаю, что он говорит.
– You don’t understand the content of his speech (the words, meaning, language, etc.).
– Closest: I don’t understand what he is saying.Я не понимаю его.
– You don’t understand him as a person (his behavior, motives, way of thinking), or in context it can also mean you don’t understand his speech, but more vaguely.
– Closest: I don’t understand him.
So:
- If the problem is the language / words: use что он говорит.
- If the problem is the person in general: use его.
- что он говорит – what he says / what he is saying (the exact words or content).
- о чём он говорит – what he is talking about (the topic / subject).
Examples:
Я не понимаю, что он говорит.
– Maybe he mumbles, speaks too fast, or in another language; you can’t catch the words.Я не понимаю, о чём он говорит.
– You hear the words, but you don’t see how they connect, or you don’t get the point or topic; you don’t understand what he is talking about.
A natural, stronger version is:
- Я ничего не понимаю, когда он говорит. – I don’t understand anything when he speaks.
or - Я ничего не понимаю из того, что он говорит. – I don’t understand anything of what he says.
Note:
- Russian commonly uses double negation: ничего не понимаю (literally nothing not understand), but this is grammatically correct and normal.
You wouldn’t simply insert ничего into the original sentence as
*Я не понимаю, ничего что он говорит – that would be wrong. You need to restructure, as in the examples above.
Stress:
- понимаю – po-ni-MA-yu (stress on -ма-)
– IPA: /pənʲɪˈmajʊ/ - говорит – go-va-RIT (stress on -рит)
– IPA: /gəvɐˈrʲit/
Pronunciation tips:
- Unstressed о sounds like a short a (like a in about): го- → [gə].
- The ю in -ю at the end of понимаю is like yu in you.
- г is a hard g (as in go), not like English j.
- р is rolled/trilled.
The sentence Я не понимаю, что он говорит is completely neutral and fine in almost any context.
More colloquial / very informal options:
- Вообще не понимаю, что он говорит. – I just don’t understand at all what he’s saying.
- Ничего не понимаю, что он говорит. (spoken, a bit sloppy grammatically, but you will hear it) – I don’t understand anything he says.
- Не врубаюсь, что он говорит. – very slangy: I don’t get what he’s saying.
For polite conversation (e.g., about a lecturer or speaker), the original sentence is perfectly appropriate.