Questions & Answers about Пожалуйста, дайте мне меню.
Why does the verb дайте end in -йте?
This is the polite imperative form of the verb дать (to give). The informal command is дай (give). To make it polite or plural, which fits the formal tone of asking a waiter for something, you add -те to get дайте.
Why does this sentence use мне instead of меня?
The word мне means 'to me' and is in the dative case. In Russian, the person receiving an object is put in the dative case. If you used the accusative меня, it would mean you are asking them to physically hand you over to someone else!
Since меню is the direct object being given, shouldn't its ending change?
Normally, a direct object changes its ending for the accusative case. However, меню is a foreign borrowed word ending in a vowel. In Russian, words like this (along with такси and кино) are indeclinable, meaning they keep the exact same spelling in every grammatical case.
Is the comma after Пожалуйста required?
Yes! In Russian punctuation, politeness words like пожалуйста are treated as introductory words and must be separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma.
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