Breakdown of По-вашему, у аналоговой фотографии контраст лучше?
фотография
photograph
у
at, by
лучше
better
по-вашему
in your opinion / your way
аналоговый
analog
контраст
contrast
Questions & Answers about По-вашему, у аналоговой фотографии контраст лучше?
The current lesson is about по сравнению с. How would we use that to add 'compared to digital photography' to this sentence?
You would use по сравнению с (in comparison with / compared to) followed by the Instrumental case. 'Digital photography' is цифровая фотография, which becomes цифровой фотографией in the Instrumental. You could attach it to the end: По-вашему, у аналоговой фотографии контраст лучше, по сравнению с цифровой фотографией? (or just по сравнению с цифровой to avoid repeating the noun).
Why does По-вашему have a hyphen here?
По-вашему is an adverb here meaning 'in your opinion' or 'your way'. In Russian, when the prefix по- attaches to a possessive pronoun ending in -ому or -ему (or adjectives ending in -ки, -ьи) to form an adverb, it always requires a hyphen. If it were a preposition followed by a pronoun modifying a noun (like 'according to your plan' — по вашему плану), there would be no hyphen.
Why are we using the у + Genitive construction (у аналоговой фотографии) instead of a verb like иметь (to have)?
While иметь does mean 'to have', Russian strongly prefers the у + Genitive construction to express possession or inherent characteristics, even for inanimate objects like a photograph. Using имеет лучший контраст would sound overly formal or translated, whereas this sentence represents a natural, conversational question.
Could I use более хороший instead of лучше to say 'better'?
Grammatically it is understood, but it sounds clumsy and unnatural. For common, everyday adjectives like хороший (good) and плохой (bad), native speakers almost exclusively use their dedicated, simple comparative forms (лучше and хуже) rather than combining them with the word более (more).
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