Where Belarusian puts a dash instead of a verb, which quotation marks it uses, and how direct speech is laid out on the page.
I can punctuate Belarusian prose, including dialogue, using the dash, guillemets and colon correctly.
Schau dir diese Beispiele an. Kannst du das grammatische Muster erkennen?
Мінск - сталіца Беларусі.
Minsk is the capital of Belarus.
Ён інжынер, а яго жонка настаўніца.
He is an engineer and his wife is a teacher.
«Я прыйду, - сказаў ён, - але позна».
"I will come," he said, "but late."
Пайшоў дождж - канцэрт адмянілі.
It started raining, so the concert was cancelled.
Achte auf die hervorgehobenen Teile. Was haben sie gemeinsam?
Belarusian has no present-tense copula, so where English writes is, Belarusian writes a dash - if both sides are nouns in the nominative:
No dash when the subject is a pronoun (Ён інжынер), or when не intervenes (Гэта не праблема).
A dash also marks a word left out because it was just used: Я паеду ў Мінск, а ты - у Гомель.
Belarusian uses the angled guillemets « », like Russian and unlike English. Nested quotation takes the low-high pair: «Ён сказаў: „Не пайду“».
Two layouts, and both are used:
When the attribution interrupts the speech, it is fenced by dashes and commas: «Я прыйду, - сказаў ён, - але позна».
Two things that trip up an English-trained writer: subordinate clauses always take a comma in Belarusian, however short (Я ведаю, што ён прыйдзе), and the full stop goes outside the closing guillemet, not inside.
Wende diese Grammatik in den Übungen des Kurses B2 an
ÜbungsaufgabenTypical errors: omitting the dash between two nouns, and putting the full stop inside the closing guillemet.
Omitting the dash between two nominative nouns
Мінск - сталіца Беларусі.
Putting a dash after a pronoun subject
Ён інжынер takes none.
Putting the full stop inside the closing guillemet
It goes outside.
Leaving out the comma before a subordinate clause
It is always written, however short the clause.
Мінск - сталіца Беларусі.
Minsk is the capital of Belarus.
Two nominative nouns, so a dash stands in for the missing verb.
Ён інжынер, а яго жонка настаўніца.
He is an engineer and his wife is a teacher.
No dash after a pronoun subject.
«Я прыйду, - сказаў ён, - але позна».
"I will come," he said, "but late."
The attribution is fenced by dashes, and the full stop sits outside the guillemet.
Пайшоў дождж - канцэрт адмянілі.
It started raining, so the concert was cancelled.
A dash between clauses for consequence.
Я паеду ў Мінск, а ты - у Гомель.
I will go to Minsk and you to Homiel.
The dash marks the verb left out.
Im Kurs üben
Wende diese Grammatik in den Übungen des Kurses B2 an