Мы с Андреем

[pne]

In English or German, when talking about two people doing something together (one of them being myself), I'd say something along the lines of John and I went to the beach / Karl und ich waren gestern in München—that is, with "I" in the singular.

However, I learned that Russian uses, instead, a construction of the form Мы с Андреем: literally, "we with Andrew" rather than "Andrew and I".

So I was interested to read that Niuean apparently also uses this form; an example sentence in Seiter's Studies in Niuean Syntax reads:

Kini	e	maua	mo	Maka	e	māla
clear	Erg	we,Du,Ex	with	Maka	Abs	plantation
'Maka and I are clearing the plantation'

"We(two) with Maka" for "Maka and I" looks like the same construction as Russian uses. Nifty!

Comments

[pthalo]

In Hungarian it's "János és én" (John and I) and the verb is first person plural (mentünk). Or really I'd say "mentünk Jánossal" which is "we went with John" literally, but it's "john and i went"

Hungarian

[pne.livejournal.com]

Or really I'd say "mentünk Jánossal" which is "we went with John" literally, but it's "john and i went"

Cool! So Hungarian does this kind of thing, too.