А ведь всё так хорошо начиналось.
I've noticed lots of examples of "Знаешь, а ведь..." or "Слушай, а ведь..." as well. What does А ВЕДЬ bring to a statement?
Yet the beginning was so good
in some cases it could mean a rhethorical question- like is it not??or in may serve as a stuffing like you see, you know
Uly, а ведь means expressing a kind of a contrast to what had been before, so to say.
А ведь я тебя тогда еще заметил ( ты не догадывалась об этом).
А ведь я тебе говорил, что пойдет дождь (ты не верила).
А ведь ты прав ( я не верила)
From what I read, "а ведь" is a unmodifiable conjunction, and it has two meanings: 1. adversarial-concessive, colloquial. 2. conjunctive, colloquial. See also
In your example it has the meaning 1, adversarial-concessive, because there's clearly a discrepancy between the two clauses of the sentence (your example being the second clause), and there's also a concession.
Definition of concessive from Google Translate (of a preposition or conjunction) introducing a phrase or clause denoting a circumstance that might be expected to preclude the action of the main clause, but does not (e.g., in spite of , although). So, in your example, something was expected to happen, but it didn't, and the conjunction "а ведь" in the second clause "а ведь всё так хорошо начиналось" points out the discrepancy between expectation and the event that followed or the lack thereof. See also an article on adversarial conjs., it's in Russian though
Wow, thank you all for those references and explanations. It makes a lot more sense now.
🙋
"WHILE/(AL)THO(UGH) it started so well in the morning when we sold five pies in the first hour alone, only a dozen pies were sold overall during the rest of the day." «За весь оставшийся день мы продали всего дюжину пирогов, А ВЕДЬ всё так хорошо начиналось утром, когда мы продали аж пять пирогов только за первый час.» Example is my own. I intentionally underscored the colloquial nature of "а ведь" using the informal "tho" in my translation. But hey, there are other meanings which "ведь" has being a conjunction and a grammatical particle.
А ведь ты хочешь выпить (хотя и отрицаешь или не подаешь виду) ~ А на самом деле ты хочешь..