Help with some phrases?

There are a couple of things I'm struggling to say in Russian:

"I have found..." like if you were saying, "I've found that the best way to do this is..." etc. Do you just use the regular past tense, like нашла? (отыскивала?) Or do I need to use something like the past passive tense? (I'm fuzzy on when to use that.)

A phrase I wanted to say - "sometimes music expresses things better than I ever could." I'm too embarrassed to even post how I think you say this, because I'm sure it's wrong. So if someone could write it for me, I'll be able to figure out how it's constructed.

Спасибо!

1. "нашла" is only used when you are physically looking for something and found it. The past passive has nothing to do with this sentence. If it were me I would say,

Я думаю (поняла) что самый лучший путь ..... but that loses some of the meaning of the original sentence.

A better alternative would be to use "выводить" that means something like infer, or conclude which is much closer that think/understand in the previous sentence. But I am not sure exactly how a sentence can be formed with that verb. So a more 'everyday' russian speaker is needed here

2. Иногда музыка выражает мысли/чувства лучше чем я когда либо могла. The words things/stuff are very common in english but вещи(вещь)/штуки(штука) are not all that common in russian. So it is better to be more detailed

Hope this helps

P.S. I don't know what dictionary you are using but http://www.rambler.ru/dict/ works great for me

actually I'm not sure whether or not "выводить" really mean what I think it does (the dictionary says yes). Another way to say this is Я пришла к выводу что самый лучший which means I came to a conclusion

i doubt you can use a form of "выводить" when you want to say "conclude". I vote for "Я пришла к выводу что"

Originally Posted by TheNuttyOne

Another way to say this is Я пришла к выводу что самый лучший which means I came to a conclusion

2. Иногда музыка выражает мысли/чувства лучше чем я когда либо могла. The words things/stuff are very common in english but вещи(вещь)/штуки(штука) are not all that common in russian. So it is better to be more detailed

Hope this helps

P.S. I don't know what dictionary you are using but http://www.rambler.ru/dict/ works great for me

I just wasn't sure if I was supposed to use straight past tense, or I needed to somehow say "I have found", as in an ongoing sense. But everything you wrote helped me immensely.

And I didn't know about "thing(s)" being uncommon in Russian, so the way you changed the sentence was good. Would something like this also work?... Иногда музыка более выражающая чем я когда либо могла.

And yes, that's the dictionary I use! Of course, when your grammar is still really bad, the dictionary only goes so far...

my advice would be to use "выразительная" instead of "выражающая"

Originally Posted by vuoklis

my advice would be to use "выразительная" instead of "выражающая"

Can I ask what the difference is?

Hm, as for me the best way to say this:

иногда музыка может выразить мои чувства и мысли лучше, чем я сама

what do you think?

Originally Posted by Dreams~

Can I ask what the difference is?

выразительная is an adjective and выражающая is present participle. In your case you need an adjective, i suppose

Originally Posted by Dreams~

I just wasn't sure if I was supposed to use straight past tense, or I needed to somehow say "I have found", as in an ongoing sense.

As I understand it, that difference between ongoing and "straight" past tense is done in Russian with imperfective and perfective verbs. But, if it helps, you can use "straight" past tense in this same situation in English. "I found that the best way to do this..." works perfectly well.

And I think there is another option for your "more expressive" question; Иногда музыка выразительнее, чем я сама...the comparative construction. According to the textbook I cracked open to double check this, the comparative construction can only be used in the case of "noun is more adjective than..." ("music is more expressive than"), whereas более + adj. can be used to modify nouns too: "the more adjective noun" ("the more expressive music"). And you want to use an adjective with более because it's still a comparative.

"sometimes music expresses things better than I ever could." It's possible to say "иногда музыка передает мысли/чувства лучше, чем могла бы я сама". "я сама" is equal to "myself". the word "things" is used in meaning "objects")

I'd say
1) поняла or выяснила
2) Иногда музыка может выразить больше, чем я могла бы сказать словами.

Originally Posted by kolbaskina

Hm, as for me the best way to say this:

иногда музыка может выразить мои чувства и мысли лучше, чем я сама

what do you think?

I think this variant implies that these thoughts and feelings are originally yours which isn't necessarily the case. It's fine if you're the author of the music, but if you're not, and these are somebody else's feelings that you perceive perfectly but cannot retell afterwards, it doesn't work.