Yes Russian

The last few lessons discussed important matters of Russian grammar. Today we are going to apply everything we have learned so far and will try to strike a conversation.

We already know how to properly introduce yourself, and now we will continue this conversation. What do you talk to people you just met? Right, quite obvious topics, such as home, family, job, etc. When you talk to Russians you should not be surprised when they openly discuss topics that in Western countries are considered to be kept discreet. You can easily be asked why you are not married yet, or why you don’t have children. Asking about age, income is common, too. Of course, you don’t have to answer the questions you are not comfortable with. But still you should be prepared. In the next few lessons we will learn how to discuss some of these topics.

Today we start with a simple one.

Where are you from?

When you are a tourist everyone wants to know the answer to this question.

The question sounds: Откуда Вы? (formal) /Откуда ты? (informal)

You can use the following answers. (As of now we assume that you are a US citizen.)

• Я из Америки (I am from America)
• Я живу в Америке (I live in America)
• Я американец (I am an American)

Following your answers you might be asked new questions.

• Из какого Вы штата? (What state are you from?)
• В каком штате Вы живете? (What state do you live in?)
• В каком городе Вы живете? (What city do you live in?)

No matter what country or city you live in, your answer will begin like this:

Я живу в (name of the state, city)

For example,

Я живу в Нью-Йорке (I live in New York).

Я живу в Лондоне (I live in London)

Or you can simplify it:

Я из Нью-Йорка (I am from New York).

Я из Лондона (I am from London).

Another variation of the same question might be asking about your nationality. Russia is a very ethnically diverse country itself and people tend to be interested in other nationalities and cultures. So the question “Кто Вы по национальности?” (What is your nationality?) should not catch you unaware.

So, how do you answer this one?

Based on your gender you can say:

Я американец = I am an American (if you are a man)

Я американка = I am an American (if you are a woman)

And finally, if there is a group of you (two people or more) you say:

Мы американцы = We are Americans.

The conversation can go in the same direction but take a different path. For example, your new acquaintance might not ask you the question but try to guess your nationality.

Вы американец? – asking a man

Вы американка? – asking a woman

Вы американцы? – asking a group of people

Your response? Well, you know the words “да” and “нет” and will be able to say if you are American or not.

Now, it’s not like every student who reads these lessons is an American. Below you will find a table of some nationalities. Feel free to ask in the comments if your nationality is missing.

Read the dialog and try to understand as much as possible. Translate the dialog into English.

Michael and Olga are on board a flight from Berlin to Moscow. They have just met.

Olga: Майкл, откуда Вы?

Michael: Я американец. А Вы русская?

Olga: Да, русская. Я живу в Самаре. А где Вы живете в Америке?

Michael: Я из штата Висконсин. Я живу и учусь в Мэдисоне.

Olga: Как интересно! Вы не похожи на американца. Кто Вы по национальности?

Michael: Моя мама итальянка. А папа мексиканец.

Olga: Понятно.

Here are some words that you might not know or could not understand from the context.

Как интересно! How exciting! How Interesting!

Вы не похожи на… You don’t look like…

Понятно. I see.

Last time we talked about Past Tense in Russian, today we are going to discuss the Future Tense. As you probably have already noticed, Russian system of tenses is a lot less complex than that of English. Similarly, Future Tense is presented only in two forms.

We are talking about Future Imperfective (or Compound Future) and Future Perfective (Simple Future here).

Now, you might ask me what all this perfective/imperfective talk means. And you sure have the right to know.

As you know English has a number of tenses, such as past simple or present perfect. You can express a thought using different tenses.

Example:

I ate yesterday.

I have eaten already.

As you can see, the first sentence simply states the fact and the second emphasizes the result of the action.

The same thing exists in Russian but it is expressed in a different way. Here comes out perfective/imperfective thing that might have confused someone before. It is called “aspect.”

Let’s take a look at an example:

English verb to read can be translated with any of two Russian verbs читать or прочитать.  The first verb will be an imperfective one and the second – perfective one. It means that the first one focuses on the action itself and for the second verb the result of the action is important.

There are a number of prefixes that form perfective verbs from imperfective ones. One of them is the prefix про-. But it is not the only one. You will have to learn such verbs by heart when you check the dictionary for the meaning.

When to Use

Future Imperfective is used when you want to emphasize the fact that something will happen or will be happening in the future, but at the same time your plan is not to emphasize the result of that action.

Future Perfective is used when it is important to emphasize the result of the future action.

How to Form

It is not really complicated to form Future Tense in Russian. Below in the table you will find an example that will help you to form both of future tense’s forms for any of the verbs.

Exercises:

Use the correct Future Tense form in the sentences.

1. Мои родители (ужинать) __________________ сегодня в ресторане.

2. Я (учиться) _________________ в этом университете.

3. Он (есть)___________________________ салат на обед.

4. Вечером они (смотреть)_________________ телевизор.

5. Когда ты (завтракать)__________________?

Choose perfective or imperfective verb.

1. Завтра друзья весь день ____________________ в зоопарке. (гулять – погулять)

2. Она__________________  на компьютере и пойдёт спать. (работать – поработать)

3. Он  _______________ задачу долго. (решать – решить)

4. Кот ____________ и пойдёт спать. (есть – поесть)

5. Завтра она __________________ письмо бабушке и сразу отправит его.

 As usual, you can find the correct answers in comments.

Today we are going to learn about the past tense forms and use in the Russian language. Before we proceed though I would like to go back into our lessons and see what all you remember about the present tense.

First of all, I would like to remind you that Russian verbs are conjugated based on the person it refers to. I am sure you remember the personal pronouns very well but just in case here they are again.

я - I

ты - you

он - he

она - she

оно -  it

мы - we

вы - you

Вы - you

они – they

Basically in the present tense we singled out two conjugation patterns and conjugated the verbs based on them. Each pattern has its own endings for each of the persons.

Remember that?

It seemed a little complicated back then and I am sure you are a little wary of the Past Tense now. But I want to surprise you. Russian Past Tense is way simpler to be built and to be used.

For starters, the Russian language has only one past tense. All the English Past tenses such as the Past Indefinite, the Past Continuous, the Present Perfect, and the Past Perfect are replaced with the only Russian Past Tense.

Past tense forms are derived from the Infinitive stem. Basically what you do is you take the verb in its Infinitive form and replace the letters –ть with a suffix –л and a personal ending. The personal ending is based on the gender of the subject of the sentence.

The majority of Russian verbs whose infinitive stem ends in a vowel, form the past tense in this way. As you noticed in the past tense verbs do not change for the person; they only change for number and gender.

Note that:

• When the pronoun я is the subject of the sentence, the verb agrees with the gender of the person as you could see in the table above, so a boy/man would say: я читал; a girl/woman would say: я читала.
• When the pronoun ты is the subject of the sentence, the verb agrees with the gender of the person addressed as ты (Ты читала (a girl/woman is addressed), Ты читал (a boy/man is addressed)).

REMEMBER special formation of past tense forms for the following verbs:

есть (to eat) ‑ ел, ела, ело, ели

сесть (to sit down) ‑ сел, села, село, сели

идти (to go) ‑ шёл, шла, шло, шли

быть (to be) – был, была, было, были

There are other exceptions, and the best way to learn them is learning in the process and looking them up in the dictionary.

Exercises:

Please translate the following sentences into Russian:

1. “Mary, what were you doing last night?”

“I was reading.”

2. “John, what were you doing last night?”

“I was watching TV.”

3. “Jane, have you and Peter been to Russia.”

“Yes, we were in Moscow last year.”

4. “Ann, did you play the piano when you were a child?”

“No, I played the violin.”

Read the text below and answer the following questions:

1. Что делали Ольга и Максим днём?

2. Где Ольга и Максим провели вечер?

3. Что делала Ольга?

4. Что делал Максим?

5. Где была их дочь?

6. Что делала Аня?

Text:

Вчера Ольга и Максим работали днём, а вечер они провели дома.  Максим смотрел телевизор, Ольга читала книгу. Их дочь Аня тоже была дома. Она играла с куклами.

If you followed our lessons you know that in the last three of them we were trying to get to know more about Russian nouns and cases. This week we will go even further in our quest into the wilds of Russian grammar and will learn about Russian adjectives.

As you know adjectives are used to make our speech more beautiful, to decorate it in some way. And if you truly want to master a language, you have to master adjectives.

Now, if you are confused what an adjective is, here is a definition for you:

An adjective is a word that describes, or modifies, a noun or a pronoun, Basically, words like nice, sweet, or beautiful, are adjectives.

And in today’s post you will learn how you can use adjectives, what endings they take, and what are the differences between adjectives in Russian and English.

First of all, Russian adjectives always are used with a noun or a pronoun. And the most important thing you have to remember is that Russian adjectives always agree with the noun or pronoun it is used with. It means that the adjective will be changed based on the gender, number and case of the noun.

When you open a Russian-English dictionary you will find an adjective in its singular and masculine form.

Example:

Белый – white

Красивый ‑ beautiful

At the same time adjectives will never provide you with any other forms because you are supposed to know them. “How?” you will ask. Well, there are patterns (yes, again!) that you have to learn (again!).

However, you are lucky because patterns are not really that complicated. The only complication might be the number of endings you will have to memorize. If you remember there are six cases in Russian, and adjectives get new endings in all of the six cases. In total, there is quite a lot of endings. It will take time and some practice to get to know them but eventually everyone nails them.

Below you will find a table with adjective endings in the nominative case singular and plural.

It can be overwhelming at first sight but I can assure you you will be able to handle it after some time. Just take one step at a time.

Exercises:

Please translate the following  phrases into English:

1. интересная книга

2. маленькая девочка

3. красивый дом

4. белый лист

5. синее небо

6. большая собака

7. чёрный квадрат

Please translate the following  phrases into Russian using information from the table above:

1. a beautiful girl

2. a smart child

3. a large house

4. a new pencil

5. a red dress

6. a sweet candy

7. interesting books

Match the English phrases in the left column with Russian phrases in the right column

We will post correct answers to these questions at the beginning of our next lesson.

In the last two weeks we have been working on a complex grammar topic of Russian Cases. Again, I would like to remind you what a case is.

A Case is a set of endings to indicate words’ functions and their relationship to the rest of the words in the sentence. There are six cases in Russian, and so far we have got to know four of them – Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative.

Today we will learn two more cases – Instrumental and Prepositional.

Instrumental Case

The Instrumental case of a noun denotes the instrument or means by which the action is performed. This case answers the question чем? (with what?)

Example:

Я пишу ручкой. – I write with a pen.

As you see the instrumental case is used to indicate the instrument that helps to carry out an action.

There are certain prepositions after which a noun is always used in the instrumental case. These are the following prepositions: с (with), между (between), над (above, over), под (below, under), перед (in front).

Examples:

С мамой – with mother

Между домами – between houses

Над кроватью – above the bed

Под столом – under the table

Перед домом – in front of the house

As all the previous cases Dative Case changes the endings of the corresponding noun. Once again, you will have to learn the pattern. Please see the table below.

Prepositional Case

The prepositional case of a noun is used with prepositions (as the name can tell you) such as в (at, in) or на (at, on) and it denotes the place of action and answers the question где? (where?).

There are also other prepositions  (о, об (about)) that are used with the prepositional case of nouns. О is used if the following word begins with a consonant. Об is used if the following word begins with a vowel.

Example:

О работе – about work

Об отпуске – about vacation

Below you will find a pattern of endings of the noun in prepositional case.

A small number of masculine nouns take the ending -у in the prepositional case:

Now we have learned about all cases in the Russian language. As you can see the nouns change their endings based on the case. All you have to do is to learn the pattern.

However, there are few nouns that do not change their endings in any case (mostly these are words of foreign origin):

кино (cinema), метро (underground railway), пальто (overcoat), кафе (cafe), кенгуру (kangaroo), жюри (jury), шоссе (main road), кофе (coffee).

Last week we started a new topic in our adventure of mastering Russian. If you remember we were talking about cases. Once again, a short reminder ‑ a case is a set of endings to indicate words’ functions and their relationship to the rest of the words in the sentence. There are six cases in Russian, and so far we have got to know two of them – Nominative and Genitive. Today we will learn two more – Dative and Accusative.

Dative Case

Dative case is used when you want to indicate an indirect object toward which (or toward whom if that’s a human) the action is directed. Now I suppose it might be a tiny bit too complicated to comprehend. Nouns in Dative case answer questions Кому? (to whom?) or Чему? (to what?). Let’s take a look at some examples.

Examples:

I give my sister a book.

Я даю моей сестре книгу.

Words in bold are in Dative case.

With prepositions  к (toward, to) and по (along) a noun is always used in Dative Case.

Examples:

Я иду по дороге.

I am walking along the road.

There are also certain verbs that would require you to use nouns only in Dative Case. For example, such verbs as to help (помогать) or to call (звонить).

Example:

Я помогаю моей маме.

I help my mother.

Я звоню моему отцу.

I am calling my dad.

As with Genitive nouns in Dative Case have some endings patterns that you will have to learn.

Please see the table below.

Accusative Case

The Accusative Case indicates a direct object, which is the object of the action of the verb. The Accusative Case of a noun with a transitive verb denotes the object to which the action passes over and answers the questions кого? (whom?), что? (what?).

A classic example is Я люблю русский язык (I love Russian). Let’s take a look at the endings.

You should always keep in mind that all feminine and masculine nouns ending with  -а, -я in the nominative case  will take endings -у, -ю in the accusative case

Examples:

женщина – женщину (woman), тётя – тётю (aunt)

мужчина – мужчину (man), дядя – дядю (uncle)

All these endings might seem overwhelming but after some practice you will manage to remember them all and even use correctly in sentences. The table below can help you a bit. There you will find a list of verbs which can be used with Dative and/or Accusative cases.

In the next table you will find the verbs that can be used only with nouns in Dative case.

And finally, the verbs which are used only with nouns in accusative case.

Your task will be to create 50 sentences using nouns in Dative and Accusative cases. The verbs from above tables will be of great help.

Today we will start a new topic, probably the most complicated topic in Russian grammar. The complexity is related to the lack of this grammatical phenomenon in English. Yet, we will try to master Russian Cases. Yes, right, today we will be talking about cases.

What is a case? When you speak English the nouns, adjectives, pronouns you use are always the same. They do not change a bit. In Russian it is absolutely different. Russian nouns, pronouns and adjectives will get different endings based on the case they are used in. Basically the case is a set of endings to indicate words’ functions and their relationship to the rest of the words in the sentence. The same phenomenon is distinctive for German and for Latin. Though German has only four cases. Russian has six cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional). Which is not that bad if you compare Russian to Finnish with its 15 cases!

Today we will only speak about the first two cases – Nominative and Genitive.

Nominative case

Nominative case is by far the simplest one. This is how a word (a noun) appears in the dictionary. The main function of a noun in the Nominative case is to indicate the subject of the sentence. It always answers the questions “Who or what is doing something?”

Example:

Дети ходят в школу.

Children go to school.

In this sentence the word дети (children) is the subject of the sentence, hence it is used in the nominative case.

So, to use the noun in a nominative case you only have to take it from a dictionary without changing the form.

If you want to say something like:

This is a table.

Here is a house.

This is a child.

You will also use the nominative case.

Это стол.

Это дом.

Это ребёнок.

You will never use nouns in nominative case with prepositions.

Genitive case

Genitive case is used when you want to indicate possession. When you want to say this is Anna’s book it means you will need to use the genitive case. Nouns in the genitive case answer the question “Whose?”

Monika’s pen = Ручка Моники

The bank of the river = берег реки

There are some prepositions that are common for nouns in the genitive case: около (near), у (by, by the side of), мимо (past), из (out of), вместо (instead of), без (without). When you see a noun with one of these prepositions you can be sure the noun is used in the genitive case.

Now, to the most complicated part. Nouns in the genitive case will have different endings compared to nouns in the nominative case. In the table below you will see the pattern.

Of course, this is not an extensive table of the endings; however, it summarizes the most common cases of nouns in the genitive case.

Now, let’s practice and see if everything is clear for you.

Open the brackets, use the noun in the genitive case

1. Я вижу машину (отец)
2. Я не вижу никакого (письмо).
3. У моей (сестра) новая кровать.
4. У всех (иностранцы) много денег.
5. Я купил пять (билет) в театр.
6. Около (здание) есть сад.
7. У меня много (друзья).
8. Это книга (учитель)?
9. Я смотрю на красивую собаку (сосед).

10.  Я не знаю этого (человек).

The answers as always can be found in comments section. Feel free to ask any questions.