EmilyKasky

Русский Урок (Russian Lesson) 1

A week or two ago, I was talking with a friend who has studied Russian, and mentioned he was in the mood to study it again. Since I had to do a presentation on the Russian Federation for my geography class last week, I thought, why not? After all, Russian (along with Chinese, Arabic, Korean, and Japanese) is one of the most important international languages today. I always like the practice, and for anyone who is remotely interested in studying Russian, here are the basics.

A point of order here: I’m no expert in the Russian language. I’ve had two years equivalence in a total of four intensive months for the past two summers, and I am hoping to continue this summer. If I’ve made any mistakes in my grammar, please discreetly let me know (I’m always trying to improve).

Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, not our Roman alphabet (however, some Slavic languages do use the Roman alphabet). There are thirty-three letters in the Cyrillic alphabet, including three “unpronounceable” letters (yes, you read that correctly). Those three letters include a consonant and two “signs” that are used for soft or hard pronunciation.

А а = “ah”
Б б = “b”
В в = “v”
Г г = “g”
Д д = “d”
Е е = “ye” (as in ‘yes’)
Ё ё = “yo” (pronounced with a Brooklyn accent)
Ж ж = “zh”
З з = “z”
И и = “i” (pronounced “ee”)
Й й = i kratkoye (short i)
К к = “k”
Л л = “l”
М м = “m”
Н н = “n”
О о = “o” (pronounced with a Brooklyn accent)
П п = “p”
Р р = “r”
С с = “s”
Т т = “t”
У у = “u” (as in ‘boot’)
Ф ф = “f”
Х х = “kh” (like a French ‘r’)
Ц ц = “ts”
Ч ч = “ch”
Ш ш = “sh” (say “sh” like you’re pronouncing “church”)
Щ щ = “shch” (it sounds like “ee,” but with a hiss – spread your mouth)
Ъ ъ = tvyordiy znak (hard sign)
Ы ы = like “ee,” but gutteral
Ь ь = myagkiy znak (soft sign)
Э э = “a” (as in ‘way’)
Ю ю = “u” (as in ‘you’)
Я я = “ya” (“ah” as in ‘father’)

Once you’ve got the alphabet pretty much down, here are some random basic facts that you should know:
• Russian (like German) has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter.
• There is a difference between handwritten and printed Russian. Russians always use the handwriting style to write, and there is a distinct way to write the letters. The form you see here is printed.
• Russian also has an informal/formal you: ты (informal) and вы (formal, also plural “you”). The informal is for friends and family, the formal is for professors, adults, and everybody else you don’t know. Make sure you always use the formal form – It’s considered rude if you don’t.
• Good news! There are no definite (“the”) /indefinite (“a”) articles! Yay!!!
• Bad news = You have to memorize TWO verbs for every one action (one verb is imperfective and the other is perfective)
• Where the stress falls on the words is ESSENTIAL (like in other languages). Unless you want to make a fool out of yourself, make sure you memorize where the stress falls on the word. (Usually in beginning level classes, a stress mark is placed over the stressed vowel, but as the student progresses, the marks are no longer used.) Please consider the following example:
Мне нужно писать.
(If you stess the “а,” you’re saying “I need to write.” If you stress the “и,” you’re saying “I need to pee”…Something to keep in mind.)

Okay – On to the REAL fun: cases/declinations. For those of us who have only studied Spanish and French: too bad. Russian has six cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, prepositional, dative, and instrumental.

Nominative is the “subject” case.

Accusative is similar to using direct objects. It’s used for verbs of motion and is sort of split in half for inanimate/animate objects. (If the objects are animate, the other “half” of the accusative case is declined like the genitive case.)

Genitive is the possessive case. Russians don’t have apostrophes in order to possess something, so the genitive case is like using the preposition “of.”

Prepositional follows a preposition. For example  “in the park” = в парке. (Some words take на instead (на почте = “in the post office”).

Dative is like using indirect objects. Он мне дал письмо = “He gave the letter to me.”

Instrumental is still a bit of mystery to me, but certain verbs and words take the instrumental case. For example, you use the instrumental case when using the word “with” (с), the verb “to become” (стать), and other instances.

Of course, there are phrases that take certain cases, similar to French and Spanish verbs that take prepositions. For example, to say “thank you for the….” it’s Спасибо за + accusative.

Did I mention that you have to learn different endings (m, f, n, and plural, as well as for adjectives and personal pronouns) for all six cases? Yeah, it kind of complicates things a bit…

Verbs of motion are also a good time (and by that, I mean they cause constant anxiety). How nice it is that Spanish and French only have one verb meaning “to go” (ir and aller, respectively). In Russian, well, that depends. You have to ask yourself: I am going uni or multi-directional (or imperfect or perfective aspect), am I walking or using something to get there (i.e. car, train, bus, etc.). And of course, verbs of motion take the accusative case. But not just the verbs that mean “to go” – No, no, no, no…If you’re crawling, flying, carrying something, etc. – Yes, these all are verbs of motion. (Oh, you can put prefixes on them as well.)

One piece of good news is that Russian doesn’t have any auxiliaries, so you don’t need to know all the forms of “haber” or “avoir/être” (as in Spanish and French, respectively). Last summer we spent a week memorizing verbs such as “to hang” among other grammatical points. It was very important that we knew the difference between if something was hanging on the wall (intransitive) and if we were hanging something up (transitive = verb of motion, use accusative).

Then, there is also “aspect.” Although it may seem like Spanish’s imperfecto/pretérito and French’s imparfait/passé composé, no, it isn’t the same thing. Unfortunately, I have not had a lot of exposure on how aspect works, but it seems to depend on the context of the sentence. By that I mean to say that it depends if it’s completed in the sentence, not necessarily in real life. Once I get it all sorted out, I’ll let you know…

Having said all of that, here are some useful phrases to know in Russian (with capital letters for where the stress falls):

“Hello.” = Здравствуйте. (ZDRAVST-vui-tye)
“Hi.” = Привет. (Pri-VYET)
“Goodbye. “ = До свидания (Da svi-DANya)
“See you later.” = Пока (Pa-KA)
“My name is….” = Меня зовут… (Men-YA za-VOOT…)
“Nice to meet you.” = Очень приятно. (OCH-n pri-YAT-na)
“Thank you.” = Спасибо. (Spa-SI-ba)
“You’re welcome.” = Пожалуйста. (Po-ZHAL-sta)
“Excuse me/I’m sorry.” = Извините. (Iz-vi-NI-tye)
“I don’t know.” = Я не знаю. (Ya ni ZNA-yu)
“I don’t understand.” = Я не понимаю. (Ya ni po-ni-MA-yu)
“I have a problem.” = У меня (есть) проблема. (Oo men-YA (YAY-ct) prob-LYEM-ma)
“Do you speak English?” = Вы говорите по-английский? (Vui ga-va-RI-tye pa an-GLI-ski?)
“How do you say….in Russian?” = Как сказать…по-русски? (Kak ska-ZAT…pa ROOS-ki?)

Posted by EmilyKasky at February 24, 2005 10:34 PM