Russian II Tutorial

*Нравиться is most often used impersonally to mean "like" or "enjoy," or a similar sentiment that doesn't quite warrant the use of любить. Thus you would say something like, "Мне понравился этот фильм" ("I liked that movie") or "Им понравилась постановка ("they enjoyed the performance.")

A number of these verbs have some irregularities in conjugation, usually stem changes:

	Жить	Дать	Давать	Ждать	Спать	Петь	Открыть	Брать	Бзять	Стать
Я	живу	дам	даю	жду	сплю	пою	открою	беру	возьму	стану
Ты	живёшь	дашь	даёшь	ждёшь	спишь	поёшь	откроешь	берёшь	возьмёшь	станешь
Он/Она/Оно	живёт	даст	даёт	ждёт	спит	поёт	откроет	берёт	возьмёт	станет
Мы	живём	дадим	даём	ждём	спим	поём	откроем	берём	возьмём	станем
Вы	живёте	дадите	даёте	ждёте	спите	поёте	откроете	берёте	возьмёте	станете
Они	живут	дадут	дают	ждут	спят	поют	откроют	берут	возьмут	станут

The past tenses of these verbs are formed regularly.

The two main Russian interrogatives are Кто (who) Что (what) like nouns, these decline by case, but only in one gender and only on the singular.

28. Ordinal Numbers

    These decline just like adjectives, and must agree in gender, number, and case with the noun they describe.

    There are a number of conjunctions in Russian, and while they do tend to make sense, they also tend to re-use particles seen elsewhere, so you should pay attention in at least recognizing their forms so you don't mistranslate. They are listed in no particular order.

И -- And
-У меня в моей комнате есть телевизор и DVD-плеер -- In my room there is a television and a DVD player

А -- And/But
-Моя мать - секретарша, а отец - менеджер -- My mother is a secretary, but my father is a manager.

И..., и – Both x and y
-Да, я пригласил и Анну, и Лену! -- Yes, I invited both Anna and Lena!

Или -- Or
-Я купил бы красный или серый. -- I would buy the red one or the gray one.

Или..., или -- Either...or
-Я буду встречаться с ними или в Декабре, или в Январе -- I will be meeting with them either in December or in January.

Не...не...а – Nether x nor y, but z
-Моя машина не красная, не чёрная, а зелёная. -- My car is neither red nor black, but green.

Не...ни...ни – Neither...nor
 -Я не хочу ни твоего присутствия, ни твоего совета -- I want neither your prescence nor your advice.

Чтобы- (in order) to, for...to, so that
-Надо работать, чтобы получать деньги... -- You have to work (in order) to get money... (Verb infinitive used)
-Мама хочет, чтобы ты убрала комнату -- Mom wants (for) you to clean your room. (Verb in past tense used)
-Мы тебе сказали, чтобы ты зналa правду. -- We told you so that you would know the truth. (Verb in past tense used)

Cловно-as though
-Он говорит о компьютерах, словно изобрёл их -- He talks about computers as though he invented them!

А то-or else
-Мы должны идти, а то опоздаем в театр. -- We have to go or else we will be late for the theatre.

Если-if
-Если будет дождь, я останусь дома сегодня. -- If it's raining, I will stay inside today.

Ли-whether (or not)я
-Я не знаю, идёт ли дождь -- I don't know whether it's raining or not, or I don't know if it's raining.
(Despite the use of "if" in the latter translation, ли and если cannot be used interchangeably; if you can use "whether" in English, then you must use ли.)

    Negation in Russian is very simple. There are a few words which indicate negation, but the two most common, and therefore most useful, are не and нет.

    The word не means "not" or "am not," and can be used with or without verbs, as below:
Я не юрист -- I'm not a lawyer
Я вас не знаю -- I don't know you.

    Although it is written as a separate word, не is pronounced as though it were a part of the following word, and thus assumes the pronunciation based of the stress patterns of the word it negates. In "proper" Russian, the direct object of the negated verb is supposed to be put into the genitive case regardless of gender. This doesn't always happen in speech, but it is nonetheless recommended, particularly in writing.

    Нет on the other hand means "no" or "there is/are no" and is more complicated, since the word it negates takes the genitive case.  In some cases, word order can be shifted somewhat, but it usually pays to be somewhat unambiguous.

Some examples:
Его здесь нет. -- He's not here.
На улице нет машин. -- There are no cars on the street.
B этой пицце нет сыра! -- There's no cheese on this pizza!

    Also, you should note that in Russian, the use of double negatives, even large numbers of them, is not only allowed, but also necessary in circumstances involving negative pronouns, (никогда, никуда, and so on; see section 46 for a longer list.) Indeed, you are only limited by what it is you want to say:

Она никогда не даëт ничего никому -- "She never doesn't give nothing to nobody," or more accurately "She never gives anything to anybody."

31. Times and Dates

In my experience, learning how to tell the time and date is one of the harder aspects of learning any language, and Russian, sadly, is no exception, so it helps to try and learn fairly early on. I've tried to include plenty of examples to help. Let me begin by saying that while in my list of common phrases I said that "сколько времени?" is how one asks for the time, this is true mainly for street language; if you're looking to appear more "educated" or are in the presence of a person of authority, I would recommend saying "который час?" instead.

Secondly, when used in writing and/or print, the 24-hour clock (often called "military time" in North America ) is used, but not when spoken; it may read as 16:10, but you would say it as though it read 4:10. (This of course is barring military usage, where spoken use of the 24-hour system over the 12-hour is apparently universal.) And finally, time is often written with hours, minutes and seconds are separated by periods/full-stops instead of colons. I will use this format from now on.

    Time can be told in one of two ways; the first is to simply say the numbers displayed, so 16.10 (that is, 4:10pm) would be четыре часа, десять. The second, while much more complicated to an English-speaker's eyes and ears, is much more common.

    To give an on-the-dot o'clock time, you say the hour plus a declension of the word час, "hour." In telling time, on its own is 1 o'clock, but becomes часа after 2, 3, or 4, and часов after 5 and up. To say "at" such-and-such time, use the preposition в (accusative.)

Thus:
-13.00 -- Час
-16.00 -- Четыре часа
-18.00 -- Шесть часов

    For times in the top half of the hour (that is, .01 to .29) you would say however many minutes, (минута, feminine-singular,) then the ordinal of the following hour in the genitive-singular. That's quite a mouthful, so here are some examples to help you catch your bearings:

- 15.10 -- десять минут четвёртого. (Literally "five minutes of the fourth")
- 11.17 -- семнадцать минут двенадцатого.
- 9.03 -- три минуты десятого
- 7.22 -- двадцать двe минуты восьмого.

For "half-past" times, you use the word половина plus an ordinal in the manner we saw just now. Thus:

- 6.30 -- половина седьмого.
- 14.30 -- половина третьего.
- 21.30 -- половина десятого.

    Note that when used with the preposition в, половина must decline accordingly, becoming в половину, "at half-past..." In colloquial Russian, however, it can often be heard as в половине. When in doubt, I would suggest saying в половину. [Native speaker note: the way this is normally said and even written is half (половина) gets abbreviated to пол-. It is spelled as one word with the number if it starts with consonant and with a hyphen in between if it starts with vowel (which is just one - 11 - пол-одиннадцатого, i.e. 10:30).You wouldn't hear it otherwise normally. This way it doesn't incline, i.e. with "в" the form of пол-(number) remains the same in all cases.]

For times in the bottom half of the hour, you take the minutes remaining until the next hour with the preposition без, followed by the next hour in the nominative-cardinal form. Thus:
- 10.47 -- без тринадцати минут одиннадцать.
- 8.58 -- без двух минут девять
- 23.35 -- без двадцати пяти минут двенадцать

And finally for times of "quarter to" and "quarter past, you use the word четверть in the same manner as the minutes are above:
- 7.15 -- Четверть восьмого
-7.45 -- Без четверти восемь

In all cases, you can use the adverbs утром (in the morning,) днём (in the afternoon,) or вечером (in the evening,) if you feel that there may be ambiguity over which one, or wish to add emphasis to the fact. Also, instead of 12.00 and 24.00, you can say полдень or полночь, respectively.


Dates are a somewhat different animal, and are, for better or worse, equally as complex.

To say them, you must first learn the months of the year and the days of the week:

    Now that we've examined regular Russian verbs, it is necessary to get to know a special group of verbs in Russian: verbs of motion. These forms are similain concept to the German verbs gehen and fahren in that  they tell you  how the action was carried out (on foot or by vehicle,) but in Russian, they also give information about the direction and nature of the motion itself, which can be further narrowed by the addition of prefixes, not discussed here. These verbs have what amounts to three aspects: the progressive, the imperfective, and the perfective; the progressive however, is only used in the present tense.

    The imperfective-progressive typically refers to an action in progress, that is, like "I am going," but like English, these can also be used like future tense verbs. In the tables below, these verbs are in black text. For example:  Сегодня вечером, Саша идёт на концерт -- "This evening, Sasha is going to a concert."

    Imperfective verbs refer to motions which follow more than one direction (i.e. a round trip/there and back), happens habitually or more than once (i.e. the daily commute) or has no real destination but the starting point (i.e. a stroll through the park). In the tables below, these verbs are in blue text. For example Каждый день я хожу на работу -- "Every day I go to work." or Мария ходила в библиотеку -- "Maria went to the library (and has since returned)"

    Perfective verbs refer to an motion in the past that occurred once and in one direction, such as a direct flight, or such an action that will occur in the future. Also important with the perfective here is the method of completion; if a person goes somewhere, and at the time you describe the action has yet to return, the perfective, barring any contextual nuance, is used. Likewise these verbs are marked with red text. For example: Катя пошла в магазин -- "Katya went to the store (and has yet to return)"

Adding the prefix по- to the verbs in the "Verb 1" column gives the equivalents for поехать and пойти.

    There are a number of verbs associated with food in Russian, many of which have slight to major irregularities in conjugation, so it makes sense to show them here. (The word-list for foods from the previous edition will be added to a second edition in the future.)

    The verb "to eat" in Russian is есть in the infinitive-imperfective, and съесть in the perfective. Be careful not to confuse this verb with its homophone which means "is."

The past tense of Печь is irregular: Пёк (masc.,) Пекла (fem.,) Пекло (neut.,) Пекли (pl.) As is that of Жечь: Жёг (masc.,) Жгла (fem.,) Жгло (neut.,) Жгли (pl.)

35. Relative Pronouns and Conjunctions

    Relative clauses in Russian are difficult for two main reasons, the first being that full relative clauses are rarely used in either spoken or written English; the second that there are three different relative constructions in use in Russian, which cannot be used interchangeagbly. Each is examined individually below.

    But first, what is a relative clause? Relative clauses are a part of speech, which describes the subject or an object in the sentence, usually wth the am of specifying one among many, with the use of a relative pronoun to replace the subject and a verb and predicates to describe it. They are, in effect, mini-sentences within a sentence.

    For instance, look at the sentence "The woman, who was standing on the corner, is my friend's wife." "...who was standing..." is the relative clause in this example. Notice both how it s used to specifiy which woman is the one you are talking about, and how the word "who" takes the place of the noun in question, while the remainder of the words in the sentence follow as though "who" was simply a repetition of the word described. Russian relative pronouns work on this same principle, but must be used in Russian, both written and spoken, unlike in English.

    Который

    Который is equivalent to the English pronouns which, who, and whom, and is used in much the same way, and is the most straightforward of the relative pronouns use. As the final two letters imply, который declines according to the gender and number of the word described, as well as with any preposition you use, following the same paradigm as most adjectives. However, который must be used when the subject of the relative clause is a noun, rather than a pronoun. Now, let's see the above sentence in Russian:

"Девушка, которая стояла на углу, жена моего друга."

    Notice how both the relative pronoun and verb both agree with the word being described (женщина) in gender and number. The same applies if you use a preposition with который:

    "Девушка, с которой я учился, сейчас работает врачoм." (The woman I went to school with is now a doctor, or more accurately, the woman, with whom I went to school, now works as a doctor.)

    Again, notice how the ending on который follows the gender and number of the word described (femnine, singular) and the case dictated by the preposition c (instrumental.) In this sentence, however, the verb ending corresponds with that of я rather than девушка, since the description within the relative clause is based not around the action of the person in question, but the speaker.

    The real difficulty comes when you do just that, and describe in a relative clause based on your own experience; который must be declined in accordance not only with the word being described, but how который fits into the relative clause, as though it were a standalone sentence; the gender and number come from the word beng described, but everything else is determined by the relation to the verb of the relative pronoun. For instance:

-"Девушка, которую я знаю..." (The woman, whom I know...) In this instance, the relative pronoun is the direct object of the verb with the speaker as the subject, and thus it takes the accusative case. And:
-"Девушка, которой он дал подарок..." (The woman, to whom he gave the gift...) Here, it takes the place of the indirect object, and so takes the dative case, since in the relative clause the woman is the recipient of the gift, regardless of the case of the word in the rest of the sentence.

    The pronoun который, however, is only used when the thing described is written as a noun in the sentence. There are of course instances where the use of a noun is impractical or simply repetitive. In such cases, you would use a то, что or то, кто construction, depending on whether you are referring to a thing or person, respectively. The best way to learn them is to see examples of how they are used:

    То, что/То, как

    The construction то, что (that which) along with тот, кто (he who) / та, кто (she who) / те, кто (plural, which doesn't depend on gender and can be followed by singular verb or plural verb) are somewhat more difficult to learn to use properly. These pronouns can be declined according to context, with or without prepositions. In addition, they are used in instances where in English you can attach prepositions to an action or verb instead of a noun or pronoun as a result of weak case governance and the expansion of roles of participles. Russian, along with most languages, however, does not allow this, as a preposition must be tied to a noun or pronoun, no exceptions. То, как is really more of a conjunction than a relative pronoun, but I include it here due to the similarities with то, что and то, кто.

You would not use these construction in spoken language, but would simply say "кто" or "что", which are abbreviated versions of these longer pronouns.

-Я не знаю то, о чём ты говоришь. -- "I don't know what you are talking about."
-Преподаватель спросил нам о том, что мы делали. -- "The teacher asked us about what we were doing."
-Я ещё не нашёл то, что я ищу. -- "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
-Кошки любят тех, кто их кормит. -- "Cats love those who feed them."
-Бог помогает тем, кто себе помогает. -- "God helps those who help themselves."
-Бери только то, что нужно, чтобы выжить. -- "Take only that which is necessary to survive."
 -Мы хотели бы пoблагодарить ваc за то, что вы пришли сюда сегодня.  -- "We would like to thank you for coming here today."
 -Перед тем, как я ухожy на работу, я каждый день готовлю для семьи кофе. - "Before I leave for work, every morning I make coffee for the rest of the family."
-В своей книге Социальный Контракт, философ Руссо говорит о том, как строить идеальную демокрацию. - "In  his book The Social Contract, the philosopher Rousseau writes about how to build the perfect democracy."
 
     Also, if you use a pronoun other than то to one of its declensions such as их, тебя or нас and so forth, the same applies.

37. School-related verbs

 

There are a half-dozen verbs related to education that are very similar in root and/or possible translations, but each has a specific meaning not always interchangeable with the others. Verb Meaning Cases Учиться -To study, to be a student. Often used to describe where you go to school. -Intransitive; comliments require prepositions, commonly в-prepositional. Изучать-изучить -To study (field or discipline.) -That being studied takes the accusative; other compliments require prepositions. Учить-Научить -To teach -Those being taught take the genitive; what is being taught takes the dative if it's a noun. Учить-Выучить -To memorize -Objects take the accusative. Учиться-Научиться -To learn -That being learned takes the dative. Заниматься-Заняться -To study, (as for a test,) or to occupy one's time in general -Objects take the Instrumental case.

 

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38. Expressing "To Have" and "To Want" and Modality

To Have:
Possession is usually shown by using the genitive preposition у plus the possessor, then есть and the object possessed in the nominative case. For example "I have a book" is "У меня есть книга." (Literally, "At me there is a book") If needs be, the word order can be changed a little, but keep the preposition y in front of the possessor.

To Want:
-The verb хотеть "to want" is one of only a few truly irregular verbs in Russian, and is used in much the same way as in English. Be sure to remember the conjugation:

Я	хочу
Ты	хочешь
Он/Она	хочет
Мы	хотим
Вы	хотите
Они	хотят

    Like English, however, Russian also contains ways of expressing desire in more polite forms. Two more are:
-Я хотел(а) бы... I would like (Used for polite requests; more official)
-Мне хочется... I would like (Used like хотел бы; but less official)

    To express modality, Russians tend to use "impersonal" or "subjectless" constructions. The basis of this is the "modal," the dative case form of the name or pronoun, and an infinitive verb. Thus, if I wanted to say "I need to finish reading this book," I would say "Мне (dative of "Я") надо (modal) прочитать (infinitive verb) эту книгу (object)" Literally translated, this comes out as "It is necessary for me to read this book." Such forms are the basis for expressing modality.

Common modals include:
Надо -- "It is necessary" (Must, more colloquial)
Нужно -- "It is necessary" (Must, proper)
Трудно, Тяжело -- "It is difficult"
Легко -- "It is easy"
Невозможно -- "It is impossible"
Можно -- "It is possible" (May/Can) (The verb мочь --могу, можешь, может, можем, можете, могут-- can be used when it refers to physical ability)
Нельзя -- "It is impossible/forbidden" (Used with perfective verbs, this indicates that for the time being, the action is physically impossible to do, whereas the imperfective indicates that it is not allowed or that doing so is discouraged for whatever reason. )

    Another common option is to use должен to express "must" or "have to," in conjunction with an infinitive verb. Должен declines according to the subject; masculine - должен, feminine - должна, and plural - должны.

    If, however the thing needed is a noun, you would use the dative form of the subject, plus нужен/нужна/нужны plus the needed object in the Dative case. Note here that the form of нужен that you choose is dependent on the gender/number of the object, not the subject.

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