Beginners Russian

R82100
Example of a lesson from the module booklet.
This booklet contains lists of core vocabulary
plus ten lessons:
Lesson 1: Beginning Russian
Lesson 2 : Greetings and Introduction
Lesson 3: Do You Speak Russian?
Lesson 4 : In Town
Lesson 5 : Ordering a Drink
Lesson 6: Ordering Food. Buying a Snack
Lesson 7: Going Shopping
Lesson 8: Daily Routine
Lesson 9 : Arriving in St.Petersburg
Lesson 10: Revision

Each lesson contains grammatical explanations, dialogues and translation exercises.

You can find that some sentences in the practice sections sound silly... This is deliberate. The whole
point of a senseless sentence is that its meaning cannot be predicted. It (one hopes) will make you
concentrate on Russian grammar while having fun!

Module Convener
Svetlana Clark
Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies
Beginners Russian:
Greetings and Introductions.
In contrast with English Grammar, Gender in Russian Grammar is not restricted to Nouns only, but relates to Adjectives, Ordinal Numbers
(grammatically adjectives), Possessive Pronouns, Demonstrative Pronouns and Verbs in Past Tense:

Words describing a noun (adjectives), as well as ordinal numbers have to agree with a noun they qualify:

The first lesson o (Masc.)

The big book (Fem.)
The big letter (Neut.)
The big first letter (Neut.)

Possessive pronouns indicate a possession relation and also agree with the noun in gender (apart from 3rd Sing. and 3rd Plur.):

Personal Pronouns Possessive Pronouns

(Subject) (Poss.Adject. or Possess.Pronouns.)

M F N Pl
? ? ? ?
I My/Mine
You Your/Yours
He His
She Hers
It Its
We Our/Ours
You Your/Yours
They There/Theirs

Note : Possessive pronouns are very similar to possessive adjectives. For example:

This is my book and not yours.

, .

The possessive my relates the noun book. (possessive adjective)

The possessive yours is a pronoun which stands in the place of your book. (possessive pronoun)

My passport (Masc.) // His/Her/Their Passport

My bag (Fem.) E // His/Her/Their Bag
My seat (Neut.) E // His/Her/Their Seat
Activities:
Official: , .
Tourist: . and
Official: , . Please note the difference:
Tourist: . stressed () and ().
Official: ? They are TWO different letters!
Tourist: , . is considered to be a consonant
Official: ? (hence all nouns ending in are
Tourist: , . masculine),
Official: ? while is as a rule a plural ending
Tourist: , .

Demonstrative pronouns are pronouns

that point to specific things. this, that,
these, those. Since they identify nouns,
they have to agree with them in gender
and number.

Demonstrative Pronoun

Singular Plural

Masc Fem Neut Plural

This These
That E Those

This (singular) and These (plural) refer to

an object or person NEAR the speaker.
That (singular) and Those (plural) refer
to an object or person further AWAY.

. .
. .
. .
. .

Official , .
Tourist . Please note the difference:
Official , . a) b) .
Tourist . This is my bag. This bag is mine.
Official ? a) If this is separated from the noun by the verb to be use ,
Tourist , . b) when the verb to beis after the this+noun use the same
Official ? gender/number ending for both the noun and the pronoun this.
Tourist , .
Past tense verbs:
Past Tense Verbs also have to agree with the gender of the noun performing the action.

Past Tense verbs are formed from the Infinitives, which (like in English) you will find in the dictionary (to be , etc see point 2 below).
We will learn how to conjugate verbs in the Present Tense in Lesson 5, but for now we will introduce the Past Tense of the Verbs as it
follows the rule of gender. The verb should agree in gender with the noun - the subject of the sentence.

The formation of the Past Tense:

- remove infinitive ending - from the stem and relplace it with:

masculine singular - . (Masc.) The magazine was here.

feminine singular - . (Fem.) The book was there.
neuter singular . (Neut.) The letter was here.
plural, all genders - . (Plur.) Students were there.

Official ?
Tourist .
Official ?
Tourist (as
well).
Official ?

Tourist ...

Infinitive Meaning Past tense

- masculine - feminine - neuter - plural -

to be
to speak
to work
to stand
to study (at)

In the case of Reflexive Verbs - when - is added to the infinitive ending:

- (e.g. = +), replace - as above and then add back, remembering that will change to when it is after a
vowel:
- for masculine singular (after the consonant ) and
- for the rest - feminine singular, neuter singular, and plural as after the vowels (...+; ...+; ...+):
. . .

Summary:
The table below sums up the gender-related endings discussed above. Please notice that the gender of all qualifying words relates back to
the noun they denote.
Demonstr. Pro. Adjective Ordinal Number Noun (Subject) Past tense verb Possessive. Pro.
This Beautiful First House Was Ours
Masculine
Feminine
Neutral
Plural
Verbs - Infinitive:
The infinitive of a verb is its basic form found in the dictionary.
The majority of infinitives end in , a number of verbs have the ending ( to go, to carry) or - ( to be able to,
to help).
The Infinitive form doesnt have a tense and is not inflected to agree with any subject. However, in a lot of cases, the last vowel before the
ending would give you a clue whether the verb belongs to the 1st or 2nd group of Conjugation:

1st
2nd
to know
to read to learn
to do to smoke
to think to walk
to listen to love
to work to speak
to write

The second conjugation includes all verbs with the infinitive ending in , and several other verbs, e.g.: - to see; to look;
to hear; to hold; to breathe; to hate; to depend.
Almost all other verbs belong to the first conjugation.

When we want to say someone speaks/writes/reads/thinks in English/

Russian/etc we use such adverbs as English way/Russian way/etc:

- English
- Russian
- SPEAK French
- German
- Spanish
Practise Exercises:
Dialogues (read and translate).
1. , . ?
, , ?
, . .
?
. . . .
!

2. , . ?
, . ?
. , , . .
/ , .
, . . .
, . ( ).

3. Lena and Denis are students. They are chatting to new people on their course:
, ?
, . ?
, .
. .
, . ?
, .

? How are you?

// Excellent/good/fine(OK)
Please meet
/ ? What is your name?
My friend (male)
My friend (female)
O Pleased to meet you.

4. Match the possessive pronoun to the same gender noun:

5. Put the nouns given below into the columns according to their gender:
a

Continued:
Practise excercises.
6. Tick all grammatically correct past tense verb for the given nouns:

Check yourself:
7. How will you say Hello to
a) a teacher/receptionist/policemen -
b) to a friend

8. How will you ask someones name?

a) informal
b) formal

9. Introduce your friends:

a) This is my friend (female). She is a student.
b) This is my friend (male). He is a musician.

10. How do you say:

a) to read in English
b) to write in Russian
c) to think in French

11. Translation practise:

a) , ? ? -, - - .
/ -, -. . ? ? ?
, . , . -, -. .
. ? - ! - . . . ? ?
(ago). ? ? . ? .

b) What did he do yesterday? He was at home, but () he was working. What did you (informal) study? She spoke Russian and French
very well. I didnt understand what they were saying. Tell me (formal), where is the hotel here? This car is mine. These books are here. Your
(formal) passport, please. Here is your (formal) ticket. Tell me (informal), where were you (sing.) yesterday? My father is a doctor.

Translation practise answers:

a) Tell me please, are you English? Did you learn Russian? My Grandfather spoke Russian, English and German. Yesterday I read in
French , and(but) today in Russian. This is my telephone. Where did she work? What did you learn at school? What did you do yesterday?
I knew what to say. She didnt know what to think. They asked in Russian, and I answered in English. They didnt understand. I understood
badly. Is your name Vladimir? Nice to meet you. I am John. My surname is Brown. I am your tour-guide. Where is the plane? Where is
your passport? It was here a minute ago. Is this house yours? Where did he walk to? Home. Where was he? At home.

b) ? , . ? - -.
, . , ? . . , .
. , ? - .
Lesson 2:
Core Vocabulary.
1. to be
2. to speak, say
3. to prepare, cook
4. to walk, stroll
5. to do
6. to think
7. to go by transport
8. (,) to live, reside
9. to know
10. to study something
11. to smoke
12. to answer, respond
13. to understand
14. to work
15 to ask
16 to learn (something)
17. to go on foot
18. home, to home (motion)
19.? where? (location)
20. here (location)
21. at home
22.- in English
23.- in Russian
24.- in French
25.- in German
26.- in Spanish
27. Russia
28. England
29. language; tongue
30. Russian language
31. English lang.
32.! tell me!
33. now
34. now, this minute, immediately
35. yesterday
36. previously
37. today
38. ago (1 day ago)
39. entrance
40. exit
41. (f.) mother
42./ (m.) father, daddy
43. brother
44. sister
45. (neut.) (indecl.) taxi
46. (neut.) (indecl.) menu
47. (note lower case letter) Englishman
48. Englishwoman
49. German man
50. German woman
Russian Beginners:
Verbs Past tense (Genders)

Infinitive Past Tense

Masc Fem Neutral Plural

// // //
stem + stem + stem + stem +
- to be
- to read
- to write
- to watch
- to see
- to listen
- to hear
- to do/make
- to speak
- to talk
- to know
- to think
- to play
- to live
- to go (by foot)
- to go (trans.)
- to dance
- to swim
- to drink
- to sing
- to sit
- to wait
- to buy
(Imperfect)
- to buy (Perfect)

Reflexive Verbs
* Consonant + ; Vowel +
stem++ stem++ stem++ stem++
--
--
--
--
Continued:
Reflexive Verbs
* Consonant + ; Vowel +
stem++ stem++ stem++ stem++
--
--
--
--

Irregular past tense forms (some of them):

Infinitive Past Tense

to eat
to sit down
to be able to
to go by foot

Open learning materials for beginners, created by S.Clark (on QUIA):

Favourite resource: http://www.quia.com/rr/85571.html

Category URL Address Hits (Jan 2013)

12 Months http://www.quia.com/jg/536663.html 1946
Adjectives http://www.quia.com/jg/540202.html 915
Adjectives(hard, mixed, soft) http://www.quia.com/cm/68846.html 515
Alphabet http://www.quia.com/jg/636410.html 3616
Colours http://www.quia.com/jg/540187.html 2007
Days of the Week http://www.quia.com/pp/41434.html 1150
Genders (Nouns, Past Tense Verbs, http://www.quia.com/rr/85571.html 4269
Possessive Pronouns, ONE)
How well do you know your numbers? http://www.quia.com/jq/83873.html 3429
Numbers 1-10 http://www.quia.com/jg/526582.html 3123
Prepositional case (Adjectives,pronouns http://www.quia.com/pop/84345.html 634
and nouns)
Present Tense Verbs http://www.quia.com/cb/86347.html 4671
Useful Vocabulary http://www.quia.com/jg/555435.html 1175
Verbs Conjugation - which group? http://www.quia.com/cm/67350.html 517
What is the time? http://www.quia.com/cb/98804.html 2312