March 05, 2019

Understanding Spoken Russian – Learn Russian Ep. 5

32 minutes

Full Episode Audio

Exercises Only Audio

Download Full Episode (right click save-as)

Download Exercises

NOTE *

All

phrases intended for translating/listening practice have been

deleted.

Welcome

to Episode #5 of Understanding Spoken Russian. If you’re new to the

series, I recommend starting from the first episode, because the

lessons are cumulative, and in each one I assume you’re comfortable

with the material learned in all prior episodes.

Let’s

get to it. I’ll start by rattling off a few related words…View,

vista, visual…вид

Listen

again: вид It translates as

“view”..like, Our hotel room has a great вид…a

great view.

And

it’s the root

of our new word for this lesson. Listen? увидеть

I’d like you to connect that core sound—вид—to those three

English words which also begin with a “V” sound. What were

they again?

Now,

увидеть is the dictionary form of

the verb, but we’ll be working with the past tense today.

Here

it is in context…

said: Yesterday I saw Grandma in the library.

And

she said: When I was in Hollywood, I saw Angelina Jolie.

So,

the verb увидеть translates as “to

see.” And did you notice that Babushka and Angelina changed to

Babushku (Бабушку)

and Angelinu (Анджелину)

because seeing them counts as doing something to them?

How

would you translate this?

–

– –

What

were those three English words that we want to connect to the word

вид?

They

begin with a V sound…

Alright,

let’s review some of the key points from the last episode. How would

you translate these phrases?

–

– –

For

today’s main topic, I want to talk about something called verb

aspect. So, we’re going to hear phrases where the same action is

described by seemingly different verbs. Listen and I’ll translate:

купила сендвич.

bought a sandwich.

покупала все эти сувениры в Лондоне,

кроме этого магнита.

bought all these souvenirs in London, except for this magnet.

Hmm.

Both sentences translate as “I bought…” but she used

different verbs. Я купила in the

first, and я покупала in the

second. Now why would she do that? Let’s listen to a simpler

example…

сказала <Нет.>

That

was: I said no.

Мы

говорили о музыке.

were talking about music.

Here’s

the Big Question: What’s the difference between I said…and I

was talking?

With

“said” you get this sense of the whole thing. You said it,

and you were done. But with talking…you envision this

ongoing conversation. And in that first example: Я

купила сендвич. Hearing that, a Russian person

envisions the whole transaction. She stood in line, paid the guy, and

walked away with her sandwich.

But

that other phrase: Я покупала все эти

сувениры I bought all these souvenirs in London…

There, we see her going from shop to shop, maybe over the course of a

week…it’s about the process of her shopping.

Books

have been written exclusively on the topic of Russian verb aspect,

but what’s nice is that, in this course, we don’t have to worry about

the rules. We just want a general understanding. And for now, all I

want to say is this:

Verbs

that we call perfective emphasize the result.

Verbs

we call imperfective emphasize the process.

Take

the idea of reading. Here are the two forms in the past tense

Читал / прочитал

See

if you can determine which one emphasizes result, and which

emphasizes process.

Imagine

you’re a creative writing teacher and you tell a student: Hey,

Jimmy..I just прочитал your story

and I thought it was excellent. I loved the ending.

…versus….

Last

night I settled into my armchair and читал

The Shining by Stephen King. I was so into it, I nearly jumped

out of my chair when the phone rang.

прочитал your whole story. There’s

a result. We read it from start to finish.

читал the book for a while…is about the

process. He was reading it and then something happened. He clearly

did not finish it. So…

прочитал is perfective.

читал is imperfective.

With

that verb pair, the difference between perfective and imperfective is

pretty clear. But with other verbs, it’s less so. Like today’s verb

увидеть. Do you think it’s the

perfective or imperfective form? Listen…

Today

in the supermarket I saw your mom.

Yesterday

in the park I saw your dog.

Those

are perfective. They’re emphasizing that they saw your mom or saw

your dog…and that’s pretty much it. Compare that with the

imperfective…

the podval I was seeing only books and photographs. You get the sense

that they were looking around for a while, probably trying to find

something, but all they saw were books and pics. (The word was видела

without that ‘u’ sound in front.)

Again,

verb aspect is a big deal when you’re trying to speak Russian.

We work with it in great detail in my conversational Russian courses.

It’s actually really interesting. But in this podcast, we just need

to be aware that Russian uses two different verbs to convey these two

aspects of any action. That’s my main objective here. Because I don’t

want you saying,”Wait, why is he saying Прочитал?I

thought the verb “to read” was читал.”

Now

you know. They’re two versions, two aspects, of the same verb.

Can you translate this brief exchange?

–

– –

Now

imagine you’re the teacher, and your student says…Hey, wait…I

thought купил was the verb meaning “to

buy.” Suddenly it’s покупал? What

do you tell them?

Hit

pause and give it a shot.

I’d

tell them: Russian uses pairs of verbs to describe the same action.

Купил means he bought the coffee and

that’s that. Whereas покупала conveys

the process of shopping—she was looking and buying some things and

not buying others. The two forms are an aspectual pair, купил

is the perfective form, emphasizing result. Покупал

is the imperfective and emphasizes the process.

Let’s

look at another aspect pair. In earlier episodes we encountered the

verb смотрел.

Can

you take a stab at translating it? Andrusha is supposed to be doing

his homework, but when I listen at his door, it doesn’t seem like he

is. (TV sounds, then door opens…and TV

clicks off)

Андрюша!

Ты смотрел телевизор?

says…Нет, Папа. Книгу читал.

how would you translate: Ты смотрел

телевизор?

Were

you watching television?

Which

form is that? Perfective or imperfective? The question was all about

the process….about what Andrusha was doing. So it’s…imperfective.

Compare

that with this situation: I know my sister has been sitting in her

room for over three hours. I hear this music, and her gentle

weeping…then she comes out and explains…

только что посмотрела <ТИТАНИК>.

just watched Titanic.

Here,

it’s clear she watched the whole thing. By choosing the perfective

form, she’s emphasizing the result. In English we’d say, “Wow, I

just watched Titanic.”

his birthday, Alex comes home just as his wife pulls a dessert from

the oven. Can you translate their exchange?

he said…”Wow, crème brulee?” And she said…”Yes. I

read the recipe in the magazine Cosmopolitan.”

we say recipe and in Russian it’s: рецепт.

And we say magazine or journal, and Russian pronounces

it: журнал

But

the real question is: Which verb aspect did she use? Listen again…

прочитала

is the perfective. She used that because she read the recipe,

the entire thing,obviously, in the journal.

you know how to use Google’s “exact match” function? If you

put a search term in quotes, you’ll get results with that exact

phrase. For fun, I just searched for exact matches of the Russian

phrases “прочитала рецепт”…

And читала рецепт.

Remember,

the difference is that читала translates

as was reading. I searched because, you gotta figure прочитала

would far outweigh читала. Right?

I mean, how often would you say, I was reading a recipe in a

magazine…versus, I read the recipe in a magazine. Sure

enough…прочитала рецепт got

over 20,000 matches…and читала a

mere five thousand. Curious on how they used it, I read some of the

results that contained читала. Here

are two. Listen…?

долго читала рецепт и список ингредиентов

for a long time, was reading the recipe and the list of ingredients.

The writer used читала because she’s

emphasizing the process..she was reading it for a long time. This

next phrase also stood out…

Пока

я читала рецепт, залила клавиатуру

слюной.

Пока

which we think of as a friendly ‘Goodbye’ in Russian,

literally translates as “for the time being” or “while.”

So she said: “While I was reading the recipe, I drooled on the

keyboard.”

She

had to use the imperfective читала…had

to use it…because she was saying what happened during that process.

Where’s

the language tip in all this? Well, although computers are still

pretty lousy at language, they’re still very useful tools. And that

exact phrase match is one way I use my computer. Another tool I used

use a lot was Google’s image search. If you’re not sure of the

difference between two concrete objects—for example a тягач

and an

эвакуатор—do

a search of Google images, and you’ll see right away.

remember when I first read the word тягач

and

was confused, because one of my dictionaries defined it as a tow

truck, which in the context of where I read it, didn’t make sense. So

I did an image search of the word….bingo.. A тягач

the front part of an 18-wheeler…the truck part, with the engine. I

was pretty sure a tow truck was an эвакуатор

“evacuator”…and again, a quick search on Google images

brought up a hundred images of your classic tow truck. Long story

short: The Google translate

function is unreliable, but the image search is a very useful

function.

Let’s

get back to it. How would you translate this…

–

– –

And

what aspect are those verbs?

The

perfective. We saw the person…and that’s about it.

Next,

let’s listen to a some clips in Russian. All I want you to do is

listen for the past tense verb.

She’s

about to tell her viewers: “What I read in the month of June.”

прочитала…is

which verb form? Perfective. She’s saying she read all of them, start

to finish.

Next,

this song…

видела сон в котором она целует тебя

saw a dream in which she kisses you.

That’s

how Russians talk about dreams. In English we say ‘I had a

dream’ in Russian, Я видел сон

saw a dream. And she chose the imperfective form, because it’s

not important that she saw an entire dream…what’s important is what

she saw during the dream. Compare that to this next

one…

увидела тебя во снах

saw you in my dreams.

She

uses the perfective to emphasize that she saw you, and not someone

else.

What’s

this guy saying? It’s just three words. Listen again?

said: “I read a book.”

Perfective,

right?

Compared

to this next woman, he’s not exactly an over-achiever. Listen…

прочитала 125 книг.

read—and finished reading—125 books. (during the past year)

Last

one…Listen to this kid…

Короче

говоря, посмотрел фильм ОНО.

And

a girl would say it like this…

Короче

говоря, посмотрела фильм.

Alright,

let’s go on to our final exam. Can you translate the gist of these

phrases? Bonus points for shouting out the aspect of each verb.

–

– –

How’d you do? Please let me know. Send an email to: mark @ understandingspokenrussian dot com

the meantime, I’ll see you in the next episode where—just by

spotting a certain sound at the end of someone’s name—you can get

the gist of the entire sentence. See you there! Пока!

...more

View all episodes

By Understanding Spoken Russian

4.9

4242 ratings

March 05, 2019

Understanding Spoken Russian – Learn Russian Ep. 5

32 minutes

Full Episode Audio

Exercises Only Audio

Download Full Episode (right click save-as)

Download Exercises

NOTE *

All

phrases intended for translating/listening practice have been

deleted.

Welcome

to Episode #5 of Understanding Spoken Russian. If you’re new to the

series, I recommend starting from the first episode, because the

lessons are cumulative, and in each one I assume you’re comfortable

with the material learned in all prior episodes.

Let’s

get to it. I’ll start by rattling off a few related words…View,

vista, visual…вид

Listen

again: вид It translates as

“view”..like, Our hotel room has a great вид…a

great view.

And

it’s the root

of our new word for this lesson. Listen? увидеть

I’d like you to connect that core sound—вид—to those three

English words which also begin with a “V” sound. What were

they again?

Now,

увидеть is the dictionary form of

the verb, but we’ll be working with the past tense today.

Here

it is in context…

said: Yesterday I saw Grandma in the library.

And

she said: When I was in Hollywood, I saw Angelina Jolie.

So,

the verb увидеть translates as “to

see.” And did you notice that Babushka and Angelina changed to

Babushku (Бабушку)

and Angelinu (Анджелину)

because seeing them counts as doing something to them?

How

would you translate this?

–

– –

What

were those three English words that we want to connect to the word

вид?

They

begin with a V sound…

Alright,

let’s review some of the key points from the last episode. How would

you translate these phrases?

–

– –

For

today’s main topic, I want to talk about something called verb

aspect. So, we’re going to hear phrases where the same action is

described by seemingly different verbs. Listen and I’ll translate:

купила сендвич.

bought a sandwich.

покупала все эти сувениры в Лондоне,

кроме этого магнита.

bought all these souvenirs in London, except for this magnet.

Hmm.

Both sentences translate as “I bought…” but she used

different verbs. Я купила in the

first, and я покупала in the

second. Now why would she do that? Let’s listen to a simpler

example…

сказала <Нет.>

That

was: I said no.

Мы

говорили о музыке.

were talking about music.

Here’s

the Big Question: What’s the difference between I said…and I

was talking?

With

“said” you get this sense of the whole thing. You said it,

and you were done. But with talking…you envision this

ongoing conversation. And in that first example: Я

купила сендвич. Hearing that, a Russian person

envisions the whole transaction. She stood in line, paid the guy, and

walked away with her sandwich.

But

that other phrase: Я покупала все эти

сувениры I bought all these souvenirs in London…

There, we see her going from shop to shop, maybe over the course of a

week…it’s about the process of her shopping.

Books

have been written exclusively on the topic of Russian verb aspect,

but what’s nice is that, in this course, we don’t have to worry about

the rules. We just want a general understanding. And for now, all I

want to say is this:

Verbs

that we call perfective emphasize the result.

Verbs

we call imperfective emphasize the process.

Take

the idea of reading. Here are the two forms in the past tense

Читал / прочитал

See

if you can determine which one emphasizes result, and which

emphasizes process.

Imagine

you’re a creative writing teacher and you tell a student: Hey,

Jimmy..I just прочитал your story

and I thought it was excellent. I loved the ending.

…versus….

Last

night I settled into my armchair and читал

The Shining by Stephen King. I was so into it, I nearly jumped

out of my chair when the phone rang.

прочитал your whole story. There’s

a result. We read it from start to finish.

читал the book for a while…is about the

process. He was reading it and then something happened. He clearly

did not finish it. So…

прочитал is perfective.

читал is imperfective.

With

that verb pair, the difference between perfective and imperfective is

pretty clear. But with other verbs, it’s less so. Like today’s verb

увидеть. Do you think it’s the

perfective or imperfective form? Listen…

Today

in the supermarket I saw your mom.

Yesterday

in the park I saw your dog.

Those

are perfective. They’re emphasizing that they saw your mom or saw

your dog…and that’s pretty much it. Compare that with the

imperfective…

the podval I was seeing only books and photographs. You get the sense

that they were looking around for a while, probably trying to find

something, but all they saw were books and pics. (The word was видела

without that ‘u’ sound in front.)

Again,

verb aspect is a big deal when you’re trying to speak Russian.

We work with it in great detail in my conversational Russian courses.

It’s actually really interesting. But in this podcast, we just need

to be aware that Russian uses two different verbs to convey these two

aspects of any action. That’s my main objective here. Because I don’t

want you saying,”Wait, why is he saying Прочитал?I

thought the verb “to read” was читал.”

Now

you know. They’re two versions, two aspects, of the same verb.

Can you translate this brief exchange?

–

– –

Now

imagine you’re the teacher, and your student says…Hey, wait…I

thought купил was the verb meaning “to

buy.” Suddenly it’s покупал? What

do you tell them?

Hit

pause and give it a shot.

I’d

tell them: Russian uses pairs of verbs to describe the same action.

Купил means he bought the coffee and

that’s that. Whereas покупала conveys

the process of shopping—she was looking and buying some things and

not buying others. The two forms are an aspectual pair, купил

is the perfective form, emphasizing result. Покупал

is the imperfective and emphasizes the process.

Let’s

look at another aspect pair. In earlier episodes we encountered the

verb смотрел.

Can

you take a stab at translating it? Andrusha is supposed to be doing

his homework, but when I listen at his door, it doesn’t seem like he

is. (TV sounds, then door opens…and TV

clicks off)

Андрюша!

Ты смотрел телевизор?

says…Нет, Папа. Книгу читал.

how would you translate: Ты смотрел

телевизор?

Were

you watching television?

Which

form is that? Perfective or imperfective? The question was all about

the process….about what Andrusha was doing. So it’s…imperfective.

Compare

that with this situation: I know my sister has been sitting in her

room for over three hours. I hear this music, and her gentle

weeping…then she comes out and explains…

только что посмотрела <ТИТАНИК>.

just watched Titanic.

Here,

it’s clear she watched the whole thing. By choosing the perfective

form, she’s emphasizing the result. In English we’d say, “Wow, I

just watched Titanic.”

his birthday, Alex comes home just as his wife pulls a dessert from

the oven. Can you translate their exchange?

he said…”Wow, crème brulee?” And she said…”Yes. I

read the recipe in the magazine Cosmopolitan.”

we say recipe and in Russian it’s: рецепт.

And we say magazine or journal, and Russian pronounces

it: журнал

But

the real question is: Which verb aspect did she use? Listen again…

прочитала

is the perfective. She used that because she read the recipe,

the entire thing,obviously, in the journal.

you know how to use Google’s “exact match” function? If you

put a search term in quotes, you’ll get results with that exact

phrase. For fun, I just searched for exact matches of the Russian

phrases “прочитала рецепт”…

And читала рецепт.

Remember,

the difference is that читала translates

as was reading. I searched because, you gotta figure прочитала

would far outweigh читала. Right?

I mean, how often would you say, I was reading a recipe in a

magazine…versus, I read the recipe in a magazine. Sure

enough…прочитала рецепт got

over 20,000 matches…and читала a

mere five thousand. Curious on how they used it, I read some of the

results that contained читала. Here

are two. Listen…?

долго читала рецепт и список ингредиентов

for a long time, was reading the recipe and the list of ingredients.

The writer used читала because she’s

emphasizing the process..she was reading it for a long time. This

next phrase also stood out…

Пока

я читала рецепт, залила клавиатуру

слюной.

Пока

which we think of as a friendly ‘Goodbye’ in Russian,

literally translates as “for the time being” or “while.”

So she said: “While I was reading the recipe, I drooled on the

keyboard.”

She

had to use the imperfective читала…had

to use it…because she was saying what happened during that process.

Where’s

the language tip in all this? Well, although computers are still

pretty lousy at language, they’re still very useful tools. And that

exact phrase match is one way I use my computer. Another tool I used

use a lot was Google’s image search. If you’re not sure of the

difference between two concrete objects—for example a тягач

and an

эвакуатор—do

a search of Google images, and you’ll see right away.

remember when I first read the word тягач

and

was confused, because one of my dictionaries defined it as a tow

truck, which in the context of where I read it, didn’t make sense. So

I did an image search of the word….bingo.. A тягач

the front part of an 18-wheeler…the truck part, with the engine. I

was pretty sure a tow truck was an эвакуатор

“evacuator”…and again, a quick search on Google images

brought up a hundred images of your classic tow truck. Long story

short: The Google translate

function is unreliable, but the image search is a very useful

function.

Let’s

get back to it. How would you translate this…

–

– –

And

what aspect are those verbs?

The

perfective. We saw the person…and that’s about it.

Next,

let’s listen to a some clips in Russian. All I want you to do is

listen for the past tense verb.

She’s

about to tell her viewers: “What I read in the month of June.”

прочитала…is

which verb form? Perfective. She’s saying she read all of them, start

to finish.

Next,

this song…

видела сон в котором она целует тебя

saw a dream in which she kisses you.

That’s

how Russians talk about dreams. In English we say ‘I had a

dream’ in Russian, Я видел сон

saw a dream. And she chose the imperfective form, because it’s

not important that she saw an entire dream…what’s important is what

she saw during the dream. Compare that to this next

one…

увидела тебя во снах

saw you in my dreams.

She

uses the perfective to emphasize that she saw you, and not someone

else.

What’s

this guy saying? It’s just three words. Listen again?

said: “I read a book.”

Perfective,

right?

Compared

to this next woman, he’s not exactly an over-achiever. Listen…

прочитала 125 книг.

read—and finished reading—125 books. (during the past year)

Last

one…Listen to this kid…

Короче

говоря, посмотрел фильм ОНО.

And

a girl would say it like this…

Короче

говоря, посмотрела фильм.

Alright,

let’s go on to our final exam. Can you translate the gist of these

phrases? Bonus points for shouting out the aspect of each verb.

–

– –

How’d you do? Please let me know. Send an email to: mark @ understandingspokenrussian dot com

the meantime, I’ll see you in the next episode where—just by

spotting a certain sound at the end of someone’s name—you can get

the gist of the entire sentence. See you there! Пока!

...more

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More shows like Understanding Spoken Russian

Speaking Russian

Learn Russian | RussianPod101.com

Very Much Russian - Learn Russian as Russians speak it!

Slow Russian

Russian Made Easy: Learn Russian Quickly and Easily

TPRS Russian – Effortless Russian

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Что это было?

Learn Russian! Russian with Sasha

Learn Russian with Dasha

Russian podcast for beginners!

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Russian you can understand💡

Easy Russian: Learn Russian with native speakers | Учим русский с носителями языка