March 07, 2019

Understanding Spoken Russian – Learn Russian Ep. 7

36 minutes

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NOTE *

All

phrases intended for translating/listening practice have been

deleted.

Welcome

to Episode 7 of Understanding Spoken Russian. To

start with today, Alex is going to ask me a question. Listen?

–

– –

Depending

on where you’re at in your studies, you might’ve understood all of

that, or almost none of it. Either way, in today’s episode we’re

going to discover a key pattern in there and put it to work for us.

The sound I want to extract from that for now—the sound I want

slipping deep into your subconscious—is: жив

that reverberates through your mind, let’s do some review. In these

complex phrases, can you spot who did what to whom?

–

– –

What

was that little word we started the lesson with? жив.

Let’s see if we can get it from context.

every action movie, there’s a scene where the hero gets badly hurt.

His buddy pushes away the rubble, finds the guy, and asks him:

Тони!

Ты ещё жив?

(dyin’)

Да….

What

do you think he asked him? Tony, are you still alive? So жив

translates as “alive” or “living.”

It’s

not all that common on its own, but it’s the root of one of the most

common verbs in conversational Russian. Let’s listen again to the

opening conversation, and translate as we go.

Марк,

где ты живёшь? – Mark, where do you live?

живу в Киеве. – I

live in Kiev.

Полина,

где ты живёшь? – Polina,

where do you

live?

живу в Донецке. – I

live in Donetsk.

ты, Алексей? Где ты

живёшь? –

And you,

Alex? Where do you live?

живу в Москве. –

I live in Moscow.

So,

я живу translates as “I live.”

ты

живёшь translates as “You live.”

Those

are our new words for this lesson. We’ll work with them in a second,

but here’s an important sidenote. In Russian, as in many languages,

depending on who you’re speaking to

there are different words you use to

say the same thing. There are two

categories that we put people in:

the person someone you can speak friendly with, like a friend or

family member?

Or…Is

it a person you need to speak politely with, like your boss, or any

adult you don’t know.

We’ll

cover this in detail a bit later in the series, but the main point is

that the same exact thought will be expressed two different ways. For

ex:

Let’s

say I’m talking with my buddy: “Yo, dude what’s up? Hey, I

wanted to ask..Где ты живёшь?”

That

was informal speech.

Now

I’m with my boss, who’s also bilingual. “Ahem, hello sir….I

was wanting to ask: Где Вы живёте?”

That’s the same exact question: “Where do you live?”

But with different words.

Another

ex: To a friend who’s just gotten a new job, you might ask: “Where

do you work?”

Где

ты работаешь?

a stranger on a train, you’d ask that same question like this: Где

Вы работаете?

Just

know that for today, we’ll be speaking informally, as if to friends.

Try to say…

–

– –

And

now try it with wherever you live. If you’re not sure how to

pronounce your city in Russian, or whether you’re getting the ending

right—because there are exceptions to that “yeh”

ending—just go to the website, UnderstandingSpokenRussian.com and

leave a comment at the bottom of Episode 7.

So,

in this first exercise, all I want you to do is tell me if the person

is speaking in the present tense, or the past. If you can translate,

great, but if not..just past or present. Ready?

–

– –

Let’s

add another verb into the mix. видишь

Imagine

you’re searching for your suitcase. Finally your roomate spots it and

he says…

Эй,

видишь? Твой чемодан на балконе.

he’s looking for his бумажник…

Где

мой бумажник?

Видишь?

Он на столе.

Видишь?

they ask, pointing. Do you see? ВИД-ишь…has

our core word from Episode 5: вид

But

now we’re hearing it in the present tense. Listen to him say, Yes, I

see.

Да.

Вижу.

She

would say it the same way…

Да.

Вижу.

It’s

only the past tense where the gender of the subject is reflected.

Last one: смотришь

You

walk into the living room and your roomate Vadim is watching TV. The

commercials are running, so you ask him…

Вадим,

что ты смотришь?

Whenever

I’m outside with my kids when they’re playing, they always want to

know…

Папа,

ты смотришь?

Dad,

are you watching?

let’s do that same exercise from before, but include these other

verbs…seeing and watching. Again, translate if you can, but

otherwise just say: past or present.

–

– –

работаю. Я живу. Я смотрю. Я вижу.

When

speaking in the present tense—about where they work,or where they

live—a Russian speaker starts with “ya” (Я)

and then uses a verb ending in an ‘U’ sound. It

might be “У or Ю”

but the ‘u’ sound is always there. There are so few exceptions to

this, it’s scarcely worth noting.

Ты

работаешь. Ты живёшь. Ты смотришь. Ты

видишь.

Similarly,

when speaking in the present tense about where you work, where

you live, and so on—a Russian speaker starts with Ты

and then uses a verb ending in an ‘ish’ sound. It might be ИШ

ЕШ ЁШ but the “sh” sound is always there.

Again, this is when “you” is a friend or a kid.

all I want to do here is spot these patterns. Just tell me if it’s

you or I doing the action. And we’ll mix in some unfamiliar verbs.

Ready?

–

– –

this next exercise, pretend you are the person speaking. He’ll start

by saying his name. Literally: Me they-call Anton. Then he’ll talk a

bit about himself. Just listen…

NOTE:

The episode’s Russian Immersion section has also been deleted from

this transcript. Again, this is because the entire focus of this

course is listening and understanding. People don’t (yet) come with

subtitles.

That

one had some new words in it. What do you think this means?

Ты

читаешь журнал.

You

are reading a magazine.

And

this?

Ты

читаешь книгу.

You

are reading a book.

Remember

читал from Episode 5? Я

прочитал рецепт…I read the recipe…

these are the present tense forms of that verb, “to read.”.

Listen again…

I’m

reading a funny email

читаю смешной имейл.

simpler. Just: I am reading.

читаю.

Are

you reading my blog?

Ты

читаешь мой блог?

Try

to translate these…

tip of the day>>

Even

in a course like this, where the entire focus is on listening and

getting the gist of what native speakers are saying, it’s still a

good idea to do interactive exercises…the way we just did. I like

it because it forces you to kind of sit straight and listen closely.

Which is why we’ll be doing more of that in future lessons.

The

tip here is, if you’re using this course in conjunction with some

other resource—you have to choose carefully. I remember back

when I was first getting started in Russian, I looked for that kind

of interactive listening stuff online and it was so frustrating.

Because even when they spoke slowly, they weren’t using the vocab I’d

learned. It made feel like I wasnt making progress. So what I did,

believe it or not, was hire native speakers in my area—this was in

Mesa, Arizona—and had them make up simple but realistic dialogs

like that…and I recorded them. I basically created my own course

material. That’s when my progress in Russian really started to

accelerate…because the exercises were at just the right level.

Which

is why I added what I call my ‘Russian Immersion’ podcast to my

online, Russian Accelerator course. There, each podcast episode uses

only the vocabulary you’ve learned up to that point. So you’re

suddenly having these long exchanges all in Russian and without that

frustration of feeling lost. Like I said, if you’re supplementing,

choose your resources carefully.

So,

let’s try one more interactive listening exercise. Again, just answer

ДА or НЕТ…

Bonus

question here. Even if you dont understand, see if you can answer…

Где

я сижу?

Ты

сидишь на диване.

Any

guess on what that means? Ты сидишь на диване.

You’re

sitting on the couch.

Next,

let’s listen to some clips from Russian TV. Again, I’ll use that

show, the Thundermans, about a family of superheros. This first

snippet starts with “Конечно,

милая,”…”of course, sweety.”

Then

what does the mother say?

That

was of course ridicuously fast. See if you can spot the two verbs.

One in the present tense, then one in the past….

She

said: Конечно, милая. Я читаю

твой блог. Видела мои комменты?

course, dear. I read your blog. Did you see my

comments?

this next one do you hear a Я verb or a

Ты verb?

Сейчас

ты получишь…Now you’re gonna get

it…Lit: Now you will receive

This

next one starts with the word Ты…Which

is the informal you. Is the mother speaking in the past tense or

present?

Ты

использовала свои супер-силы перед

подругами…past

Again..past

tense or present?

Как

видишь… с этим мы и разбираемся

you see, we’re figuring this out…как

видишь….present

Quick

break, and then our final exam….

dont know all the words, but can you translate the gist of these

phrases?

–

– –

Alright, great job, guys. If you’re starting to feel more confident and feel ready to try a conversational course along with this, I hope you’ll check out my Russian Made Easy podcast.

And

in the meantime, I’ll see you in the next lesson.

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