March 09, 2019

Understanding Spoken Russian – Learn Russian Ep. 9

22 minutes

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NOTE *

All

phrases intended for translating/listening practice have been

deleted.

Welcome

to Episode 9. You may have noticed that in the last episode we heard

a bunch of phrases that I never actually translated for you. All

these…

Ты

работаешь в кинотеатре?

Нет.

Майкл работает в кинотеатре.

didn’t translate because we were simply listening for our verb

patterns:

Tee…something…ish.

Michael…something…et.

Jessica…something…eet.

The

verbs, though, that we heard were all in the top ten most commonly

used verbs in Russian…in any language, really. And today, we’re

going to work with four of them. Can you translate them?

(vege

chopping sounds)

Привет,

Полина. Что ты делаешь?

делаю салат.

“Hi

Polina. What are doing?”

“I’m

making a salad.”

Hmmm..the

same verb—делать can translate as

doing and making? Yup. If I walk into my son’s room and I see

he’s stacking all his furniture against the wall, building a fort or

something, I’d yell…Андрей! Что ты

делаешь!

Andrei,

what are you doing?

says: Я делаю

форт.

I’m

making a fort.

Later,

if he’s at the table drawing a picture and putting sprinkles on it

and such, I’d ask again:

Ей

Андрей, что ты делаешь?

What

are you making?

делаю

картинку маме.

I’m

making a picture for mom.

The

translation just depends on context. Imagine I’m putting together

little William’s birthday present. A bicycle. He wants to come into

the room, but Andrei stops him. Listen..

Папа

делает тебе сюрприз.

Dad

is making a surprise for you.

Ask

your friend,who has flour and sugar and butter all over the

place…Are you making a cake?

How

about this next one? Again, one of the most common verbs in any

language…

(sound

of soda can)

Таня,

хочешь колу? Есть Пепси, Спрайт, Кок.

Нет,

спасибо. Я не хочу колу.

you want a cola? (soda)

No.

I don’t want.

I’m

trying to feed our kids, when my wife calls. I tell her…

Андрюша

не хочет суп.

что он хочет?

Andrusha

doesn’t want soup.

So,

what does he want?

Try

to say: I don’t want pizza.

–

– –

You’re

eating potato chips when a friend walks in. Jiggle the bag and ask,

with one word: Want?

–

– –

Let’s

do some review, now, from the last episode. Ask a friend, “You

wouldn’t happen to know where my telephone is?” Literally: You

don’t know where my telephone is?

–

– –

Ok,

now let’s review what we’ve worked on so far in today’s episode. Can

you translate the gist of the following phrases?

–

– –

far so good? Let’s try two more verbs…again, we heard them in the

last episode, now we’ll take a closer look. Imagine you friend calls

and asks if you’re up for basketball. But that afternoon, you

sprained your ankle. So you say..

не могу играть. Нога болит.

can’t play. My leg hurts.

Someone

calls asking to speak to your roommate But he’s in the shower. So you

say…

Он

не может говорить.

can’t talk.

Your

mom’s about to head to the store and you’re feeling thirsty for

something sweet. So you ask…

Мама,

ты можешь купить мне лимонад?

Mom,

can you buy me lemonade?

Let’s

try those again. I can. You can. He can.

могу. Ты можешь. Он может.

And

our last verb. Remember, in one of the first episodes, we listened to

my 3 yr old son William using a construction? Well, here’s what he

said…translated into Russian. Listen…

люблю….Маму. /…папу. /…бабушку.

/…дедушку. /…Андрюшу

love Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa and Andryusha.

And

why all those “u”endings? Mamu, Papu, Babushku? Because

loving something counts as doing something to it

Here’s

the “you” form of the verb. Imagine that, while your

significant other is away, you remodel their

room with bookshelves stacked with books. You explain…

знаю, что ты любишь читать.

know, that you love to read.

And

the he/she form. Listen…

Папа

любит смотреть бейсбол.

Dad

loves to watch baseball.

Let’s

hear those again…I love, you love, he loves…

люблю, ты любишь, он любит

now…let’s put all four of those verbs together. Again, just try to

get the gist of these phrases. At a minimum, try to get, like, “he

wants” or “Grandma loves”…Ready?

lot of people have been writing in, asking about additional listening

practice. Obviously, Russian songs are a great place to start. What I

would do is Google “famous Russian singers” and then click

on whoever interests you. In fact, in the next episode—the USR

Midterm—I’ll be playing cuts from a variety of Russian and

Ukrainian singers.

So,

songs are one source. The other obvious choice is Russian

movies…which I don’t really recommend. Oh, it’s a popular

suggestion online, on sites like reddit and Quora…”Watch

Russian movies with subtitles.”

appreciate that they’re trying to help, but it’s a thoughtless

suggestion. Russian movies, written, acted, directed by

Russians…use an extremely challenging register of Russian speech.

Moreover, they’re talking about things—aspects of life in

Russia—which would be alien to you. Do you know what ZAGs and Ovir

are? What a podval looks like…to say nothing of a cherdak. Do you

know what it’s like to shop in the центральный

рынок…the old ones, where the stands are barely ten

feet wide and the alleys crammed with shoppers who rode in from the

celo? It’s just…it’s too much.

Instead,

I recommend watching dubbed cartoons. Peppa Pig. Robocar Poli. Super

Wings. Peppa Pig is great because each episode is so short. Five

minutes…maybe seven? But more importantly, it deals with things we

understand well. Going to the store. Cooking dinner. Going to the

playground. A trip to the lake. And to really get your money’s

worth, watch the episode in English first, then the same one in

Russian. And don’t bother with the closed captioning to read

along…its ability to transcribe is laughably bad. Just relax, and

listen.

You

could also watch feature-length cartoons dubbed into Russian. Toy

Story, Frozen, Tangled, Lion King…whatever. Choose whichever

you’ve seen and know well, and then search for the Russian dubbed

version. We do quite a bit of that in my Russian Accelerator podcast,

and it’s fascinating. Whoever Disney and Pixar are using for

translating the scripts…they’re geniuses Really, amazingly good

work. Because especially trying to translate songs? So so hard. And

they always nail it.

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