Learning Russian with SP

[prostrel]

Originally posted by coolasfcuk
prostrel, ne bespokoisya as Yulia will say: "Rasslabsya" We all know Miss D here- she likes to get a little out of control but she is getting tips from time to time, and is getting better every day. So feel free to kick her on the ankle from time to time under the desk if she is not behaving....
and prostrel, I am sorry I in a way started this.. but thanks for explaining 'prostrel', didnt know it had such a different meaning in Russian . and a for liking Slavics.

Coolasfcuk , I find it to be a quite difficult task, *imaging it*, yeah, tough job but I`ll do my best. It is like infectious disease, this miss D`s flirting thing, you canґt resist it, resist temptation...
And since you are the mod Coolasfcuk, you can start anything you want.

Yeah, this was off top again...

[russkayatatu]

hmm, прострeл means 'lumbago', but прострелить means 'to shoot through' in Russian - so it's not so far away from BG also sounds kind of like стрела (arrow), стрелок (a shot or a shooter).

denial, let me join in: good job !! I would say only one thing: when you write простые, don't forget about the е at the end; it looks like you write просты but nice handwriting...and nice eye too

[quick note for sunnich: in the exercises, is it really движенья??? Surely it's движения?? I am 99.9% sure, but I thought I would check since I just noticed that ]

Well, since I feel kind of bad for introducing all that information about adjectives and then not going anywhere with it - and since prostrel brought it up with the phrase моя дорогая коллега - maybe I should go over the personal adjectives too, and finish up this adjective business a little more so we can make sentences. Good job on the noun genders, vesica and prostrel and thanks for pointing out those other examples too

OK, so these adjectives, the personal possesive adjectives ('my', 'your', 'his' in English) are a little different from the regular ones I talked about before. Here is how they decline in the singular:

Masculine Feminine Neuter
мой моя моё
твой твоя твоё

For 'his' and 'her' it doesn't change: его and её respectively. Also, in его, the г is pronounced like a в: as if it were ево.

So, if you want to say 'my girlfriend', you say: моя подруга (подруга can be either 'girlfriend' or 'female friend'). 'Your website': твой сайт. Fairly straightforward, yeah? It doesn't matter what gender YOU, the person talking, are; it matters what gender the noun is, just like for any adjective. A guy or a girl talking would say the same thing.

To say 'this' in Russian there is another pronoun whose declension is a little different:

Masculine Feminine Neuter
этот этa это

This is the word you would use if you were pointing at something: "this ___ (insert noun here)." Sometimes it's better translated as 'that'; there's another word, тот, which is exactly like this one without the э, and it means 'that', but it's not as commonly used as этот.

In the present tense Russian has no word for 'to be'; there are words to talk about existence, but as for a general verb, I am, you are, he is; Russian doesn't have one and just eliminates it from the sentence. So if you want to say 'this is a computer', you say just: это компютер. Это in this case is always neuter, and the noun following it can be any gender, either singular or plural:

Это диск
Это Юля
Это окно

If you want to ask a question "what is this?" that is just что это? 'Who is this?' is кто это? Что is generally pronounced as if it were што, by the way...and if you wanna have an adjective, that's OK too; make sure it agrees with the noun, and not with the это that doesn't change.

WARNING: you can only use the adjectives этот and эта when they are immediately followed by a noun. So you can't say something like, кто эта? You need to say either кто она? (who is she?), кто это? (who's that?), or кто эта девушка? (who's that girl?). Be careful also: the neuter form of the adjectives can sound like the feminine, the 'o' reduced to an 'a' sound: это sounds like этa, for example. There's a difference between Эта девушка and Это девушка: the first one isn't a sentence; it's a noun phrase "this girl...." and the second is a sentence: It's a girl. So watch out and make sure you don't get confused

I'm not sure what to do for an exercise since we don't know that many words - sunny poison is going to take care of the vocabulary; which is good - but if you want to start making some sentences with what you do know...just review and I'll be back later. Ahhh, I know it is a lot, probably too much...this is all the new stuff for a long time, I promise; don't get discouraged

[denial]

Thanks russ for the comment. Yeah I missed the 'e' there too .. on all of them .. LOL thank you ..

cools, I have my recording on the same page on my homework if that is what you mean. I put the link to download there. on top of the page beside the "back" button.

Originally posted by prostrel
[b]Извините (I`m sorry), my fellow students and teachers, this is totally out of topic but I promise this is the LAST TIME, я прошу прощения (forgive me)! BTW, this is Denial`s fault...

yes моя подруга ..let see ..lol ...

you in this cat case. How do you like your cat, alive or well done in oven, or maybe medium is good... ?

- alive of course! ..and ....shaved..

Well, Denial, I don`t know if it`s firm or soft, it depends on what I say to you, мая дорогая коллега, but it is LONGER than yours. Look!

-well I know another way to see if its FIRM or SOFT

[coolasfcuk]

cools, I have my recording on the same page on my homework if that is what you mean. I put the link to download there. on top of the page beside the "back" button

aaaaw, I must've not seen the link ....tsk, tsk...shame on me....I am off to listen....psssss make those links more visible for 'blind' people like me

....shaved..
well I know another way to see if its FIRM or SOFT

she doesnt stop.... nath where are you...come give her couple of tips

added: heh, great job D lots of improvement - молодец... and I just have to add- I loved the motorcycle riding by, he heeeeee, brrrrrrrm

[zebu]

here's my homework, hope it isn't too late

компьютер он
клавиатура она
клавиша она
монитор он
экран он
дисковод он
диск он
жёсткий диск он
дискета она
модем он
мышка он
кнопка она
драйвер он
Интернет он
сайт он
браузер он
вирус он
окно оно
папка она
почтовый ящик он

[prostrel]

Russkayatatu , thank you for the new lesson and the "прострелить" explanation. So I AM some kind of "shooter" after all, lol, who would guessed.

I have a question. I read this poem called " тет-а-тет", writers are La_Kresta and Волк from Russian forum. So my question is: Is this тет-а-тет original Russian word or loan word? It sounds kinda French to me ( although I have never studied French). I have to ask this cos it`s my favorite Russian word at the moment and those 2 lines between the words, haven`t seen anything like that before. And an other question. This line is from that poem, I could use some translation help: Я сну, забвенью отдалась. ???
Poems can be sometimes so difficult to read and understand. I have this book, Александр Пушкин: Стихотворения. Проза. I`m still on page 7 (starting page). I was so ambitious when I bought that book, 3 years ago. But I`m going to read it through, some day.

And then compulsories.

[quote]Originally posted by denial
- alive of course! ..and ....shaved..
мая дорогая коллега, you are so cruel! Aww, poor.. em.. cats, cold winter is coming...

[elf]

Originally posted by prostrel
So my question is: Is this тет-а-тет original Russian word or loan word? It sounds kinda French to me ( although I have never studied French)

Good guess!! I believe it did come from French and litterally means something like "head to head". There are a lot of borrowed words in russian, by the way. For example, most of the computer related stuff is simply pronounced as it is written in english, as you probably know by now

Я сну, забвенью отдалась. ???

It means something close to "I gave in to sleep".

"забвеньe" is a fancy old word for the state of sleeping or unconciousness. And because it's a poem the word order is slightly counterintuitive. It is correct nonetheless. A clearer way to state the same thing would be "Я отдалась сну и забвенью".

Poems can be sometimes so difficult to read and understand

Do not despair. Poems are hard to read even for native Russian speakers.

I have this book, Александр Пушкин

I should congratulate you for you have the book of the best known and one of the most loved, respected and quoted author in Russian history Have fun reading him

Your Russian is very good if you can read Пушкин already

[elf]

denial, your homework is impressive I'd give it an A+++ You must have spent a lot of time on it.. And the eye is beautiful

- alive of course! ..and ....shaved..

aww poor kitty...

********************************
For students who want to do some extra work

For extra credit, please determine the gender of the following words (it's not that easy):

Тату
Тень (Shadow)
Крыло (wing)
Зверь (animal)
кофе (coffee)

[coolasfcuk]

For extra credit, please determine the gender of the following words (it's not that easy):

*raises hand* me meeeee, I am always up for some x-tra credit

lets see...

Тату - они?? this one is really confusing, but I think of Тату as 'they' so... or are you talking about the word 'tattoo'? if that, then..hmm... оно although, Татуировка in Russian is 'она' ...ah, blaaaah, here are the other ones
Тень (Shadow) - она
Крыло (wing) - оно
Зверь (animal) - он
кофе (coffee) - он

[russkayatatu]

elf, we are supposed to determine the gender how, exactly? Looking it up in the dictionary?

psss, cool - read through some previous posts on this page again; one of yours is wrong, and correct answer was given before

[elf]

Originally posted by coolasfcuk
*raises hand* me meeeee, I am always up for some x-tra credit

Тату - они?? this one is really confusing, but I think of Тату as 'they' so... or are you talking about the word 'tattoo'? if that, then..hmm... оно although, Татуировка in Russian is 'она' ...ah, blaaaah, here are the other ones
Тень (Shadow) - она
Крыло (wing) - оно
Зверь (animal) - он
кофе (coffee) - он

// corrected

Whoa! That was super fast!

Great job coolie! You did make one mistake though: 'кофе' should be 'он' The reason is not very well known to me... I guess it's just an exception. I must admit though that A LOT of russians make the same mistake, especially if they don't drink coffee.

As for Тату, I'm not really sure myself and that's why I asked You are probably right though - it should be они. However, I'm pretty sure that a lot of words do not have a specific gender - mostly names, epecially those that come from another lenguage. Тату may be one of them

[coolasfcuk]

psss, cool - read through some previous posts on this page again; one of yours is wrong, and correct answer was given before

pssssss, it wasnt on purpose...and I knew the answer ..I did read your posts... that's how I knew it... and as I was typing it... got confused again ...едно кафе In BG... damn BG, messes up my Russian

edit: he heeee, yeah elf.... I explained how I got confussed.... poooo on Russians for deciding кофе is он..... when you know it should be оно

pssssss, maybe you can edit post... so other people wont know the correct answers ... but Рейч is right...if people dont have a feel for it...they might get a headache

[russkayatatu]

Was not my posts it was prostrel - like elf said, it's an exception...I believe you knew the answer though

Аs for Тату, I wasn't sure either but on the Russian forum it seems to be consistently plural, so I'm guessing it is они...anyway...молодец I think you're right, you have no problem with genders but how other people are supposed to know...that is still a mystery to me

[coolasfcuk]

Was not my posts - it was prostrel - like elf said, it's an exception..

well, I know I read it somewhere on this page (edit: ha ha, and now it is on the previous one)... oopsie daisy ... with my short memory and all.. uffff

and for everybody

[elf]

poooo on Russians for deciding кофе is он..... when you know it should be оно

Maybe they just like it so much that they decided to make it more human-like

oopsie daisy

Hehe.. I love this expression
BTW, I made the correction

[coolasfcuk]

but on the Russian forum it seems to be consistently plural, so I'm guessing it is они...

ну конечно constantly plural because there are 2 of them .. I bet you if it was only Yulia is would be она ..those will be the days

Hehe.. I love this expression

me too

[russkayatatu]

cool, don't worry, какая разница?

elf, you started this...just in case anyone wants more 'fun' practice with guessing genders (note: these are meant to be not so obvious).

кость (bone)
громкоговоритель (loudspeaker)
рожь (rye)
свежесть (freshness)
слуга (servant)
воскресенье (Sunday)
воскресение (resurrection)
щи (cabbage soup)
аташе (attache)
жюри (judges (of competition))
кенгуру (kangeroo)
клише (cliche)
чернила (ink)
ружьё (gun)
шимпанзе (chimpanzee)
пламя (flame)

This is really advanced, though, most of it. I was just trying to find some things that might trip people up

edit: what is this word I found in the dictionary just now:

техред (technical editor, copy editor)

[coolasfcuk]

okie, I will be good now.... and let other people take a shot at this... 'cause I think I know those also

удачи

[russkayatatu]

Originally posted by zebu

модем он
мышка он

zebu, of course it's not too late - whenever you have a chance is great, and all of it is voluntary anyway...

only one slight mistake, and maybe it is only an oversight: мышка is она (feminine) . By the way, мышь ('mouse', мышка is a diminuitive form of it - sort of like 'little mouse') is also feminine - about these soft sign endings, there is another rule: if the consonant before the soft sign is ж, ч, ш, or щ then the noun is always feminine. Just something else to keep in mind, if reading rules like this helps you

But good job !! and for everyone

P.S. тет-а-тет is definitely from the French expression.

[denial]

Sorry guys ... but I need help with this:

http://www.geocities.com/nrg2002ru/combinations.html

Is there any sound file to pronounce the combination? I can't find it .. I search whole thread. I can't even imagine what the sound like .. I've been making weird sounds .. LOL ..


PS:
oh!? .. its wrong to shave a cat? ..


Edited:
Oh sorry again . I think I get it .. its just don't pronounce that letter .. LOL .. dush! *slaps own head*


Edited again:
Urr.. I do need sample sound for this.. LOL ..please... I promise I won't harm any cats anymore..

праздник (holiday)
сердце (heart)
солнце (sun) -- I know this one "soln - tse" in NVNBNP
лестница (stairs)
чувство (feeling)
мужчина (man)
извозчик (cabman)
счастье (happiness)
что (what)
конечно (of course)
вкратце (in brief)
двадцать (twenty)
лётчик (pilot, flyer)
докладчик (reporter)
учится ((he) studies)
учиться (to study)