Learn how to use Russian reflexive pronouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Oxana: Hello, everyone. I'm Oxanna. |
| Eddie: Eddie here. So John is fresh and ready to face the world. |
| Oxana: Yes, his first day in Russia. |
| Eddie: We all remember our first day in Russia. |
| Oxana:Yes, we do. But do we remember what we learned in the last lesson? |
| Eddie:Yes. Maybe not as memorable but almost. |
| Oxana:Well, I’ll remind you. One thing we learned was the word for “to reserve”. |
| Eddie:Yes. What hotel or good restaurant do you go to without booking a room or a table. |
| Oxana:[Бронировать] |
| Eddie: We also learned a big chunk of Russian grammar, ordinal numerals. What example did we have in the previous lesson? |
| Oxana: [Пятый этаж] “Fifth floor”. |
| Eddie: Ok. Now let’s get to John’s first day and see if it goes as easily for him. Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Девушка: [Доброе утро! Как вы себя чувствуете сегодня?] |
| Woman: Dobroe utro! Kak vy sebya chuvstvuete segodnya? |
| Джон: [Хорошо, спасибо. Скажите, какая сегодня погода́?] |
| John: Horosho, spasibo. Skazhite, kakaya segodnya pogoda? |
| Девушка:[Сейчас тепло и солнечно, но после обеда будет дождь.] |
| Woman: Seichas teplo i solnechno, no posle obeda budet dozhd’. |
| Джон: [А какой курс валют в этом отеле?] |
| John: A kakoi kurs valyut v etom otele? |
| Девушка: [1 доллар - 32 рубля.] |
| Woman: Odin dollar- tridtsat’ dva ruvlya. |
| Джон: [Понятно. А где я могу взять такси?] |
| John: Ponyatno. A gde ya mogu vzyat’ taksi? |
| Девушка: [У центрального выхода. Удачного дня.] |
| Woman: U tsentra’nogo vyhoda. Udachnogo dnya. |
| Джон: [Спасибо!] |
| John: Spasibo! |
| Eddie: Once again, slowly. |
| Oxana: Ещё раз, медленнее. |
| Девушка: [Доброе утро! Как вы себя чувствуете сегодня?] |
| Woman: Dobroe utro! Kak vy sebya chuvstvuete segodnya? |
| Джон: [Хорошо, спасибо. Скажите, какая сегодня погода́?] |
| John: Horosho, spasibo. Skazhite, kakaya segodnya pogoda? |
| Девушка:[Сейчас тепло и солнечно, но после обеда будет дождь.] |
| Woman: Seichas teplo i solnechno, no posle obeda budet dozhd’. |
| Джон: [А какой курс валют в этом отеле?] |
| John: A kakoi kurs valyut v etom otele? |
| Девушка: [1 доллар - 32 рубля.] |
| Woman: Odin dollar- tridtsat’ dva ruvlya. |
| Джон: [Понятно. А где я могу взять такси?] |
| John: Ponyatno. A gde ya mogu vzyat’ taksi? |
| Девушка: [У центрального выхода. Удачного дня.] |
| Woman: U tsentra’nogo vyhoda. Udachnogo dnya. |
| Джон: [Спасибо!] |
| John: Spasibo! |
| Eddie: Once again, at natural speed with the translation. |
| Oxana: Ещё раз, с переводом. |
| Oxana: [Доброе утро! Как вы себя чувствуете сегодня?] |
| Eddie: Good morning. How are you today? |
| Oxana: [Хорошо, спасибо. Скажите, какая сегодня погода́?] |
| Eddie: Good, thank you. Excuse me, what’s the weather like today? |
| Oxana:[Сейчас тепло и солнечно, но после обеда будет дождь.] |
| Eddie: Right now it’s warm and sunny, but it’ll rain in the afternoon. |
| Oxana: [А какой курс валют в этом отеле?] |
| Eddie: And what’s the currency exchange rate in this hotel? |
| Oxana:[1 доллар - 32 рубля.] |
| Eddie: One dollar is 32 rubles. |
| Oxana:[Понятно. А где я могу взять такси?] |
| Eddie: I see. And where can I get a taxi? |
| Oxana: [У центрального выхода. Удачного дня.] |
| Eddie: At the central exit. Have a good day. |
| Oxana:[Спасибо!] |
| Eddie: Thank you. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eddie: Well, this weather report makes me imagine every day in Moscow throughout the year. You enjoy 10 minutes of sun a day and then keep your umbrella ready for sudden rain, while griping about the grey and gloomy atmosphere around. |
| Oxana: Yes. And unlike London, for example, gloomy weather perfectly matches the faces in Moscow. But don’t worry, scary on the outside, people in Russia can be very friendly. And you’ll see that later. |
| Eddie:Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Oxana: [чувствовать] |
| Eddie:To feel. |
| Oxana: [чувствовать] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [сегодня] |
| Eddie:Today. |
| Oxana: [сегодня] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [хорошо] |
| Eddie: Good, well. |
| Oxana: [хорошо] |
| Eddie:Next. |
| Oxana: [погода] |
| Eddie: Weather. |
| Oxana: [погода] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [сейчас] |
| Eddie: Now. |
| Oxana: [сейчас] |
| EDDIE: Next. |
| Oxana: [тепло] |
| Eddie:Warm. |
| Oxana: [тепло] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [солнечно] |
| Eddie: Sunny. |
| Oxana: [солнечно] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [после обеда] |
| Eddie: In the afternoon. |
| Oxana: [после обеда] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [будет] |
| Eddie: Will be. |
| Oxana: [будет] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [дождь] |
| Eddie: Rain. |
| Oxana: [дождь] |
| Eddie:Next. |
| Oxana: [курс валют] |
| Eddie:Currency exchange rate. |
| Oxana: [курс валют] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [понятно] |
| Eddie:Understood, I see, I got it. |
| Oxana: [понятно] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [могу] |
| Eddie:I can. |
| Oxana: [могу] |
| Eddie:Next. |
| Oxana: [взять] |
| Eddie:Take. |
| Oxana: [взять] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [центральный] |
| Eddie:Central. |
| Oxana: [центральный] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: : [выход] |
| Eddie:Exit. |
| Oxana: [выход] |
| Eddie:Next. |
| Oxana: [Удачного дня!] |
| Eddie:Have a good day. |
| Oxana: [Удачного дня!] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Eddie: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Oxana: The first phrase we’ll look at is [Доброе утро!]. [Доброе] itself means “kind” and [ утро] means “morning”, so altogether it will be… |
| Eddie: “Good morning.” The front desk staff must be a girl. She really wants to have a conversation with a cute foreigner, so she keeps going. |
| Oxana: [Как вы себя чувствуете сегодня?] |
| Eddie: “How are you today?” Now, here we have some words we should listen to once again. First of all… |
| Oxana: [Как вы] |
| Eddie: “How you” or “how do you”, asked in the polite form. Then we have a word… |
| Oxana: [себя] |
| Eddie:Which literally means “self” and stands for all English reflexive pronouns like “myself, himself, themselves” and so on. You should be able to recognize the meaning from the context because there will always be a pronoun in the sentence to indicate which “self” it stands for. In our example… |
| Oxana: [Как вы себя чувствуете?] |
| Eddie: We can hear the pronoun [вы] among the words, so we can say that in our case [себя] means “yourself”. So “how you yourself”… What’s the next word? |
| Oxana: [чувствуете] The dictionary form of this verb would sound as [чувствовать]. [Как вы себя чувствуете сегодня?] We can translate it as “How do you feel yourself?” |
| Eddie:If you decide to drop [себя] or “self” in this question to make it sound more English, as in “how do you feel”, you’ll get a totally different question and most probably you’ll get a question back. |
| Oxana: Feel what? |
| Eddie: Feel yourself, [себя]. Don’t forget the reflexive pronoun here. Next we have the word we’re already familiar with. |
| Oxana: [сегодня] |
| Eddie: Great. Now could you repeat the whole phrase again, Axanna? |
| Oxana: [Как вы себя чувствуете сегодня?] |
| Eddie:“How are you today?” It’s a common way to ask “How are you in Russia?” Don’t be selfish, inquire about people’s health. And what does John answer? |
| Oxana: [Хорошо, спасибо.] |
| Eddie: “Good, thank you.” You can spare yourself from asking this question back, especially when it comes to service workers. So what’s John’s next question? |
| Oxana: [Скажите, какая сегодня погода́?] |
| Eddie: Nothing new to us. “Excuse me” or “tell me please”. “What’s the weather like today?” |
| Oxana: From the grammatical point of view, we start forming the sentence from the noun. The noun [погода́] is feminine, therefore the adjective question “what kind” should also be feminine, [какая]. [какая погода́] literally “What kind of weather?” |
| Eddie: And our well-known “today”, [сегодня]. So what’s the weather like there? |
| Oxana: [Сейчас тепло и солнечно, но после обеда будет дождь.] |
| Eddie: “Now it’s warm and sunny, but it will rain in the afternoon.” |
| Oxana: How typical for Moscow. So the first word was [Сейчас] which means “now”. Eddie, [как ты себя чувствуешь сейчас?]? |
| Eddie:I feel great, thank you. I'm glad I won’t get under that rain in Moscow. What were those two nice adverbs describing that rare weather condition in Moscow? |
| Oxana: [Тепло и солнечно.] |
| Eddie: “Warm and sunny” but it will be... |
| Oxana: [но после обеда будет дождь.] |
| Eddie: [но после обеда] literally means “after lunch” but has nothing to do with a meal here. It indicates the time after 12 PM, so we should just translate it as “in the afternoon”. How would you say “before noon”, Oxanna? |
| Oxana: [До обеда] So [До обеда тепло и солнечно, а после обеда холодно и пасмурно]. |
| Eddie: “Warm and sunny before noon and cold and cloudy in the afternoon”. |
| Oxana: We learned the verb [будет] in lesson 7 is the verb “to be” in the future tense. [ дождь] is a simple noun for “rain”. [будет дождь] literally “will be rain”. |
| Eddie: Or “it will rain” in proper English. I forgive you your poor translation, Oxanna. |
| Oxana: That was a literal translation, Eddie. And I’d like to say something about your Russian but we have to move forward. Next we heard [какой курс валют в этом отеле?]. |
| Eddie: [какой] meaning “what kind” or just “what”. Then we have the word for the currency… |
| Oxana: [валюта] |
| Eddie: And exchange rate. |
| Oxana: [курс] |
| Eddie: After putting all the words into the agreement, [какой] into masculine gender and [валют] into the genitive case, we get… |
| Oxana: [какой курс валют] |
| Eddie:And because the exchange rates vary tremendously at different parts of the city, hotels and banks, John has to specify the place he’s interested in. |
| Oxana: [в этом отеле] “In this hotel.” |
| Eddie: The rate that the staff give him is pretty easy to understand. |
| Oxana: [1 доллар - 32 рубля.] |
| Eddie:“One dollar, 32 rubles.” There’s no need to put words like “is” or “equals” in between. A short pause will pretty much do it. Next we have… |
| Oxana: [Понятно] |
| Eddie: “I see” or “I got it”. It’s an adverb and literally it means “it’s understood” and it’s the most common way that you’ve understood what you’ve been told. Usually it comes with “thank you”. |
| Oxana: [Понятно, спасибо.] |
| Eddie:Right. So John wants out of the hotel while it’s warm and sunny. Where can he find a taxi? |
| Oxana: [Где я могу взять такси?] |
| Eddie: I'm sure it’s the first and last time John is taking a taxi in Moscow after he understands what a rip-off it actually is in Russia, but let’s not tell him for now. Better break the phrase down for us, Axanna. |
| Oxana: [где] means “where” and [я могу] “I can”. |
| Eddie: Let’s stop here. We came to one of the most useful verbs in Russian, in any language, “can”. |
| Oxana: The dictionary form of this verb is [мочь]. Like in English, you should put an infinitive verb after it as in [я могу идти]. “I can walk.” In our case, [я могу взять] where [взять] means “to take” and altogether it’s translated as “I can take”. |
| Eddie: And the whole phrase again? |
| Oxana: [Где я могу взять такси?] “Where can I take a taxi?” |
| Eddie: And where can he? |
| Oxana: [У централжного выхода.] |
| Eddie: “At the central exit.” Let’s break down this phrase. First… |
| Oxana: [У] which means “at”, “by” or “alongside” and indicates the location. We learned this preposition in the context of [у меня есть] or [у меня нет]. “I have” and I don’t have, respectively. |
| Eddie: So we can also translate it as “in my possession”. Just insert this preposition into English translation somewhere. |
| Oxana: Well, I guess you can. The thing is, just as [меня] is the pronoun in the genitive case, the words [центральный выход] “central exit” should be put into the genitive. [центрального выхода] |
| Eddie: What other examples can you give us to practice the preposition [у]? |
| Oxana: [У друга.] |
| Eddie: At my friends. |
| Oxana: [У двери.] |
| Eddie: At the door. |
| Oxana: [У здания.] |
| Eddie:“By the building.” Ok, we’re close to the end. What’s the last phrase the front desk tell John? |
| Oxana: [Удачного дня.] |
| Eddie: Literally it means “successful day” and the grammatical structure of it implies “to you” or “wish you”. I advise you to remember it as it is without breaking it into dictionary form, nouns and cases. This phrase never changes, so what’s the point of torturing you, right? |
| Oxana: Yes, it’s a pretty stable phrase to use in the case of the English “have a good day”. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eddie: I guess that’s it for word usage. Let’s get to the grammar. I think we should explain the pronoun [себя] a bit more. What do you think, Axanna? |
| Oxana: If you say so. Ok, you suggested that so you should explain the word. |
| Eddie: Well, as we said before, [себя] means “self”. The good news about [себя] is that it can be used with the first, second or third person. In other words, it doesn’t change by person. It doesn’t have gender or number either. But the bad news is it changes by case. Here are some examples. |
| Oxana: [Я не дам себя в обиду.] |
| Eddie: I won’t let anyone hurt me. |
| Oxana: [Она купила себе сумку.] |
| Eddie: She bought herself a bag. |
| Oxana: [Он себя прекрасно чувствует.] |
| Eddie: “He feels wonderful.” Literally “he feels himself wonderful”. |
| Oxana: [Они не взяли меня с сбой.] |
| Eddie:They didn’t take me along with them. |
| Oxana: [Он любит рассказывать о себе. ] |
| Eddie:“He loves to talk about himself”. Another thing we should touch on today is the Russian adverbs. What are adverbs? They’re words like “quickly”, “barely” and “very. Most of them answer the question “How?” In English, a lot of them are formed by the ending LY. How is it in Russian? |
| Oxana: In Russian, a lot of adverbs are formed by adding [о] to the stem of the adjective. Most adverbs are created from adjectives. |
| Eddie: So to form an adverb, you simply take an adjective and change its ending into [о]. Can you give us some examples, Axanna? |
| Oxana: For example, [Холодный]. |
| Eddie: Cold. |
| Oxana: Turns into [Холодно. Теплый]. |
| Eddie:Warm. |
| Oxana: Into [Тепло. Красивый]. |
| Eddie: Beautiful. |
| Oxana: Into [Красиво]. |
| Eddie: Adverbs are the words you’ll need to talk about the weather and how you feel. Talking about the weather is the simplest. You just say the adverb that describes it. |
| Oxana: [Холодно, жарко.] |
| Eddie: You can add a time indicator like “now” or “today” to make your Russian not so mono-syllabic. |
| Oxana: [Сейчас холодно.] |
| Eddie: It’s cold now. |
| Oxana: [Завтра будет пасмурно.] |
| Eddie: It’ll be cloudy tomorrow. |
| Oxana: [Вчера бало жарко.] |
| Eddie: “Yesterday was hot.” Expressing your personal condition is something we’re already familiar with. |
| Oxana: Here are some examples. [Мне хорошо.] |
| Eddie: I’m fine. |
| Oxana: [Мне плохо.] |
| Eddie: I'm not good. |
| Oxana: [Мне тревожно.] |
| Eddie: I'm worried. |
| Oxana: [Мне холодно.] |
| Eddie: “I'm cold.” Now the last thing we’d like to do here is to conjugate the word “can”. You won’t just talk about what you can do, right? How about boasting about your relatives and friends and talking about their abilities? So here we go. |
| Oxana: [Я могу.] |
| Eddie: I can. |
| Oxana: [Ты можешь.] |
| Eddie:“You can” – informal or plural. |
| Oxana: [Вы можете. ] |
| Eddie:“You can” – formal or plural. |
| Oxana: [Он/она/оно может.] |
| Eddie: He/she/it can. |
| Oxana: [Мы можем.] |
| Eddie: We can. |
| Oxana: [Они могут.] |
Outro |
| Eddie: “They can.” Great. I guess that just about does it for today. See you next time. [Пока.] |
| Oxana: [До свидания. ] |
| Девушка: [Доброе утро! Как вы себя чувствуете сегодня?] |
| Woman: Dobroe utro! Kak vy sebya chuvstvuete segodnya? |
| Джон: [Хорошо, спасибо. Скажите, какая сегодня погода́?] |
| John: Horosho, spasibo. Skazhite, kakaya segodnya pogoda? |
| Девушка:[Сейчас тепло и солнечно, но после обеда будет дождь.] |
| Woman: Seichas teplo i solnechno, no posle obeda budet dozhd’. |
| Джон: [А какой курс валют в этом отеле?] |
| John: A kakoi kurs valyut v etom otele? |
| Девушка: [1 доллар - 32 рубля.] |
| Woman: Odin dollar- tridtsat’ dva ruvlya. |
| Джон: [Понятно. А где я могу взять такси?] |
| John: Ponyatno. A gde ya mogu vzyat’ taksi? |
| Девушка: [У центрального выхода. Удачного дня.] |
| Woman: U tsentra’nogo vyhoda. Udachnogo dnya. |
| Джон: [Спасибо!] |
| John: Spasibo! |
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