Learn many Russian word explanations and some of the more common forms of Russian pronouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalia: Здравствуйте, с Вами Natalia. |
| Eura: I’m Eura, and you’re listening to Absolute Beginner, Season 1, lesson 11, a Russian gentlemen. |
| Natalia: Eura, what are we going to study in this lesson? |
| Eura: In this lesson, we’re going to learn about Russian pronouns and how to pay that bill. |
| Natalia: That’s right. And the conversation takes place in a restaurant. |
| Eura: The conversation is between Ben and Nica. |
| Natalia: And the speakers are friends. So, they will be speaking informal Russian. Let’s listen to the conversation and find out how the guys handled the price for their lunch. |
| DIALOGUES |
| Eura: Девушка, счёт, пожалуйста! Замечательный обед. |
| Natalia: Да, я так наелась... Сколько с меня? |
| Eura: Нисколько, я заплачу. |
| Natalia: Нет, Бен, давай поделим! |
| Eura: Ника, перестань. Мне приятно тебя угостить. |
| Natalia: Спасибо... |
| Eura: One time slowly. |
| Natalia: Девушка, счёт, пожалуйста! Замечательный обед. |
| Eura: Да, я так наелась... Сколько с меня? |
| Natalia: Нисколько, я заплачу. |
| Eura: Нет, Бен, давай поделим! |
| Natalia: Ника, перестань. Мне приятно тебя угостить. |
| Eura: Спасибо... |
| Eura: One time natural native speed with the translation. |
| Natalia: Девушка, счёт, пожалуйста! Замечательный обед. |
| Eura: Waitress, a bill please. It was a great lunch. |
| Natalia: Да, я так наелась... Сколько с меня? |
| Eura: Yes, I’m so full. How much do I owe? |
| Natalia: Нисколько, я заплачу. |
| Eura: Nothing, I’ll pay. |
| Natalia: Нет, Бен, давай поделим! |
| Eura: No, Ben, let’s split it. |
| Natalia: Ника, перестань. Мне приятно тебя угостить. |
| Eura: Nica stop it, it’s my pleasure to treat you to lunch. |
| Natalia: Спасибо... |
| Eura: Thank you. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eura: Thank you. She didn’t protest for too long. |
| Natalia: Why would she? It’s not like he offered the money to her. |
| Eura: Ouch, that didn’t sound right. Yes, all Ben offer was to pay for Nica’s суп и салат. |
| Natalia: Well, Nica is obviously aware of western tradition of splitting the bills. So she offered her half to Ben, but he acted very gentlemanly. I’m sure he earned some credits today. |
| Eura: We’ll see later, whether his gentlemen approach pays off. But for now, let’s stick to the bill. If we don’t get it over with, we won’t leave the restaurant. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we have is. |
| Natalia: счёт |
| Eura: Bill, check, account. |
| Natalia: счёт |
| Eura: And the next word is? |
| Natalia: замечательный |
| Eura: Great, wonderful. |
| Natalia: замечательный |
| Eura: And the next word? |
| Natalia: обед |
| Eura: Lunch. |
| Natalia: обед |
| Eura: And the next word? |
| Natalia: наесться |
| Eura: To be full. |
| Natalia: наесться |
| Eura: And the next word? |
| Natalia: Сколько |
| Eura: How much? How many? |
| Natalia: Сколько |
| Eura: And the next word? |
| Natalia: нисколько |
| Eura: Nothing, nothing at all. |
| Natalia: нисколько |
| Eura: And the next word? |
| Natalia: заплатить |
| Eura: To pay. |
| Natalia: заплатить |
| Eura: Okay. And the last word? |
| Natalia: перестань |
| Eura: Stop it. |
| Natalia: перестань |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Eura: Okay. Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Natalia: And the first word we’ll look at is счёт. |
| Eura: Bill. |
| Natalia: Short and easy to remember "schot". |
| Eura: To ask for a bill, you simply raise your hand, wait for "девушка" to come up to your table and say, "счёт, пожалуйста", “a bill, please.” |
| Natalia: So Ben asked for the bill, turns to Nica and says "замечательный обед". |
| Eura: Literally, it means “great lunch.” But we can translate it as “the lunch was great” or “it was a great lunch.” |
| Natalia: Yes. The simpler your phrases are the less words you use, the more Russian you sound. So the word for “great” or “wonderful” is "замечательный". |
| Eura: Can you use it with people or whether for example? |
| Natalia: Absolutely. Whatever you find wonderful, you can call "замечательный" in Russian. |
| Eura: Okay. And "obed" is “lunch” right? How do you say breakfast and dinner in Russian? |
| Natalia: Oh, you want to know everything at once, okay. So “breakfast” would be "завтрак", “lunch” is "обед", as we know already and “dinner” is "ужин". |
| Eura: Let’s practice a bit. замечательный завтрак, замечательный обед, замечательный ужин. |
| Natalia: Замечательно “great Eura.” |
| Eura: Thank you. The next word we had was “full” right? |
| Natalia: Yes. "наелась" but this is a feminine form of the verb. If you are a man, you should say "я наелся". |
| Eura: And to emphasize how full you are, you can put "tak" before "nayelsya" “I am so full.” |
| Natalia: Right. "так" means “so.” Next, we had the phrase "сколько с меня"? |
| Eura: Literally, it can be translated as “how much for me?” And it means “how much do I owe you?” |
| Natalia: "сколько" is a question word and means “how much? How many?” Here is some examples with this word. Сколько это стоит? |
| Eura: How much is this? |
| Natalia: Сколько тебе лет? |
| Eura: How old are you? |
| Natalia: Сколько тебе кофе? |
| Eura: How much sugar do you want? So it can be used both with countable and uncountable things, right? |
| Natalia: Right. With anything you can count or measure. |
| Eura: What about "С меня"?, does it literally mean “I owe?” |
| Natalia: Well, literally it means “from me.” It’s a conversational way to say, “I owe.” The question "skol'ko s menya?" is a casual but polite way to ask “how much do I owe you?” Or “how much should I give?” |
| Eura: I see. And (Ben’s) answer to that is "niskol'ko", what does that mean? |
| Natalia: "Niskol'ko" is the word that doesn’t really have an equivalent in English. It can be translated as “nothing” but only as an answer to "skol'ko", when you’re talking about quantities or amounts. "Сколько?" –"Нисколько". “how much?” Or “how many?” “nothing.” |
| Eura: Got it. Ben says “nothing, I’ll pay.” How do we say “I’ll pay” in Russian? |
| Natalia: Я заплачу. |
| Eura: And is it different from man and woman? |
| Natalia: No, it’s only different in the past tense like "я наелась", "я наелся" “I paid.” But “I will pay” "Я заплачу" is in the future tense which is the same for both genders. |
| Eura: Great. Not much to learn here. What’s next? |
| Natalia: Next is your favorite part. Nica is trying to protest against Ben paying. |
| Eura: It would only be my favorite part if she actually paid. But all she says is "давай поделим". |
| Natalia: She’s being well-mannered and considerate of the Western culture. Anyway, "давай поделим" means “let’s split” or “let’s share.” You can use this phrase to offer splitting the bill as well as sharing a meal or something else. |
| Eura: So "давай" means “let’s” right? |
| Natalia: Да. next, Ben is protesting saying "перестань". |
| Eura: Which is “come on” or “stop it.” |
| Natalia: Right. The verb "перестать" means “to stop” and "перестань" is just a command form of it. |
| Eura: And next goes a phrase which is supposed to melt Nica’s heart. And “it’s my pleasure to treat you to lunch.” |
| Natalia: Мне приятно тебя угостить |
| Eura: The word "приятно" is not new to us. We use it in the introduction dialogue in the phrase “nice to meet you.” |
| Natalia: приятно познакомиться. So приятно means “nice” or “it’s a pleasure.” |
| Eura: What about the word to “treat to?” |
| Natalia: угостить, the word every man in Russia should know and follow. |
| Eura: In the dialogue, we didn’t have a word “lunch.” We only had it in the translation “to treat to lunch.” |
| Natalia: Yes. In Russian it was "приятно угостить, literally “nice to treat.” Of course, you can specify what he want to treat your lady to угостить кофе for example, “to treat to coffee.” |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Eura: What do we have for grammar today Natalia? |
| Natalia: Actually, I wanted to talk a little about Russian pronouns. |
| Eura: But I think we know them well already. Я, мы, ты, вы, он, она, они... |
| Natalia: Wait, wait, wait, yes, those are Russian pronouns and we know them well. But it’s not all that easy. These pronouns can take a lot of forms in Russian. |
| Eura: What do you mean? What forms? |
| Natalia: Well, take even the last sentence in this dialogue, МНЕ приятно ТЕБЯ угостить. "Мне" is actually the modification of the pronoun "Я" “I” and "Тебя" is the form of "Ты" “you.” |
| Eura: Is it like me or yours in English? |
| Natalia: It’s a little more complicated. Remember we talked about grammar cases in Russian? Well, pronouns should also agree with the cases just like the nouns. |
| Eura: Okay. So the pronouns I just mentioned, what case do they belong to? |
| Natalia: They are the nominative case. The dictionary forms of the pronouns. They all answer the question “who?” |
| Eura: Let’s take the phrase "сколько с меня", “how much do I owe?” "Меня" is one of the forms of "Я" right? |
| Natalia: Yes. We want learn what pronoun belong to what case now? I think it will be better to remember them in a context. And the context here is “I owe” or “from me.” See, it changes in English too. |
| Eura: What about “you owe” or literally “from you?” |
| Natalia: "С Вас", if it is a polite form or "с тебя", if it’s informal. You can hear it in stores and restaurants by the way. |
| Eura: Oh, we also heard "тебя" in "угостить тебя" didn’t we? |
| Natalia: That’s right. In English, it would be “to treat you,” where “you” doesn’t change. Although, if you say “to treat me” you can hear the change in the pronoun, “I” changed into “me.” The same happens in Russian, "угостить меня", where “I” was changed into "меня". |
| Eura: I see. And what about "мне" in the phrase "мне приятно"? |
| Natalia: This one can be translated as “to me.” To me it’s nice, pleasant. You can also use "мне" in the phrase “I like” which is "мне нравится". Literally, it would mean, “to my liking.” For example, "мне нравится Москва". |
| Eura: I like Moscow or Moscow is to my liking. How should I ask “do you like Moscow?” Is there a form of "ты"? |
| Natalia: Yes. "тебе". Едди, тебе нравится Москва? |
| Eura: Да, мне нравится Москва. wow, pronouns. |
| Natalia: Don’t worry, there are a lot of pronouns and their forms in Russian, but they all follow a pattern which you will soon learn. |
| Eura: PDF files would be very helpful in doing this, check them out. That’s just about does it for this lesson. |
| Natalia: Listeners, have you have a dream of staring in one of our lessons? |
| Eura: If your answer is yes, use the voice recording tool on the lesson page. |
| Natalia: Record your voice with a click of a button. |
| Eura: And then play it back just as easily. |
| Natalia: Then compare it to the native speakers in the lesson. |
| Eura: And adjust your pronunciation. |
| Natalia: After a few tries, you will be speaking better Russian than Eura here. |
| Eura: Thanks. |
| Natalia: Go to RussianPod101.com and rapidly improve your Russian pronunciation. |
Outro |
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| Yura: Bye. |
| Natalia: Bye. |
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