Learn about reflexive verbs and the instrumental case
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalia: Здравствуйте, с Вами Natalia. |
| Yura: I'm Yora and you're listening to absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 14, “When did that Russian Couple Get together?” |
| Natalia: Yora, what is this lesson about? |
| Yura: In this lesson, you will learn about reflexive verbs in Russian. |
| Natalia: The conversation takes place in the movie theater. |
| Yura: The conversation is between Ben and Nika. |
| Natalia: The speakers are friends so they will be speaking informal Russian. |
| Yura: Let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUES |
| Yura: Дима и Катя - парень и девушка? |
| Natalia: Да, они встречаются уже 5 лет. Наверное, они поженятся. |
| Yura: Мои лучшие друзья уже 9 лет вместе. А... У тебя есть кто-нибудь? |
| Natalia: Нет. Я рассталась с парнем год назад. А у тебя есть девушка? |
| Yura: Нет... |
| Natalia: Понятно... Ладно, давай смотреть фильм. |
| Yura: One time slowly. |
| Natalia: Дима и Катя - парень и девушка? |
| Yura: Да, они встречаются уже 5 лет. Наверное, они поженятся. |
| Natalia: Мои лучшие друзья уже 9 лет вместе. А... У тебя есть кто-нибудь? |
| Yura: Нет. Я рассталась с парнем год назад. А у тебя есть девушка? |
| Natalia: Нет... |
| Yura: Понятно... Ладно, давай смотреть фильм. |
| Yura: One time natural native speed with the translation. |
| Natalia: Дима и Катя - парень и девушка? |
| Yura: Are Dima and Katya boyfriend and girlfriend? |
| Natalia: Да, они встречаются уже 5 лет. Наверное, они поженятся. |
| Yura: Yes. They've been going out for five years already. They'll probably get married. |
| Natalia: Мои лучшие друзья уже 9 лет вместе. А... У тебя есть кто-нибудь? |
| Yura: My best friends are togehter for nine years. Hmm, are you seeing anybody? |
| Natalia: Нет. Я рассталась с парнем год назад. А у тебя есть девушка? |
| Yura: No. I broke up with my boyfriend a year ago. |
| Do you have a girlfriend? |
| Natalia: Нет... |
| Yura: No. |
| Natalia: Понятно... Ладно, давай смотреть фильм. |
| Yura: I see. Okay. Let's watch a movie. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Wow. As you heard the conversation went a little beyond the curiosity about Nika's friends. |
| Natalia: Right. Going this extra mile asking about whether Katya and Dima are a couple was just a cover-up for his true motive to know whether Nika is available. |
| Yura: Yeah. And apparently she is so I'm guessing the movie will be quite fun for Ben. |
| Natalia: okay. I guess it's about time to leave them alone and go through the vocabulary we heard in the dialogue. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Yura: The first word we have it. |
| Natalia: парень |
| Yura: A guy, boyfriend. |
| Natalia: парень |
| Yura: And the next word is? |
| Natalia: девушка |
| Yura: young lady, girlfriend, waitress. |
| Natalia: девушка |
| Yura: And the next word is? |
| Natalia: встречаться |
| Yura: To meet with each other, to date, go out. |
| Natalia: встречаться |
| Yura: And the next word is? |
| Natalia: наверное |
| Yura: Probably. |
| Natalia: наверное |
| Yura: And the next word is? |
| Natalia: жениться |
| Yura: To get married for a man or when speaking about a couple. |
| Natalia: жениться |
| Yura: Next word is? |
| Natalia: лучший |
| Yura: Best. |
| Natalia: лучший |
| Yura: And the next word is? |
| Natalia: вместе |
| Yura: Together. |
| Natalia: вместе |
| Yura: and the next word? |
| Natalia: кто-нибудь |
| Yura: Somebody, someone. |
| Natalia: кто-нибудь |
| Yura: And the next word is? |
| Natalia: никто |
| Yura: Nobody. |
| Natalia: никто |
| Yura: And the next word is? |
| Natalia: расстаться |
| Yura: To part, separate, to break up. |
| Natalia: расстаться |
| Yura: And the next word is? |
| Natalia: …назад |
| Yura: Ago. |
| Natalia: …назад |
| Yura: Okay. And the next word? |
| Natalia: ладно |
| Yura: Okay, well, fine. |
| Natalia: ладно |
| Yura: And the next word is? |
| Natalia: смотреть |
| Yura: To look, to watch. |
| Natalia: смотреть |
| Yura: And the next word is? |
| Natalia: фильм |
| Yura: A film, a movie. |
| Natalia: фильм |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Yura: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Natalia: And the first word we'll look at is? |
| Yura: Let's start with the first pair of words which are boyfriend and girlfriend. |
| Natalia: парень, девушка. Парень literally means a guy and "девушка" – a girl, young lady. But depending on the context they are also used as boyfriend and girlfriend. For example, if you add a possessive pronoun "мой", "my", and say "мой парень". No one would think of him as nothing else but your boyfriend. |
| Yura: And the same with девушка, right? Моя девушка. Or like in the sentence that we had they are boyfriend and girlfriend. Obviously you are not trying to specify the gender but rather the relationship. |
| Natalia: Right. Next let's look at three verbs that are similar in their endings. встречаться |
| Yura: To meet with, to go out with. |
| Natalia: жениться. |
| Yura: To get married. |
| Natalia: расстаться. |
| Yura: To part, to separate, to break up. Before we learned that Russian infinitives usually end in "ть", like "пить" – to drink. But the verbs above end in "ся". Although there are also infinitives, this category of verbs in Russian is called reflexive verbs. |
| Natalia: Reflexive verbs with those little "ся" in the end are used to illustrate the concept of self or each other. For example, if you just say the word "одеть", which is to dress in Russian, |
| You can only use it in a sentence like to dress somebody. But if you add an ending "ся" to it "одеться", you can use it in reference to yourself or a person who is getting dressed like to dress oneself or to get dressed. |
| Yura: Right. Although today we will focus on the reciprocal meaning of this ending which can be translated as each other into English. What was the first word? |
| Natalia: Встречаться. To meet with each other or to go out with each other. |
| Yura: Let's drop the ending "ся", what will we get? |
| Natalia: встречать, which means to meet and requires an object like to meet somebody. For example встречать друга to meet a friend. |
| Yura: And by adding "ся" to the words we will give it a reciprocal meaning встречаться to meet each other, to go out with each other. The same happens to the word "жениться". Without the ending "ся", женить it means to marry somebody and requires an object. |
| Natalia: Like женить Колю на Кате To marry Kolya to Katya. |
| Yura: With the ending "ся", the word expresses both concept of each other and self depending on the context. |
| Natalia: RusHost:они не хотят жениться |
| Yura: They don't want to marry each other. |
| Natalia: я не хочу жениться |
| Yura: I don't want to get married. Note that when you talk about a couple you can use the word "жениться" if talking about them both. But if you want to say a phrase like I don't want to get married, you should consider your gender or the gender of the subject. |
| Natalia: That's right. If you're a man or talking about a man, you say "жениться". But for Natalias, we use another expression "выйти замуж". Here are two examples with these two words. Он женился. |
| Yura: He got married. |
| Natalia: Она вышла замуж |
| Yura: She got married. Okay. We have another reflexive verb left. What was it? |
| Natalia: The word "расстаться". Actually this is one of the words that cannot be used without the ending "ся". Remember these words with the preposition "c" with as they make a set phrase расстаться с парнем. |
| Yura: To break up with a boyfriend. By the way, to conjugate these verbs all you need is to drop the ending "sya", conjugate the word as a regular verb according to the person or gender if it's the past tense and then add "sya" again. |
| Natalia: Right. Now let's take a look at a couple of more words. One of them is "кто-нибудь". |
| Yura: You already know the word who which is "кто" by adding нибудь, we turn a personal pronoun in to an indefinite pronoun and get the word for somebody, someone or anybody. |
| Natalia: Right. You can do the same with the words like "где" where, "куда" where to and someone. By adding "нибудь" you will get где-нибудь somewhere and "куда-нибудь" to somewhere. |
| Yura: Natalia, У тебя кто-нибудь есть? |
| Natalia: хаха, не скажу! |
| Yura: Okay. You don’t have to tell me. Better tell a little about our last word назад. |
| Natalia: Literally "назад" means back like in go back. But if you put it after a word that indicates time, you will give it a meaning of ago. For example 5 минут назад |
| Yura: Five minutes ago. |
| Natalia: 6 лет назад |
| Yura: Six years ago. |
| Natalia: 3 дня назад |
| Yura: Three days ago. Great. Well, I think went over all important words and those that we didn't are pretty straight forward and are used exactly like you would use them in English. |
| Natalia: So shall we get to the grammar? |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Yura: For the grammar, we will get back to the cases today. Or to be more specific, one of them called the instrumental case. |
| Natalia: Whenever you want to express togetherness in Russian, you need the instrumental case which indicates the concept of with or vice versa. Whenever you see preposition "c" with in a Russian sentence, know that the noun that follows it is put in to the instrumental case. |
| Yura: In a dialogue, we have one phrase that presents the instrumental case. What was it, Natalia? |
| Natalia: с парнем, with a guy or with a boyfriend. |
| Yura: Right. It has the preposition "c" in it. |
| Therefore we know that the noun "парнем", which follows it is in the instrumental case. |
| Natalia: Can you tell us how to form the instrumental case? |
| Yura: Sure. To form any grammar case, first you need to take a noun in its dictionary form. In our case, it was "парень", a guy. "Парень" is masculine and masculine nouns in the instrumental case usually have the endings "ом" or "ем". |
| Natalia: So парень becomes парнем, also to say coffee with sugar for example, you have to put sugar сахар in to the instrumental case. You will get "кофе с сахаром". |
| Yura: How do you change the feminine nouns? |
| Natalia: Feminine nouns usually end in "ой" or "ей". So the phrase he's with a girl will sound as "он с девушкой". Here we changed "девушка" into "девушкой". |
| Yura: And neutral nouns end in "м". So if you want to say coffee with milk, you should just add "м" to "молоко" –"milk" – and get "молоком". |
| Natalia: Yes. кофе с молоком. |
| Yura: And lastly we have plural nouns. Plurals in the instrumental case should end in "ами" or "ями". Therefore, "друзья" friends will become "друзьями" and "коллеги" colleagues will turn in to "коллегами". |
| Natalia: Right. я с друзьями literally I with my friends which we can translate as my friends and me. |
| Yura: Okay, друзья. Enough for this lesson. That’s just about does it for this lesson. |
| Natalia: Dear listeners, (ever rest) for time. |
| Yura: Listen to the dialogue recap. |
| Natalia: These audio tracks only contain the target lesson dialogue |
| Yura: So you can quickly recap a lesson. |
| Natalia: Spend a few minutes learning on days when you don't have time to study full lesson. |
| Yura: The audio tracks are just a few minutes long. |
| Natalia: But you'll still pick up key Russian phrases along the way. |
| Yura: Go to russianpod101.com. |
| Natalia: And listen to this lesson's dialogue only audio track. |
Outro |
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| Yura:Bye. |
| Natalia:Bye. |
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