Learn how to speak of your hobbies--and if you like sports, then you'll really fit in
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalia: Здравствуйте, с Вами |
| Yura: I’m Yura and you’re listening to Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 21; Do you Enjoy any of these Russian Hobbies? |
| Natalia: Yura, what are we going to study in this lesson? |
| Yura: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about hobbies and interests. |
| Natalia: The conversation takes place in a bowling center. |
| Yura: The conversation is between Ben and Dima, Nika’s friend. |
| Natalia: The speakers are friends, therefore they will be speaking informal Russian. |
| Yura: Let’s listen in. |
| DIALOGUES |
| Yura: Дима, я слышал, ты занимаешься боксом. |
| Yura: Да. А ты чем-то занимаешься? |
| Yura: Я играю в теннис. |
| Yura: А Катя играет на скрипке и не любит спорт, к сожалению. |
| Yura: Да? Интересно, чем занимается Ника… |
| Yura: Okay, let’s do that one more time slowly. |
| Natalia: Дима, я слышал, ты занимаешься боксом. |
| Yura: Да. А ты чем-то занимаешься? |
| Yura: Я играю в теннис. |
| Yura: А Катя играет на скрипке и не любит спорт, к сожалению. |
| Yura: Да? Интересно, чем занимается Ника… |
| Yura: One time natural native speed, with the translation. |
| Natalia: Дима, я слышал, ты занимаешься боксом. |
| Yura: Dima, I’ve heard you do boxing. |
| Natalia: Да. А ты чем-то занимаешься? |
| Yura: Yes, do you anything? |
| Natalia: Я играю в теннис. |
| Yura: I play tennis. |
| Natalia: А Катя играет на скрипке и не любит спорт, к сожалению. |
| Yura: Katia plays violin and doesn’t like sports unfortunately. |
| Natalia: Да? Интересно, чем занимается Ника… |
| Yura: Really? I wonder what Nika does. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Yura: Is boxing really popular in Russia? |
| Natalia: Yeah, I guess. Every kind of sport that doesn’t require expensive fancy equipment is popular in Russia. So golf is not really our sport. |
| Yura: Well, hockey is very much Russian, even though it involves tons of equipment. |
| Natalia: Well it would be a shame not to play hockey in Russia regarding the weather conditions it can provide. I can say, any ice or snow sport is popular in Russia and they haven’t found a single person who can’t ski. |
| Yura: And as for cheap sports, boxing is a type of sport that requires a pair of boxers and a punching bag in the room. So I can see why it’s popular. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we have is? |
| Natalia: слышать |
| Yura: To hear. |
| Natalia: слышать |
| Yura: And the next word? |
| Natalia: заниматься |
| Yura: To be occupied or engaged in doing something. |
| Natalia: заниматься |
| Yura: And the next word? |
| Natalia: бокс |
| Yura: Boxing. |
| Natalia: бокс |
| Yura: And the next word? |
| Natalia: играть |
| Yura: To play. |
| Natalia: играть |
| Yura: And the next on our list? |
| Natalia: теннис |
| Yura: Tennis. |
| Natalia: теннис |
| Yura: And the next word? |
| Natalia: скрипка |
| Yura: Violin. |
| Natalia: скрипка |
| Yura: And the next word? |
| Natalia: спорт |
| Yura: Sport. |
| Natalia: спорт |
| Yura: And the next word? |
| Natalia: к сожалению |
| Yura: Unfortunately, I’m afraid. |
| Natalia: к сожалению |
| Yura: And the last word on our list? |
| Natalia: интересно |
| Yura: Interesting, I wonder. |
| Natalia: интересно |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Yura: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Natalia: The first word we should talk about is the verb "слышать", “to hear”. |
| Yura: By putting "слышать" into the past tense, we get the phrase for “I heard” or “I’ve heard”. Of course, you should remember to put it into your own gender before. So in my case, it’ll be, "я слышал". |
| Natalia: And for me, it would sound as, "я слышала" |
| Yura: And what did Ben слышал? |
| Natalia: Он слышал that Дима занимается боксом., and the key verb here is "заниматься". |
| Yura: заниматься, literally means, “to be engaged in something” or “to engage oneself into”. Although when we speak about sports, arts, music or other different activities and hobbies, we translate it into English as, “to do”. Listen to some examples. |
| Natalia: Я не занимаюсь спортом |
| Yura: I don’t do sports. |
| Natalia: Он занимается танцами |
| Yura: He does dancing. |
| Natalia: Она занимается музыкой |
| Yura: She does music. |
| Natalia: Они занимаются живописью |
| Yura: They do arts. As you can hear, we use these words to talk about activities in general, not specifying what kind of sport or music somebody does. |
| Natalia: Right, and to talk about some specific type of sports, games or instruments someone plays, we use the word, "играть", “to play” with the only difference that when we talk about sports, we say, "играть в", “to play in”. And when we talk about musical instruments, we say, "играть на" , “to play on”. |
| Yura: This is a very significant difference you should remember, "играть в",when talking about sports games and "играть на", when talking about playing an instrument. Let’s take a look at some examples with these expressions. |
| Natalia: First, with the phrase"играть в". я играю в воллейбол |
| Yura: I play volleyball. |
| Natalia: ты играешь в теннис? |
| Yura: Do you play tennis? |
| Natalia: мы играем в монополию |
| Yura: We play monopoly. And now with the phrase "играть на", “to play on”. |
| Natalia: вы играете на пианино? |
| Yura: Do you play piano? |
| Natalia: он играет на гитаре |
| Yura: He plays guitar. |
| Natalia: они играют на саксофоне |
| Yura: They play saxophone. As you could hear, with "играть на" we use musical instruments but there’s one little tricky thing about these phrases. The sports and instruments don’t go in their dictionary forms with these expressions. |
| Natalia: Unfortunately, but it isn’t that difficult. When we talk about sports, we put the nouns into the accusative case, it means that we don’t change masculine or neuter nouns but end feminine nouns in "у" or "ю".. For example, я играю в монополию, where the ending "я" of "монополия" changes into "ю" – "монополию". |
| Yura: And talking about instruments, we put the nouns into the prepositional case, which means we end them all in "e", no matter what the gender is. |
| Natalia: For example, in the phrase, I play violin, "я играю на скрипке". We changed the ending "a" of "скрипка" into "e" and get "скрипке". |
| Yura: Right. I should also mention that there are some sports that we can’t possibly play but only do, just like in our dialogue. You can’t play boxing. Therefore, you use it with the general word for sports, "заниматься". |
| Natalia: Right. Here are two most common examples. заниматься боксом. |
| Yura: To do boxing. |
| Natalia: заниматься боевыми искусствами |
| Yura: To do martial arts. Okay, we’re clear about sports and music. Do we have any other words we should take a look at? |
| Natalia: Just a couple. First, the phrase, "к сожалению". You should remember it as a set phrase which means, “unfortunately”. And the last word is, "интересно" |
| Yura: The meaning is easy to guess as it sounds almost the same as interesting. Because it ends in "o", we can identify it as an adverb. And this adverb is very often used as an interjection, I wonder or I’m curious. |
| Natalia: For example, интересно, где он? I wonder where he is. |
| Yura: Literally, it is translated as, “it’s interesting”. So you can also use it in a statement like "это очень интересно", “This or it’s very interesting.” |
| Natalia: That’s right. Now, let’s take a look at the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Yura: For the grammar, all we will do today is conjugate the two key verbs we have in the dialogue. The verb, “to be engaged in something” and “to play”. |
| Natalia: Yes. "заниматься" and "играть". |
| Yura: So, here we go. First, the verb "заниматься". |
| Natalia: |
| Я занимаюсь |
| Ты занимаешься |
| Он, она занимается |
| Мы занимаемся |
| Вы занимаетесь |
| Они занимаются |
| Yura: And after that, you should put the things you are engaged in into the instrumental case which we learned in Lesson 14, just in case you forget. Now, let’s take a look at the word, “to play”, "играть". |
| Natalia: |
| Я играю |
| Ты играешь |
| Он, она играет |
| Мы играем |
| Вы играете |
| Они играют |
| Yura: And after that, you put either the preposition "в" or "на", depending on whether you are talking about games or musical instruments. |
| Natalia: Now, you can go to our forum and tell us what you play in Russian. Listeners, have you ever dreamed of starring in one of our lessons? |
| Yura: If your answer is yes, use the voice recording tool on the lesson page. |
| Natalia: Record your voice with a click of a button. |
| Yura: And then play it back just as easily. |
| Natalia: Then compare it to the native speakers in the lesson. |
| Yura: And adjust your pronunciation. |
| Natalia: After a few tries, you’ll be speaking better Russian than Yura here. |
| Yura: Thanks. |
| Natalia: Go to russianpod101.com and rapidly improve your Russian pronunciation. |
Outro |
|---|
| Yura:Bye. |
| Natalia:Bye. |
Comments
Hide