Learn to make comparisons
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Beginner Series Season 2, Lesson 6 – Russian comparatives. I'm much better than you are. |
| Anna: Hello, everyone. I'm Anna and welcome back to RussianPod101.com. |
| Eric: [Привет] Anna. |
| Anna: [Привет] Eric. |
| Eric: With us you’ll learn to speak Russian with fun and effective lessons. |
| Anna: We also provide you with cultural insights. |
| Eric: And tips you won’t find in a textbook. |
| Anna: In this lesson, you will learn how to make excuses. |
| Eric: The conversation is between unlucky Kevin and another passenger on a train. |
| Anna: The speakers don’t know each other, therefore they will be speaking formal Russian. |
| Eric: So I’ll be playing unlucky Kevin. |
| Anna: And I am just a passenger. |
| Eric: Ok. Here we go. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Anna: [Мужчина! Вы пролили мне пиво на колени!] |
| Eric: [Ой, извините, пожалуйста. Я нечаянно] |
| Anna: [Надо быть внимательнее! Посмотрите на мою юбку!] |
| -- |
| Eric: Once again, slowly. |
| Anna: Еще раз, медленнее. |
| Anna: [Мужчина! Вы пролили мне пиво на колени!] |
| Eric: [Ой, извините, пожалуйста. Я нечаянно] |
| Anna: [Надо быть внимательнее! Посмотрите на мою юбку!] |
| -- |
| Eric: One time, natural native speed with translation. |
| Anna: Еще раз, с переводом. |
| Anna: [Мужчина! Вы пролили мне пиво на колени!] |
| Eric: Hey, man, you spilled your beer on my lap. |
| Anna: [Ой, извините, пожалуйста. Я нечаянно] |
| Eric: Oh, I'm sorry, it was an accident. |
| Anna: [Надо быть внимательнее! Посмотрите на мою юбку!] |
| Eric: You should be more careful. Look at my skirt! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: Ok, Anna, so now we see why Kevin is called unlucky. |
| Anna: Yeah. |
| Eric: He’s not having luck last few lessons here. Do you think this was an accident? Did Levin do this [нечаянно], not on purpose? |
| Anna: Eric, what do you mean? Are you asking me whether Kevin has spilled his beer on girl’s lap on purpose? |
| Eric: Well, I was just asking. Maybe he was trying to attract that girl’s attention. It’s not a great way to attract a girl’s attention is to pour beer on them. |
| Anna: I don’t think this works actually. I'm sure you would never use this technique, Eric, would you? |
| Eric: Anna, this is not my preferred technique. I’ve never used this before. Anna, what techniques do you use? |
| Anna: You know, Eric, I use subtle techniques. |
| Eric: So you’ve been flirting with me this whole time then. |
| Anna: Ok, tell me about my techniques then. |
| Eric: Ok, well, maybe another lesson, eh? |
| Anna: What’s your technique, Eric? |
| Eric: I think it’s vocabulary time is what I think. |
| Anna: Ok. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Our first word is… |
| Anna: [мужчина] |
| Eric: Man. |
| Anna: [мужчина] |
| Eric: Next. |
| Anna: [пролить] |
| Eric: To spill. |
| Anna: [пролить] |
| Eric: Next. |
| Anna: [пиво] |
| Eric: Beer. |
| Anna: [пиво] |
| Eric: Next. |
| Anna: [колени] |
| Eric: Knees, lap. |
| Anna: [колени] |
| Eric: Next. |
| Anna: [нечаянно] |
| Eric: By accident, unintentionally. |
| Anna: [нечаянно] |
| Eric: Next. |
| Anna: [внимательный] |
| Eric: Careful, attentive. |
| Anna: [внимательный] |
| Eric: Next. |
| Anna: [посмотреть] |
| Eric: To look. |
| Anna: [посмотреть] |
| Eric: Next. |
| Anna: [юбка] |
| Eric: A skirt. |
| Anna: [юбка] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Eric: Ok, let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Anna: The first word we’ll look at is [мужчина]. |
| Eric: Which means “man”, not to be confused, which I did, with [машина]. |
| Anna: Oh, that’s right, Eric. |
| Eric: Which is car. [Мужчина] and [машина]. |
| Anna: Yeah. |
| Eric: So [будьте внимательны], be careful. So, Anna, let’s give a sentence with both. “The man is driving a car.” |
| Anna: [Мужчина ведет машину.] |
| Eric: This is fun. |
| Anna: Yeah? |
| Eric: Ok. So, Anna, it ends in an A so is this a feminine noun? |
| Anna: No, Eric, it’s a masculine noun. |
| Eric: So how would you say “a nice man”? |
| Anna: [хороший мужчина] |
| Eric: [хороший]. So we use masculine ending of the adjective. |
| Anna: Yes, of course. |
| Eric: Not [хорошая мужчина]. |
| Anna: No, Eric. |
| Eric: Ok. Just wanted to make that clear for our listeners. So, in our dialogue, the woman uses the word [мужчина] to address Kevin, is that rude? |
| Anna: No, it’s not rude. In Russian, we often use words like [мужчина, женщина] woman or [девушка] and girl to address someone we don’t know. |
| Eric: So I remember when I was in Russia, sometimes they would say [молодой человек]. |
| Anna: Right. |
| Eric: Young person, young man. |
| Anna: Young man. |
| Eric: And it wasn’t rude. |
| Anna: No, it’s just a common way to address people. |
| Eric: So if I said [ девушка, извините!] from our newbie series, we used this as “waitress”, [девушка]. Ok, right. I’ve also heard someone address an old lady by saying [бабушка], which is “grandmother”, right? |
| Anna: Yes, but we can also use [бабушка] and [дедушка], which means grandfather, to talk about an elderly person you don’t know. |
| Eric: So you can say [бабушка] if you’re talking to an older lady and they won’t hit you with their handbag? |
| Anna: No, no, but if they’re really old, maybe above 70… |
| Eric: Really old… If you call someone [бабушка] and they’re not [бабушка]. |
| Anna: Yeah. It’s not polite to address not really old women by saying [бабушка]. |
| Eric: So be careful with that one. You might want to just use [извините]. |
| Anna: Or [женщина]. |
| Eric: Ok, our next word is… |
| Anna: [пролить], which means “to spill”. |
| Eric: Can I say [я пролил соль]? |
| Anna: I’m afraid not. [Пролить] is only used for liquids, therefore if you need to say “I’ve spilled the salt”, you’ll say [Я просыпал соль]. |
| Eric: [я просыпал] |
| Anna: [соль] |
| Eric: [соль]. Ok. But I can say [Я пролил кофе]. |
| Anna: Yes, “I spilled the coffee”. Coffee is a liquid so we can use [пролить]. |
| Eric: Got it. Alright, our next word is [колени]. I thought [колени] was the word for “knees”. Can [колени] also be used for “lap”? |
| Anna: Yes, [колени] can also mean “lap”. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: Ok, now let’s look at the grammar for this lesson. |
| Anna: Ok, in our dialogue, the woman says [надо быть внимательнее]. |
| Eric: “You need to be careful”, right? |
| Anna: Almost. Actually “careful” is [внимательный] and [внимательнее] means “more careful”. It’s a comparative. |
| Eric: So do all comparatives end in [ее], Anna? |
| Anna: Yeah, yeah, most of them. |
| Eric: Most of them. But that’s a good way to remember actually, right? |
| Anna: Let’s take [быстрый] “fast” as an example. To make a comparison, “faster”, you just drop the ending [ый] and add [ее] instead. Eric, do you want to try. |
| Eric: Yeah, yeah. Ok, we’ve lost the magic on [ее]. |
| Anna: Yeah. So let’s try. I’ll give you an adjective and you make a comparative. |
| Eric: Okey dokey. |
| Anna: [длинный] |
| Eric: Which means “long”. |
| Anna: And comparative is… |
| Eric: [длиннее] |
| Anna: That’s right, Eric. See how easy it is? |
| Eric: Ok. “Longer”, so let’s try another one. |
| Anna: What about [опасный]? |
| Eric: “Dangerous”. More dangerous, ok. [опаснее] |
| Anna: So see? It’s an easy rule. |
| Eric: So where is the stress? Even though it’s [ее], it’s lost because the stress is on a different syllable, right? |
| Anna: Yes, so we pronounce as [апаснее]. |
| Eric: [апаснее] |
| Anna: [апаснее] |
| Eric: Ok, so we still have the [ее] but the accent is one the A. Ok, so “more dangerous” is, one more time? |
| Anna: [опаснее] |
| Eric: [опаснее]. Ok, great. I suppose there are some exceptions, as usual. |
| Anna: You suppose right. I’ll just give you a few of them. [большой] |
| Eric: Big. |
| Anna: [больше] |
| Eric: Bigger. |
| Anna: [хороший] |
| Eric: Good. |
| Anna: [лучше] |
| Eric: Better. |
| Anna: [плохой] |
| Eric: Bad. |
| Anna: [хуже] |
| Eric: Worse. |
| Anna: [высокий] |
| Eric: Tall. |
| Anna: [выше] |
| Eric: “Taller” or “higher”. Ok, so how would you say “Serghei is taller than Ivan”? |
| Anna: [Сергей выше, чем Иван] |
| Eric: And [чем] means “than” in this case, right? |
| Anna: Yes. |
| Eric: Ok. One more time? Let’s break it down. |
| Anna: [Сергей] |
| Eric: Serghei. |
| Anna: [выше] |
| Eric: Taller. |
| Anna: [чем] |
| Eric: Than. |
| Anna: [Иван] |
| Eric: “Ivan”. “Serghei taller than Ivan” or “Serghei is taller than Ivan”. Pretty simple. |
| Anna: Yeah. |
Outro |
| Eric: Ok, great. And that will do it for today’s lesson. Premium members, don’t forget to subscribe to the Premium Feed, it’s one of our most powerful web 2.0 features todays. |
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| Eric: Ok, [спасибо], Anna. |
| Anna: [Спасибо], Eric. [Спасибо, что были с нами сегодня. До следующих встреч!] |
| Eric: And thanks for being with us this lesson. See you next time. |
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