Learn Russian pronouns as we discuss the pronouns meaning "my," "your," "his," and "her" in singular number
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Oxana: [Привер, я Оксана.] |
| Eddie: Eddie here. Gengo Russian Season 1, Lesson 13. Learn the proper way to do business in Russia. So John has survived the taxi ride and he’s ready for work. |
| Oxana:Yes, he is in a business trip and is arriving for a 10 o’clock appointment. |
| Eddie: But first he has to use his Russian to get past the secretary. |
| Oxana:But before he does that, let’s do the recap of the successful taxi ride so we can have one too. |
| Eddie: Well, first and foremost, he had the ever-so-essential address of where he was going written down. |
| Oxana: Yes, the word for the concrete address again is [Конкретный адрес]. |
| Eddie: Next we talked a little in the past tense. |
| Oxana:Right, John [только вчера прилетел]. |
| Eddie: And we also learned how to ask for something. Very essential when on a business trip. |
| Oxana: [Мне нужен чек.] |
| Eddie: “Yes, I need a receipt.” The rest of the ride went pretty smoothly. He even got some warnings and good wishes from the driver. |
| Oxana: [Будьте осторожны в Москве. Удачи!] |
| Eddie: “Be careful in Moscow. Good luck.” So John is on time and ready for his first appointment. |
| Oxana: Let’s listen in. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Джон: [Добрый день! У меня назначена встреча на 10 утра с Игорем Ивановичем.] |
| John: Dobryi den’! U menya naznachena vstrecha na desyat’ utra s Igorem Ivanovichem. |
| Девушка: [Здравсрвуйте! Ваше имя пожалуйста.] |
| Woman: Zdravstvuite! Vashe imya pozhaluista. |
| Джон: [Джон Янг] |
| John: John Young |
| Девушка: [Одну секунду. Игорь Иванович, к вам посетитель, Джон Янг. Входите пожалуйста.] |
| Woman: Odnu sekundu. Igor’ Ivanovich, k van posetitel’, John Young. Vhodite pozhaluista. |
| Джон: [Спасибо!] |
| John: Spasibo! |
| Девушка: [Джон, сколько лет, сколько зим.] |
| Woman: John, skol’ko let, skol’ko zim. |
| Джон: [Да уж! Вот сувенир из Америки.] |
| John: Da uzh! Vot suvenir iz Ameriki. |
| Девушка: [О, спасибо! Ну как ты?] |
| Woman: O, spasibo! Nu kak ty? |
| Джон: Ничего, потихоньку. Ну что, поработаем? |
| John: Nichego, potihon’ku. Nu chto, porabotaem? |
| Eddie: Once again, slowly. |
| Oxana: Ещё раз, медленнее. |
| Джон: [Добрый день! У меня назначена встреча на 10 утра с Игорем Ивановичем.] |
| John: Dobryi den’! U menya naznachena vstrecha na desyat’ utra s Igorem Ivanovichem. |
| Девушка: [Здравсрвуйте! Ваше имя пожалуйста.] |
| Woman: Zdravstvuite! Vashe imya pozhaluista. |
| Джон: [Джон Янг] |
| John: John Young |
| Девушка: [Одну секунду. Игорь Иванович, к вам посетитель, Джон Янг. Входите пожалуйста.] |
| Woman: Odnu sekundu. Igor’ Ivanovich, k van posetitel’, John Young. Vhodite pozhaluista. |
| Джон: [Спасибо!] |
| John: Spasibo! |
| Девушка: [Джон, сколько лет, сколько зим.] |
| Woman: John, skol’ko let, skol’ko zim. |
| Джон: [Да уж! Вот сувенир из Америки.] |
| John: Da uzh! Vot suvenir iz Ameriki. |
| Девушка: [О, спасибо! Ну как ты?] |
| Woman: O, spasibo! Nu kak ty? |
| Джон: Ничего, потихоньку. Ну что, поработаем? |
| John: Nichego, potihon’ku. Nu chto, porabotaem? |
| Eddie: And once again, with the translation. |
| Oxana: Ещё раз, с переводом. |
| Oxana: [Добрый день! У меня назначена встреча на 10 утра с Игорем Ивановичем.] |
| Eddie: Good day. I have an appointment at 10 AM with Igor Ivanovici. |
| Oxana: [Здравсрвуйте! Ваше имя пожалуйста.] |
| Eddie: Hello. Your name, please. |
| Oxana: [Джон Янг] |
| Eddie:John Young. |
| Oxana: [Одну секунду.] |
| Eddie: Just a second. |
| Oxana: [Игорь Иванович, к вам посетитель, Джон Янг. Входите пожалуйста.] |
| Eddie: Igor Ivanovich, you have a visitor, John Young. Come in please. |
| Oxana: [Спасибо.] |
| Eddie: Thank you. |
| Oxana: [Джон, сколько лет, сколько зим.] |
| Eddie: John, it’s been ages. |
| Oxana: [Да уж! Вот сувенир из Америки.] |
| Eddie:Yeah. Here’s a souvenir from America. |
| Oxana: [О, спасибо! Ну как ты?] |
| Eddie: Thank you. So how are you? |
| Oxana: [Ничего, потихоньку. Ну что, поработаем? ] |
| Eddie: “Not bad, slowly but surely. So let’s get to work.” Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Oxana: [добрый день] |
| Eddie: Good day. |
| Oxana: [добрый день] |
| Eddie: Next one. |
| Oxana: [назначить] |
| Eddie:Appoint, arrange. |
| Oxana: [назначить] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [встреча] |
| Eddie: Meeting. |
| Oxana: [встреча] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [с] |
| Eddie: With. |
| Oxana: [с] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [секунда] |
| Eddie: A second. |
| Oxana: [секунда] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [к] |
| Eddie: To, towards. |
| Oxana: [к] |
| Eddie: Next one. |
| Oxana: [посетитель] |
| Eddie: A visitor. |
| Oxana: [посетитель] |
| Eddie:Next one. |
| Oxana: [входить] |
| Eddie: To come in. |
| Oxana: [входить] |
| Eddie: Next one. |
| Oxana: [сколько лет, сколько зим.] |
| Eddie: Long time, no see. It’s been ages. |
| Oxana: [сколько лет, сколько зим.] |
| Eddie:Next. |
| Oxana: [Да уж!] |
| Eddie: Oh yeah. Hell yeah. |
| Oxana: : [Да уж!] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [цувенир] |
| Eddie:Souvenir, gift. |
| Oxana: [сувенир] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [ничего] |
| Eddie: Nothing, ok, good enough. |
| Oxana: [ничего] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [потихоньку] |
| M1: Slowly, but surely. |
| Oxana: [потихоньку] |
| M1: Next. |
| Oxana: [работать] |
| Eddie:To work. |
| Oxana: [работать] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Eddie:So one of the attributes in any more or less serious company in Russia is a cute, long-legged secretary, often doing nothing but answering the phone and serving coffee, but you can’t get past her without being asked your name and being offered a cup of coffee. |
| Oxana: Yeah, Russian big bosses love showing their secretaries off to their clients or partners. But yes, most of the time those girls spend playing Solitaire and cat walking before clients. So John must have had one of those eye candies before a serious meeting. |
| Eddie: So we have a typical secretary and a typical conversation in our case. |
| Oxana: So the first phrase we hear in this dialogue is a greeting, [Добрый день!]. |
| Eddie: It sounds rather formal but it’s very appropriate in our situation. What’s next? |
| Oxana: Next, John tells the secretary about his appointment by saying [у меня назначена всртеча]. [у меня] means “I have”. It’s one of those cases when we leave out [есть] and the phrase “I have” sounds like [у меня] instead of [у меня есть]. [назначена] literally means “appointed” or “arranged”, and [встреча] is simple, it just means “meeting”. |
| Eddie:The only difference with the English meeting is that it sounds rather big and formal in English. And in Russian [встреча] can mean any kind of encounter, whether it’s with an old friend or a president. So let’s hear the whole phrase once again. |
| Oxana: [Добрый день! У меня назначена встреча.] |
| Eddie: “Good day. I have an appointment.” Now we have to mention the time and the person he has an appointment with and even if it’s clear for everyone, this is how you talk to the secretary, telling her all the information to make her feel important as if the decision of whether to accept you today or not depends on her. |
| Oxana: Right. So the appointment for 10 AM will sound like [на 10 утра]. Literally “on 10 of the morning”. |
| Eddie: And then you say the name of the boss in a respectful form, which is not the last name as it is English but is first and middle name. So here we have… |
| Oxana: [с Игорем Ивановичем] |
| Eddie: Where [с] means “with” and the name Igor Ivanovich is modified according to the prepositional case. Check out our PDF materials, you’ll find some more examples of Russian names in respectful form. The thing for you to know is that a Russian middle name is a paternal name, which means the name of a person’s father, but a little bit modified according to the grammatical rules. So in our case, the boss’s first name is Igor and his father’s name is Ivan, therefore his full name will sound as Igor Ivanovich. What’s your full name Oxanna? |
| Oxana: Окса Олеговна. My dad’s name is Олег and according to the certain rules it changes into Олеговна, but I'm too young to be referred as Оксана Олеговна. |
| Eddie: I won’t make you feel old, don’t worry. So what did the secretary answer? |
| Oxana: Well, she made an important face and said “Hello. [Здравсрвуйте]”. Then she obviously asked his name. [Ваше имя, пожалуйста.] which literally means “your name, please”. [имя] means name, so altogether again [Ваше имя, пожалуйста]. |
| Eddie: And after John says his name, she asks him to wait for a second. |
| Oxana: [Одну секунду] The phrase “one second” originally would sound as [одна секунда] but because we imply “wait for one second”, we change it into [одну секунду]. |
| Eddie:Then she presses a button on her phone and says the key line in her work. |
| Oxana: [Игорь Иванович, к вам посетитель.] |
| Eddie:Where [к] literally indicates the approaching and can be translated as “towards” or just “to”. The word [посетитель] literally means “ visitor”. Obviously the secretary doesn’t know if John is her boss’s client or a partner, so she chooses a neutral word. |
| Oxana: Yes, but the words “client” and “partner” are also worth mentioning because they’re so similar to their English equivalents. [клиент] and [партнёр]. |
| Eddie: Ok, so tell us the phrase again. |
| Oxana: [К вам посетитель] Literally “to you visitor”. |
| Eddie: Next, she talks to John again, asking him to come in. |
| Oxana: [Входите, пожалуйста.] |
| Eddie: [Входите] being “come in” in a polite command for and [пожалуйста] being “please”. |
| Oxana: So the secretary’s job is almost done except for serving coffee in a couple of minutes, for which john thanks her. |
| Eddie: Next we have a friendly conversation between Игорь Иванович and John. They start with an informal chat and get to business at the end. The first phrase Игорь Ивановичi says to John is a very popular idiomatic exclamation that Russians use after not having seen each other for quite a while. |
| Oxana: [Сколько лет, сколько зим.] |
| Eddie: Which literally means “How many summers? How many winters?” In English, it would probably sound like “We haven’t seen each other for ages”. Let’s break down this phrase. |
| Oxana: [Сколько] is a question word that means “how many”, “how much”. The words [лет] and [зим] came from the words [лето], “summer”, and [зима], “winter”. It sounds like a question although the phrase is not a question but an exclamation. |
| Eddie: In our case, summers and winters are used in plural. Moreover, they’re put into the genitive case or the “of” case. This is just the explanation why [зима] and [лето] in the phrase sound different form the originals, but you shouldn’t pay too much attention to that. Just remember the phrase as it is, it’s a fixed phrase, after all. |
| Oxana: The answer to that can be anything like “Yes, that’s true, you’re right” and so on. But John replied in a very colloquial way, [Да уж!], where [уж] doesn’t really have any particular meaning but serves as an emphasis on the word “yes”. In English it would sound as “oh yeah” or more slangy as “hell yea”. |
| Eddie: You can also use it with “no” when you severely disagree with something or refuse to do something by saying [нет уж]. |
| Oxana: Right. But John agreed that it’s really been years and even brought a souvenir to fill in all those years apart. |
| Oxana: [Вот, сувенир из Америки.] |
| Eddie: A pretty clear phrase to us. [вот] means “here” and has been used a lot in our lessons. [сувенир] doesn’t sound like it needs any explanation. Put on an accent and English “souvenir” will magically turn into the Russian [сувенир].[Из Америки] is also a familiar phrase to us which means “from America”. So altogether then. |
| Oxana: [Вот, сувенир из Америки.] |
| Eddie: Now we hear Игорь Иванович being impressed and thankful for the gift. |
| Oxana: [О, спасибо!] |
| Eddie: This is followed by a very casual version of “how are you”. |
| Oxana: [Ну как ты?] |
| Eddie: Where [ну] is similar to the English “so” or “well” at the beginning of the sentence. [как] means “how” and [ты] is an informal “you”. |
| Oxana: [Ну как ты?] |
| Eddie: John’s answer doesn’t sound like his business is flourishing or he just wants to seem modest so all he says is… |
| Oxana: [Ничего, потихонько.] |
| Eddie: [Ничего] literally means “nothing” but people often use it as an answer to the “How are you” questions. In this case, it means “nothing special but not bad”. If you want to answer in an American way saying that everything is good, you can just say [хорошо]. And the word [потихоньку] is often used to describe something monotonous that someone’s doing or just a stable life routine where the days are not bursting with excitement every hour, but they’re just doing their job and living their life quietly. |
| Oxana: You can also use it to describe some particular project that is moving forward slowly but surely. That’s the translation for it, “slowly but confidently, steadily”. [потихоньку]. |
| Eddie: And having said that, John is ready to jump right into business but he doesn’t want to ruin the friendly atmosphere Игорь Иванович has created, so he picks subtle words to get them into the mood to work. |
| Oxana: [Ну что, поработаем?] |
| EDDIE: Where [ну] means “so” or “well”. [что] literally means “what” and together with [ну] just indicates that the speaker is ready for action like “so, let’s start” or “so, what’s next”. |
| Oxana: And the word [поработаем] comes from the word [работать], “to work”. But to make it sound a little softer and less significant and putting less pressure on the listener, John uses the prefix [по] which we’ve heard before. It makes the verb sound like “let’s work a bit”. With a question intonation at the end, this word sounds as an invitation to an action. [поработаем] “So, let’s get to the business.” |
| Eddie: I guess we’re finished with the vocabulary here. It’s interesting we had a business situation in our dialogue, but learned so many conversational expressions today. |
| Oxana: Well, business often requires a good personal bond and lots of informal chatting. |
| Eddie: So lots of vocab today but just a little grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Oxana: Yes, but a couple of really great things to learn. |
| Eddie: First of all, an alternative way of asking someone’s name. |
| Oxana: Yes, we learned before about the last formal way of asking someone’s name. |
| Eddie: But now we learn the formal way. |
| Oxana: Which is [Ваше имя, пожалуйста.]. |
| Eddie: You’ll hear it almost everywhere. In business establishments, at the doctor, even in a restaurant if you book a table. The good things is it sounds even simpler than the informal [Как вас зовут?]. |
| Oxana: You can also be asked to tell your last name. [Ваша фамилия?] |
| Eddie:Where [фамилия] is a surname. The thing to point attention to is the possessive pronouns [ваше] and [ваша].[Имя], “name”, has a neutral gender, therefore the pronoun “your” sounds like [ваше] in the case of the feminine noun [фамилия], “your” sounds like [ваша]. With a masculine noun, which we don’t have in our dialogue, it would sound like [ваш]. |
| Oxana: For example, [Ваш номер, ваш телефон]. |
| Eddie:And how would the pronoun “my” be modified according to genders? |
| Oxana: Ok, here are some examples. [Моё имя] “My name”. [Моя фамилия] “My surname”. And [Мой телефон] “My phone”. With the pronouns used in a neutral, feminine and masculine genders respectively. |
| Eddie: And as we’re focusing on possessive pronouns in this lesson, let’s also mention the words for “his” and “her”. |
| Oxana: The good thing is that the pronouns “his” and “her” don’t change according to the gender of the noun. [Его имя, его фамилия, его телефон] And [Её имя, её фамилия, её телефон] |
Outro |
| Eddie:That just about does it for today. |
| Oxana: [До свидания!] |
| Eddie: [Пока!] |
| -- |
| Джон: [Добрый день! У меня назначена встреча на 10 утра с Игорем Ивановичем.] |
| John: Dobryi den’! U menya naznachena vstrecha na desyat’ utra s Igorem Ivanovichem. |
| Девушка: [Здравсрвуйте! Ваше имя пожалуйста.] |
| Woman: Zdravstvuite! Vashe imya pozhaluista. |
| Джон: [Джон Янг] |
| John: John Young |
| Девушка: [Одну секунду. Игорь Иванович, к вам посетитель, Джон Янг. Входите пожалуйста.] |
| Woman: Odnu sekundu. Igor’ Ivanovich, k van posetitel’, John Young. Vhodite pozhaluista. |
| Джон: [Спасибо!] |
| John: Spasibo! |
| Девушка: [Джон, сколько лет, сколько зим.] |
| Woman: John, skol’ko let, skol’ko zim. |
| Джон: [Да уж! Вот сувенир из Америки.] |
| John: Da uzh! Vot suvenir iz Ameriki. |
| Девушка: [О, спасибо! Ну как ты?] |
| Woman: O, spasibo! Nu kak ty? |
| Джон: Ничего, потихоньку. Ну что, поработаем? |
| John: Nichego, potihon’ku. Nu chto, porabotaem? |
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