Learn how to use the genitive case to talk about directions
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Oxana: Привет всем! Я Оксана. |
| Eddie: Eddie here. Gengo Russian Season 1, Lesson 8. Get what you want using Russian. |
| Oxana: So brush up on the Russian that you started learning long ago or start learning today. |
| Eddie: Thanks for being here with us today for this lesson. Оxanna, what are we looking at in this lesson? |
| Oxana: So our friend John is in for a great experience today. |
| Eddie: Yes, he is. That of taking a Russian bus, then transferring to the subway. |
| Oxana: Yeah, this guy is hardcore. He doesn’t mess around. |
| Eddie: Before we get on the bus, however, let’s do a little review of the last lesson. As I remember, we learned a whole bunch of question words last time which are… |
| Oxana: [сколько] |
| Eddie: “How much” or “how many”. |
| Oxana: [где] |
| Eddie: Where. |
| Oxana: [какой, какая, какое, какие] |
| Eddie: “What kind”, which Oxanna said in the masculine, feminine and neutral genders, and then the plural form. |
| Oxana: We also learned about Russian tenses and the specifics of Russian verbs. |
| Eddie: What’s much more interesting, we now know how to express desire. |
| Oxana: [я хочу] |
| Eddie: And now, with all that knowledge, we’ll try to direct John to his hotel. |
| Oxana: Let’s listen in and see if he makes it. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Джон: [Скажите пожалуйста, как доехать до станции метро Тверская?] |
| John: Skaxhite pozhaluista, kak doehat’ do stantsii metro Tverskaya? |
| Женщина: [Сначала автобусом до Речного вокзала, потом пересядите на метро до Тверской.] |
| Woman: Snachalo avtobusom do Rechnogo vokzala, potom peresyadite na metro do Tversloi. |
| Джон:[А сколько стоит билет до Речного вокзала? ] |
| John: A skol’ko stoit bilet do Rechnogo vokzala? |
| Женщина: [48 рублей] |
| Woman: sorokvosem’ rublei. |
| Джон: [А во сколько автобус отправляется?] |
| John: A vo skol’ko avtobus otpravlyaetsya? |
| Женщина: [В 1 30] |
| Woman: V chas tridtsat’ |
| Джон: [Вот 50 рублей] |
| John: Vot pyat’desyat rublei. |
| Женщина: [Пожалуйста, ваш билет и сдача.] |
| Woman: Pozhaluista, vash bilet i sdacha. |
| Джон: [Спасибо.] |
| John: Spasibo. |
| -- |
| Eddie: One more time, slowly. |
| Oxana: Ещё раз, медленнее. |
| Джон: [Скажите пожалуйста, как доехать до станции метро Тверская?] |
| John: Skaxhite pozhaluista, kak doehat’ do stantsii metro Tverskaya? |
| Женщина: [Сначала автобусом до Речного вокзала, потом пересядите на метро до Тверской.] |
| Woman: Snachalo avtobusom do Rechnogo vokzala, potom peresyadite na metro do Tversloi. |
| Джон: [А сколько стоит билет до Речного вокзала? ] |
| John: A skol’ko stoit bilet do Rechnogo vokzala? |
| Женщина: [48 рублей] |
| Woman: sorokvosem’ rublei. |
| Джон: [А во сколько автобус отправляется?] |
| John: A vo skol’ko avtobus otpravlyaetsya? |
| Женщина: [В 1 30] |
| Woman: V chas tridtsat’ |
| Джон: [Вот 50 рублей] |
| John: Vot pyat’desyat rublei. |
| Женщина: [Пожалуйста, ваш билет и сдача.] |
| Woman: Pozhaluista, vash bilet i sdacha. |
| Джон: [Спасибо.] |
| John: Spasibo. |
| Eddie: One more time, natural speed with the translation. |
| Oxana: Ещё раз, с переводом. |
| Oxana: [Скажите пожалуйста, как доехать до станции метро Тверская?] |
| Eddie: Excuse me, how can I get to Tverskaya subway station? |
| Oxana: [Сначала автобусом до Речного вокзала, потом пересядите на метро до Тверской.] |
| Eddie: First take a bus to Rechnoi vokzal, then change to the subway and go to Tverskaya. |
| Oxana:[А сколько стоит билет до Речного вокзала? ] |
| Eddie: And how much is the ticket to Rechnoi vokzal? |
| Oxana: [48 рублей] |
| Eddie: 48 rubles. |
| Oxana:[А во сколько автобус отправляется?] |
| Eddie: And what time is the bus leaving? |
| Oxana: [В 1 30] |
| Eddie:At 1.30. |
| Oxana: [Вот 50 рублей] |
| Eddie: Here’s 50 rubles. |
| Oxana:[Пожалуйста, ваш билет и сдача.] |
| Eddie: Here you are, your ticket and change. |
| Oxana: [Спасибо.] |
| Eddie: Thank you. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| EDDIE: So John is pretty brace, braving the bus right away. |
| Oxana: Yes, there are a few ways to get from the airport in Russia, one being a bus, like the one referred to in this dialogue. You take a bus to the nearest subway station, which is [Речной вокзал], the river side station and then change to the subway. The Moscow subway network is pretty well-developed, so you won’t have problems getting to your destination. The airport bus fees are usually around a dollar and a half. |
| Eddie: But my old standby is the taxi because I always have so much luggage. |
| Oxana: No, Eddie. You don’t want to take a taxi in Moscow, especially from the airport. You’ll get ripped off worse than after a divorce. Seriously, you will be charged $200 just for getting to the nearest subway station. And if you are a foreigner I don’t even want to imagine. |
| Eddie: Ok, ok. I guess John is being way smarter than me here. Well, let’s learn a bit more about his chosen form of transport - taking the bus. Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Oxana:[скажите] |
| Eddie:“Tell” - polite command form. |
| Oxana: [скажите] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [как] |
| Eddie:How. |
| Oxana:[как] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana:[доехать] |
| Eddie: To get to. |
| Oxana:[доехать] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana:[до] |
| Eddie:Until, till, to. |
| Oxana: [до] |
| Eddie:Next. |
| Oxana: [станция] |
| Eddie:Station. |
| Oxana: [станция] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [метро] |
| Eddie:Subway. |
| Oxana: [метро] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [Сначала] |
| Eddie: At first, in the beginning. |
| Oxana:[Сначала] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [автобус] |
| Eddie: Bus. |
| Oxana:[автобус] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana:[потом] |
| Eddie: Later, then, after that. |
| Oxana: [потом] |
| Eddie:Next. |
| Oxana: [пересесть] |
| Eddie:To change, to transfer. |
| Oxana:[пересесть] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [на] |
| Eddie:On. |
| Oxana:[на] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana:[сколько стоит] |
| Eddie:“How much” - about price. |
| Oxana: [сколько стоит] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [билет] |
| Eddie: A ticket. |
| Oxana: [билет] |
| Eddie:Next. |
| Oxana:[во сколько] |
| Eddie: At what time. |
| Oxana: [во сколько] |
| Eddie:Next. |
| Oxana:[отправляться] |
| Eddie:To depart, to set off, to take off. |
| Oxana: [отправляться] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oxana: [сдача] |
| Eddie:“Change” - as in money. |
| Oxana: [сдача] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Eddie: So here is our vocabulary for the day. |
| Oxana: Well, we learned a great phrase for making inquiries. |
| Eddie: Yes. In the dialogue we hear… |
| Oxana: [скажите пожалуйста] |
| Eddie: We know the word “please”, [пожалуйста], which makes us sound polite. But here the keyword is… |
| Oxana: [скажите] |
| Eddie: Which means “tell”. It’s used in a command form, but because of the ending [те] the ending doesn’t sound rude. So by saying [скажите пожалуйста]], you’re literally saying “Tell me, please”. Don’t worry, in Russian it sounds totally natural when making inquiries. It’s pretty much interchangeable with [извините]. Literally “excuse me”, but used much more often when you’re asking for some particular information. Let’s keep the translation as “excuse me”. So what does Alex want to know? |
| Oxana: [как доехать до] |
| Eddie: “How to get to”. The verb [доехать] is used in the perfective aspect and it’s totally logical. The process itself is not important here, that’s why he’s not asking “how to go to”, he’s asking “how to get to”. |
| Oxana: The indicator of the perfective aspect here is the prefix [до] and without it we’ll have a simple verb in a dictionary form [ехать] meaning “to go” by transport. Yes, to go on foot and to go by transport are two different words in Russian. |
| Eddie:So John wants to go to… |
| F1: [до станции метро Тверская] |
| Eddie:Literally “until station subway [Тверская]”. To make it smoother in English we can translate it as “until the station of the subway named [Тверская]”. What other useful examples can we name here? |
| Oxana:[улица Пушкина] |
| Eddie: Puskin’s street. |
| Oxana: [конечная автобусная остановка] |
| Eddie:The last bus stop. |
| Oxana: [центральный район] |
| Eddie:“The central district”. Ok, so what does the ticket seller tells him? What directions does he give John? |
| Oxana: [Сначала автобусом] |
| Eddie: Literally “first by bus”. And this brings us back to lesson number 4, where we slightly touched the instrumental case. We heard it in the sentence… |
| Oxana: [Кем вы работаете?] |
| Eddie: Which literally means “by whom do you work”. See why we call it the instrumental case? Let’s call it our “by” case and use it to express by what means something is done. In today’s dialogue we have John going to his hotel by bus. |
| Oxana: We don’t have the preposition “by” in Russian, therefore we just change the ending of the noun according to our “by” case. [автобус] changes into [автобусом]. |
| Eddie: Guess what? You just got lucky because if you decide to take a taxi or subway, you won’t have to change those words when telling us about it. |
| Oxana: That’s right. The words [такси] and [метро] are the exceptions in the list of transport names. We never change them, no matter what. |
| Eddie: So first he goes by bus. Goes where? |
| Oxana: [до Речного вокзала] |
| Eddie: It’s the name of the station. [Речной вокзал] but literally it means “the river side station”. And then… |
| Oxana: [потом пересядите] |
| Eddie: [пересядите] literally means “you will change”, but the dictionary form of this “to change” or “to transfer” is… |
| Oxana: [пересесть] |
| Eddie: Also, we can make a very useful noun out of this word. |
| F1: [пересадка/ сделать пересадку] |
| Eddie: Literally “to make a change” but it can be used interchangeably with [пересесть]. So John has to change to the subway. How do we say that? |
| Oxana: [на метро] |
| Eddie: Again, this is nothing new to us. Remember lesson number 5, the accusative case? Yes, it’s the one that helps us with the directions. We use it after the preposition [в], meaning “to”. Here we use exactly the same thing but with the preposition [на], which means “on”. You should say “to transfer on something” in Russian. Give us some examples, Axanna. |
| Oxana: [пересесть на другую линию] |
| Eddie: Transfer to another line. |
| Oxana:[пересесть на трамвай] |
| Eddie: “Change onto the street car.” Next we have one of the shortest but most frequently used words. |
| Oxana: [а] |
| Eddie: Which, as you remember, means “and” or “but”. It also helps us to change the topic and ask a totally unrelated question. John used it before almost every question he asked. Sort of like “And what is this?” So what did he ask? |
| Oxana: [А сколько стоит билет?] |
| Eddie:Literally “And how much is the ticket?” A very important phrase to know, one of the essentials in our commercial world is “How much?” The question is created very easily using [сколько стоит] plus whatever you want to ask. Here are some examples. |
| Oxana: [Сколько стоит бутылка воды?] |
| Eddie: How much is the bottle of water? |
| Oxana:[Сколько стоит пачка сигарет?] |
| Eddie:How much is a packet of cigarettes? |
| Oxana: [Сколько стоит это стоит?] |
| Eddie: “How much is this?” Great. We’ve solved the money price problem. By the way, how much was John’s ticket? |
| Oxana: [48 рублей] |
| Eddie: 48 rubles. The word “рубль”, being a noun, also changes according to numbers and cases. Give us some examples with the numbers, Oxanna. |
| Oxana: [один рубль |
| два, три, четыре рубля |
| пыть, шесть, семь, восемь, девять, десять рублей] |
| Eddie: Next he wants to know what time the bus is leaving. |
| Oxana: [во сколько?] |
| Eddie: “What time?” or literally “At what time?” |
| Oxana:[во сколько автобус отправляется?] |
| Eddie:Literally “What time the bus is setting off?” The dictionary form of the verb “to set off” or “to depart” is… |
| Oxana: [отправляться] |
| Oxana:[автобус] |
| Eddie: Bus. |
| Oxana: [поезд] |
| Eddie: Train. |
| Oxana: [трамвай] |
| Eddie: Street car. |
| Oxana:[отправляется] |
| Eddie: “Sets off.” And what time does the bus leave? |
| Oxana: [В 1:30. час] literally means “an hour” and when we talk about time, we don’t say “one hour” or “1 o’clock”, we simply say [час]. In our case, it’s 1.30, so we just say [час тридцать]. |
| Eddie: And [В], which literally means “in” is used in the meaning of English “at” when talking about time. Next, John gives 50 rubles to the ticket seller, obviously expecting a ticket and two rubles of change. |
| Oxana:[Вот, 50 рублей.] |
| Eddie:“Here, 50 rubles.” What does the ticket seller say when giving him what he needs? |
| Oxana:[Пожалуйста, вот ваш билет и сдача.] |
| Eddie: As we’ve explained to you before, [Пожалуйста], the literal “please” is also used in the meaning “here you are” or “here you go”. Then the seller says “Your ticket and change”. Remember, [сдача] is only used for the money you’re giving back as change. Ok, so John says… |
| Oxana:[Спасибо] |
| Eddie: And now we’re starting our grammar point. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eddie:Ok, so now we’re going to give you the grammar to learn how to inquire about directions and some other little but important grammar points. |
| Oxana:So inquiring about the directions, we ask [как доехать до]. |
| Eddie: Literally “how to get until”. This phrase you can just memorize by heart, but the actual place you’re asking about, this is what we’re going to work on. Do you still remember the genitive case and how to form it? This is the time to use your good memory. Before, we learned three functions of the genitive case. Talking about possession like “a book of my friend”, using it with the preposition “from”, “I'm from Moscow”, and forming a negative, “I don’t have”. And today we’ll learn about another use of this multifunctional case. Let’s call it the “until” function, obviously because we’ll use it in the context of the English “until”. Here are some examples. |
| Oxana:[доехать до реки] |
| Eddie: To get to the river. |
| Oxana: [подождать до полуночи] |
| Eddie: To wait till midnight. |
| Oxana: [дойти до перехода ] |
| Eddie: To walk to the crossroad. |
| Oxana: [поужинать до концерта] |
| Eddie:“To have dinner before the concert.” As you can hear, the word [до] in Russian can be used with time, places and events, and can be translated into English as “till”, “until”, “before” and even “too” sometimes, when we talk about destinations. And what examples did we have in our dialogue? |
| Oxana:[до станции] |
| Eddie: To the station. |
| Oxana:[до Тверской] |
| Eddie: To Tverskaya. |
| Oxana:[до Речного вокзала] |
| Eddie: “To Rechnoi vokzal station.” Our PDF materials will give you a better understanding of the noun changes and will help you systematize the knowledge you already have. So take a look at them now. Ok, we have to explain another grammar point to you now. So have a little patience, we’re almost done. |
| OXANA: Come one, it’s not so complicated. |
| Eddie: What we’re going to learn in Russian now sound like “by means of” in English, as in the sentences “by bus” or “with a spoon”. But to be able to say that, we’ll have to introduce you to another Russian grammar case called “the instrumental case”. It’s a very logical name for this case because we’re going to talk about the instruments that help us carry out the action. As you remember, any Russian grammar case tells us to change the endings of the nouns in order to change the sense of the words. So the above examples “by bus” and “with a spoon” won’t have the prepositions “by” and “with” as in English. Instead, the words “bus” and “spoon” will change their endings. |
| Oxana: [автобус] becomes [автобусом]. And [ложка] becomes [ложкой]. |
| Eddie: And how would you say full sentences like “I came by bus” or “I eat with a spoon” or “I flew by airplane”? |
| Oxana:[Я доехал автобусом. Я ем ложкой. Я прилетел самолётом.] |
Outro |
| Eddie: Great, but you better check our PDF materials because they will explain to you in detail how to form the instrumental case according to the varying genders, as well as give you lots of useful examples. |
| Oxana: Have another listen to the dialogue and stay tuned for the next time to see what Russian adventures come next. |
| Eddie: That just about does it for today. [Пока!] |
| Oxana:[До свидания.] |
| -- |
| Джон: [Скажите пожалуйста, как доехать до станции метро Тверская?] |
| John: Skaxhite pozhaluista, kak doehat’ do stantsii metro Tverskaya? |
| Женщина: [Сначала автобусом до Речного вокзала, потом пересядите на метро до Тверской.] |
| Woman: Snachalo avtobusom do Rechnogo vokzala, potom peresyadite na metro do Tversloi. |
| Джон:[А сколько стоит билет до Речного вокзала? ] |
| John: A skol’ko stoit bilet do Rechnogo vokzala? |
| Женщина: [48 рублей] |
| Woman: sorokvosem’ rublei. |
| Джон: [А во сколько автобус отправляется?] |
| John: A vo skol’ko avtobus otpravlyaetsya? |
| Женщина: [В 1 30] |
| Woman: V chas tridtsat’ |
| Джон: [Вот 50 рублей] |
| John: Vot pyat’desyat rublei. |
| Женщина: [Пожалуйста, ваш билет и сдача.] |
| Woman: Pozhaluista, vash bilet i sdacha. |
| Джон: [Спасибо.] |
| John: Spasibo. |
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