Learn what you need to know to switch tenses for a common Russian verb that you will surely not 'tense' up when seeing them
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Oksana: [Всем привет! Я Оксана.] |
| Eddie: Eddie here. Lower Intermediate Series Season 1, Lesson 19. We’re still in the office of some Russian company, with its own life and its own problems. |
| Oksana: Last time we witnessed a big promotion. Some guy named [Михаил Титов] was appointed as a sales manager. |
| Eddie: Which was met with strong criticism and even anger from the other employees side. |
| Oksana: Which is just natural, although in our case the guy who was promoted sounded like a real [хитрый лис] to me. |
| Eddie: According to what the guy grumbled about, yes, but it could be just simple venting. But actually those who get high positions are always little tricky. Let’s hope this guy is also a professional. |
| Oksana: Yeah, let’s listen to the next dialogue. I'm really excited about what else might happen in this little office world. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Oksana: Коллеги! В связи с кризисом, я вынужден вам сообщить, что в этом году у нас не будет новогодних бонусов… |
| Eddie: Как?! Не может быть! У нас их не было в прошлом году, и Вы сказали, что… |
| Oksana: ...не будет новогодних праздников… |
| Eddie: Что?! Но я обещал родителям, что я приеду! |
| Oksana: И не будет корпоративных вечеринок за счёт фирмы |
| Eddie: Ну, это уже просто беспредел...Once again, more slowly. |
| Oksana: Еще раз, медленнее. Коллеги! В связи с кризисом, я вынужден вам сообщить, что в этом году у нас не будет новогодних бонусов… |
| Eddie: Как?! Не может быть! У нас их не было в прошлом году, и Вы сказали, что… |
| Oksana: ...не будет новогодних праздников… |
| Eddie: Что?! Но я обещал родителям, что я приеду! |
| Oksana: И не будет корпоративных вечеринок за счёт фирмы |
| Eddie: Ну, это уже просто беспредел...Once again, with a translation. |
| Oksana: Еще раз, с переводом. Коллеги! В связи с кризисом, я вынужден вам сообщить, что в этом году у нас не будет новогодних бонусов… |
| Eddie: Colleagues! Due to the crisis, I'm forced to inform you that there will be no New Year bonuses this year… |
| Oksana: Как?! Не может быть! У нас их не было в прошлом году, и Вы сказали, что… |
| Eddie: No way! That's impossible! We didn't have them last year and you said that… |
| Oksana: ...не будет новогодних праздников… |
| Eddie: There will be no New Year holidays… |
| Oksana: Что?! Но я обещал родителям, что я приеду! |
| Eddie: What?! But I promised to my parents I would come! |
| Oksana: И не будет корпоративных вечеринок за счёт фирмы |
| Eddie: And there will be no company parties on the company's cost. |
| Oksana: Ну, это уже просто беспредел… |
| Eddie: This is a total bummer… |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eddie: The boss just keeps adding fuel to the fire. First he enrages his workers with the unfair, to their minds, promotion of another guy. Now he deprives them of all company benefits. |
| Oksana: I know. The crisis has really stricken him hard or maybe it’s just a good excuse for cutting on the company expenses. |
| Eddie: Whatever it is, the atmosphere in the office is close to revolutionary. Let’s listen to the vocab that’s used to give us such impression. The first word is… |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Oksana: [В связи] |
| Eddie: Due to, because of. |
| Oksana: [В связи] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oksana: [Кризис] |
| Eddie: Crisis. |
| Oksana: [Кризис] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oksana: [Вынужден] |
| Eddie: Forced to, can do nothing but, obliged to. |
| Oksana: [Вынужден] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oksana: [Новогодний бонус] |
| Eddie: New Year’s bonus. |
| Oksana: [Новогодний бонус] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oksana: [Не может быть] |
| Eddie: It’s impossible, it can’t be. |
| Oksana: [Не может быть] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oksana: [Праздник] |
| Eddie: Holiday. |
| Oksana: [Праздник] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oksana: [Родители] |
| Eddie: Parents. |
| Oksana: [Родители] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oksana: [Корпоративная вечеринка] |
| Eddie: Company party. |
| Oksana: [Корпоративная вечеринка] |
| Eddie: Next. |
| Oksana: [Беспредел] |
| Eddie: Lawlessness, unruliness, free for all. |
| Oksana: [Беспредел] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Eddie: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. First we have the key phrase of the whole conflict, “due to the crisis”. |
| Oksana: [В связи с кризисом] Literally “in connection with a crisis”. |
| Eddie: Right. Also the noun that goes after the phrase [в связи] should be put into the instrumental case. Are there any other examples you can give us with this phrase, Oksana? |
| Oksana: Sure. For example [В связи с эпидемией]. “Due to the epidemia.” |
| Eddie: “Due to the epidemia.” |
| Oksana: [В связи с плохими погодными условиями] |
| Eddie: “Due to the bad weather conditions.” Then comes the announcement itself, but to make it sound like all these misfortunes are not up to him, he says something like “I'm forced to announce”. |
| Oksana: [Я вынужден сообщить. Вынужден] or [вынуждена] if it’s a female usually goes together with the infinitives. Just like in English, “forced to say” for example. |
| Eddie: You can also translate it as “compelled to”, “obliged to”. The word implies that you don’t have any other choice but to perform some action. |
| Oksana: Right. Let me give you some more examples. [Я вынуждена уйти] |
| Eddie: “I have to go. I have no other choice but to go. I'm forced to go.” - because you have an emergency at work, for example. |
| Oksana: [Мы были вынуждены вернуться] |
| Eddie: We had to come back. The circumstances forced us to come back. |
| Oksana: [Я буду вынужден его уволить] |
| Eddie: “I will have to fire him. I will have no other choice but to fire him.” - if the worker keeps messing up his work, for example. So what is the boss [вынужден сообщить], finally? |
| Oksana: That [В этом году у нас не будет новогодных бонусов]. |
| Eddie: No [новогодних бонусов]. “No New Year bonuses”. In Russia it’s often called the 13th salary and people really look forward to getting it, so I guess this boss ruined a lot of people’s plans for treating themselves to something new yearly expensive. |
| Oksana: I guess so. The phrase [не может быть!], “it’s impossible”, just proves it. |
| Eddie: Oh, it seems like he’s doing it for the second year in a row. So if this year he hasn’t done it [в связи с кризисом], what was his excuse last year? |
| Oksana: Hard to say, but he’s really playing with fire here. Next thing he says is that [не будет новогодних праздников] |
| Eddie: There’ll be no New Year holidays. |
| Oksana: Yeah, it just means everyone will have to work on the 31st and the 1st of January, and most probably on Christmas and January 7th. By the way, the word [праздник] only means “holiday” or some festivity in Russian. It doesn’t have a meaning like a day off like in English sometimes. |
| Eddie: Ok, so what’s the reaction to this news in the office? |
| Oksana: [Но я обещал родителям, что я приеду!] |
| Eddie: But I promised my parents I would come. |
| Oksana: This guy really messed up everyone’s plans. New Year holidays are the most important in Russia. I wonder whether he himself is going to spend the New Year’s eve in the office. |
| Eddie: Yeah, depriving people of the chance to visit their [родители]. By the way, [родители] is put into the dative case here. Can you remind me why? |
| Oksana: Cause he’s giving a promise to the parents, and a person and a thing that receives something should always be put into the dative case. |
| Eddie: I see. I have to be reminded of such things once in a while. I think there was one more thing the boss ruined the company traditions with. |
| Oksana: Yeah, he canceled [корпоративные вечеринки за счет фирмы]. |
| Eddie: “Company parties at the company’s expense.” [Корпоративная вечеринка] is something where all the coworkers get drunk and end up in each other’s houses in the next morning, right? |
| Oksana: How do you know that? Well, it happens a lot, true. Most of romantic get together in the workplace has happened in the [корпоративные вечеринки]. That’s what they’re famous for. But I wanted to turn your attention to the phrase [за счет]. It means “at the expense of” in both direct and figurative meanings. I’ll give you some examples for better understanding. [Ужин за счет ресторана] |
| Eddie: Dinner on the house, at the restaurant’s expense. |
| Oksana: [За счет здоровья] |
| Eddie: At the cost of one’s health. |
| Oksana: [За счет чужого счастья] |
| Eddie: “At the cost of someone else’s happiness.” I see. Why do I get the feeling that people in the company were bummed about these parties the most? |
| Oksana: They probably weren’t, it was just the last straw that made them react like it was the world’s catastrophe. [Это уже просто беспредел] |
| Eddie: The word [беспредел], literally, it can be translated as “without limits” because the prefix [бес] means “without” and [предел] means “limit”. But the meaning is closer to “lawlessness”, “unruliness”, “free for all”. |
| Oksana: Right. Remember the messy times in Russia in the 90s, the times of total anarchy and lawlessness? We could call that [беспредел] too, but now it’s also used as an exaggeration to something you consider unfair or wrong. |
| Eddie: Correct. Well, I think we’re done with the vocabulary. Time to get to the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eddie: Today’s grammar might seem to be familiar to you, but because it’s one of the essential points of the Russian language we found it necessary to refresh your knowledge about it. |
| Oksana: We’ll go over the verb “to have” in all three tenses. |
| Eddie: Unlike in English, the Russian verb “to have” is different in its infinitive form from what it’s usually used in. The dictionary form of the Russian “to have” is [иметь]. |
| Oksana: Yes. And of course you can conjugate it according to Russian grammar rules and get an expression like [Я имею]. It’s also used in some special cases, but the expression you’re more familiar with is [У меня есть]. |
| Eddie: To build the phrases with the word “have” you need the pronouns in the genitive case. Oksana, what are the pronouns? |
| Oksana: I’ll name a pronoun and give you a phrase with the word “to have” right away. So listen. [Меня] |
| Eddie: I. |
| Oksana: [У меня есть] |
| Eddie: I have. |
| Oksana: [Тебя] |
| Eddie: You (informal). |
| Oksana: [У тебя есть] |
| Eddie: You have. |
| Oksana: [Него] |
| Eddie: He. |
| Oksana: [У него есть] |
| Eddie: He has. |
| Oksana: [Неё] |
| Eddie: She |
| Oksana: [У нее есть] |
| Eddie: She has. |
| Oksana: [Нас] |
| Eddie: We. |
| Oksana: [У нас есть] |
| Eddie: We have. |
| Oksana: [Вас] |
| Eddie: You (formal or plural form). |
| Oksana: [У вас есть] |
| Eddie: You have. |
| Oksana: [Них] |
| Eddie: They. |
| Oksana: [У них есть] |
| Eddie: They have. |
| Oksana: Ok, just remember that the nouns that come after this phrase are used in the nominative case, simply dictionary form. |
| Eddie: So basically the formula for these phrases will be following: [у] plus one of the pronouns that we just listed, plus [есть], plus a noun in the nominative case. |
| Oksana: Exactly. So here is an example. [У меня есть собака] |
| Eddie: “I have a dog.” And what do you do to build a negative? How do you say “I don’t have something”? |
| Oksana: To build a negative you simply replace the word [есть] with [нет] and put the noun after the phrase into the genitive case. [У него нет собаки] |
| Eddie: “He doesn’t have a dog.” Ok, that was pretty clear. Now what about the past tense? |
| Oksana: We can build the formula for the past tense too. To form phrases like “I had” or “he had”, we need [у] plus a pronoun that I mentioned earlier, plus the verb [есть] in the past tense, modified according to a person and number, plus a noun in the nominative case. |
| Eddie: Sounds very structural but quite complicated. Let’s put it all into real words. Give us an example, Oksana. |
| Oksana: Ok, listen. [У него была машина] |
| Eddie: “He had a car.” [Машина] is feminine. |
| Oksana: [У нас были гости] |
| Eddie: “We had guests.”[ Гости] is plural. |
| Oksana: [У меня было все] |
| Eddie: “I had everything.” [Все] is neutral. |
| Oksana: [У нас был билет] |
| Eddie: “We had a ticket.” [Билет] is masculine. From what I can hear, the gender and number of the verb “had” depends on the gender and number of the object which someone or something had. |
| Oksana: You heard just right. So you use [был] for masculine nouns, [была] for feminine, [было] for neutral and [были] for plural. |
| Eddie: Ok, and what about the negative in the past tense? How do you say “I didn’t have”? |
| Oksana: Forming a negative in the past tense is easy. You don’t have to put the verb [был] into the agreement with the noun. All you need is [у] plus pronouns, plus [не было], plus a noun in the genitive case. For example, [У него не было машины]. |
| Eddie: He didn’t have a car. |
| Oksana: [У нас не было гостей] |
| Eddie: “We didn’t have guests.” Oh, that was real easy. I'm glad [не было] is not modified in any way. Ok, we have the future tense left. The formula for the future tense is similar for the past tense, but this time you don’t have to pay attention to gender, only number, singular or plural. |
| Oksana: Let me tell you this formula. [У] plus pronoun that I mentioned before, plus the verb [будет] for singular or [будут] for plural, plus a noun in the nominative case. Here are the examples. [У меня будет время] |
| Eddie: I will have time. |
| Oksana: [У них будут гости] |
| Eddie: “They will have guests.” And what about the negative, the phrase for won’t have. |
| Oksana: To form a negative you don’t even need to mind the number. |
| Eddie: So it’s going to be [у] plus pronoun that we mentioned before, plus [не будет], plus a noun in the genitive case, right? |
| Oksana: Absolutely. Listen to the examples. [У меня не будет времени] |
| Eddie: I won’t have time. |
| Oksana: [У нас не будет гостей] |
| Eddie: “We won’t have guests.” That’s really nice that the verb “has” doesn’t change in negatives in any tense. It’s [нет] in the present, [не было] in the past and [не будет] in the future. All you have to remember is just one set of pronouns. |
Outro |
| Eddie: Ok, thanks for being with us and see you next time. [Пока!] |
| Oksana: [До встречи!] |
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