Learn how to use the imperative verb давай/давайте
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina: Hello everyone and welcome to RussianPod101.com. This is the Upper Beginner Series, Season 1, lesson 18, Weekends in a Russian Dacha. I’m Gina. |
| Svetlana: And I’m Svetlana. Privet. In this lesson you are going to learn how to make imperative forms of Russian verbs by using the verbs давай and давайте. |
| Gina: We’ll also listen to Elena talk to her husband about taking a trip to the dacha, or Russian country house. |
| Svetlana: The conversation is between Elena and her husband, and it takes place in their home. |
| Gina: The speakers are a married couple, so they’ll be using informal Russian. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Elena: Дорогой, давай организуем выезд загород на этих выходных? Мы давно не проводили время с нашими друзьями. Тем более нужно проведать нашу дачу, подышать свежим воздухом. |
| Husband: Думаю, это хорошая идея. Нужно обзвонить всех и спланировать выходные. |
| Elena: Только не приглашай Николая. |
| Husband: Почему? |
| Elena:Он опять начнет приставать к моим подругам. |
| Elena: Dorogoy, davay organizuyem vyyezd zagorod na etikh vykhodnykh? My davno ne provodili vremya s nashimi druz'yami. Tem boleye nuzhno provedat' nashu dachu, podyshat' svezhim vozdukhom. |
| Husband: Dumayu, eto khoroshaya ideya. Nuzhno obzvonit' vsekh i splanirovat' vykhodnyye. |
| Elena: Tol'ko ne priglashay Nikolaya. |
| Husband: Pochemu? |
| Elena:On opyat ' nachnyot pristavat ' k moim podrugam. |
| Elena: Honey, let's plan a trip to country house this weekend. We haven't seen our friends for too long. Besides, we need to check if our dacha is okay and breathe some fresh air. |
| Husband: I think that's very good idea. We need to call everybody and plan our weekend. |
| Elena: But please don't invite Nikolay. |
| Husband: Why not? |
| Elena: He's going to hit on my girlfriends again. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gina: Elena and her husband seem to be very free and adventurous, don’t they? Like, they’re ready to go on vacation at any time. |
| Svetlana: Yeah, Russians are always like this. We don’t like planning anything far in advance. If the weather is good, just pack up and go. |
| Gina: Really? I didn’t know that Russians were so spontaneous. |
| Svetlana: Well, Gina, if you try to live in Russia, you won’t even be able to plan a picnic in advance because the weather is so unpredictable. |
| Gina: Ah, so it’s like a forced spontaneity. Well, fun is something that happens when you don’t plan things. |
| Svetlana: Right! That’s what we usually say! All you need is a good mood and good company. So you never know where you’ll end up if you hang out with Russians. |
| Gina: Haha, sounds great. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Gina: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we shall see is... |
| Svetlana: организовать [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to plan, to organize |
| Svetlana: организовать [slowly - broken down by syllable] организовать [natural native speed] |
| Gina: Next |
| Svetlana: загород [natural native speed] |
| Gina: countryside |
| Svetlana: загород [slowly - broken down by syllable] загород [natural native speed] |
| Gina: Next |
| Svetlana: проведать [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to visit, to call on |
| Svetlana: проведать [slowly - broken down by syllable] проведать [natural native speed] |
| Gina: Next |
| Svetlana: дача [natural native speed] |
| Gina: country house |
| Svetlana: дача [slowly - broken down by syllable] дача [natural native speed] |
| Gina: Next |
| Svetlana: обзвонить [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to call somebody |
| Svetlana: обзвонить [slowly - broken down by syllable] обзвонить [natural native speed] |
| Gina: Next |
| Svetlana: приглашать [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to invite |
| Svetlana: приглашать [slowly - broken down by syllable] приглашать [natural native speed] |
| Gina: Next |
| Svetlana: идея [natural native speed] |
| Gina: idea |
| Svetlana: идея [slowly - broken down by syllable] идея [natural native speed] |
| Gina: Next |
| Svetlana: подруга [natural native speed] |
| Gina: female friend |
| Svetlana: подруга [slowly - broken down by syllable] подруга [natural native speed] |
| Gina: And last... |
| Svetlana: приставать [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to hit on somebody, to harass |
| Svetlana: приставать [slowly - broken down by syllable] приставать [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Svetlana: The first key phrase is выезд загород |
| Gina: “a trip to the countryside” |
| Svetlana: This phrase consists of two nouns, выезд |
| Gina: “a trip somewhere” or, more precisely, “a departure somewhere” |
| Svetlana: and загород |
| Gina: “countryside” |
| Svetlana: Pay attention to the noun выезд. |
| Gina: This word means “departure”. In this case you should always specify where you’re going. It implies a departure by means of some transportation, so it’s usually to a distant place. For example, |
| Svetlana: выезд на море |
| Gina: “a trip to the sea” |
| Svetlana: выезд заграницу |
| Gina: “a trip abroad”. Okay what’s the next keyword? |
| Svetlana: The next one is the verb проведать. |
| Gina: “to visit” or “to call on”. Where did we use it in our dialogue? |
| Svetlana: We used it in the sentence- |
| Нужно проведать нашу дачу, подышать свежим воздухом. |
| Gina: “We need to check if our dacha is okay and breathe some fresh air.” This verb has another meaning as well. It’s not used as often but it’s still worth knowing. The second meaning is “to find out”. |
| Svetlana: Right. But it’s a very old-fashioned word. Now we use the verb выведать instead. But these verbs have the same stem -вед- which means “to get to know”. Let me give you an example, |
| Он специально пришел, чтобы выведать секретную информацию. |
| Gina: “He came specifically to find out secret information.” |
| Okay, and what’s the last key word for this lesson? |
| Svetlana: Last but not least is the verb обзвонить. |
| Gina: “to call” |
| Svetlana: It’s a casual way to say “call”, звонить, and it’s used only in conversational Russian. |
| Gina: Interestingly, this verb implies a call to a group of people and cannot be used to talk about calling only one or two people. For example, |
| Svetlana: Учительница обзвонила всех учеников, чтобы предупредить о отмене занятий. |
| Gina: “The teacher called all of her students to tell them about the class cancellation.” |
| Okay! Great! Now let’s move onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Svetlana: In this lesson, you’re going to learn how to use the imperative verbs давай and давайте in Russian. Here’s the example from our dialogue. |
| Дорогой, давай организуем выезд загород на этих выходных? |
| Gina: “Honey, let’s plan a trip to the countryside this weekend.” If you recall, we already covered some grammar about imperative verbs in the third lesson of this series. We learned how to modify verbs in order to use them for strict command, orders and requests. In this lesson you’re going to learn other forms of imperative verbs used to invite or encourage somebody to do something. |
| Svetlana: The verbs давай/давайте are commonly used in everyday Russian. |
| Gina: In fact, the equivalent of these verbs in English would be the expression “Let’s do something” which is also one of the most commonly used phrases. Svetlana, can you give us an example with this expression? |
| Svetlana: Sure. Давай приготовим пиццу сегодня. |
| Gina: “Let’s make a pizza today.” Let’s talk more in detail about this verb. |
| Svetlana: Sure. But let me first say that the reason I’m giving you two verbs - давай and давайте - is very simple. |
| Gina: The first one is in casual form and the second one is for official or plural form. Let’s take a look at how to build imperative sentences with these verbs. |
| Svetlana: The verbs давай/давайте can be used with infinitive forms of verbs. For example, Давай играть вместе. |
| Gina: “Let’s play together.” Or it also can be used with perfective verbs conjugated with the pronoun “we”, |
| Svetlana: ...which is мы in Russian... |
| Gina: ...because the action will be done by you and the person you invited. For example, |
| Svetlana: Давай позвоним в полицию . |
| Gina: “Let’s call the police. “ |
| Svetlana: If after the verbs давай/давайте we have a pronoun other than мы “we”, and the verbs are conjugated for this pronoun, the verb давай/давайте will change to a slightly different meaning. |
| Gina: “Why don’t he/she/you/they do something?” or “Why not let him do something?” But it’s still in the imperative form because it’s an invitation to do something. For example, |
| Svetlana: Давай он позвонит профессору вместо меня. |
| Gina: “Why doesn’t he call the professor instead of me?” |
| Svetlana: Давайте вы пойдете раньше и займете места в ресторане. |
| Gina: “Why don’t you go earlier and reserve some seats in the restaurant?”Great job! Don’t forget to check the lesson notes to get more detailed explanations and examples. |
Outro |
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| Gina: That’s it for this lesson, everyone! See you next time. |
| Svetlana: Пока пока. |
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