The Focus of this Lesson is Changing the Vowels И and Е in the Stems -бир- and -бер- and Others
Надеюсь, что ты хотя бы к концу фильма доберешься до кинотеатра.
"I hope that you will get to the cinema by the end of the movie at least."

Congratulations! You've reached the the Advanced  Level! This means that you are already at a quite high level of Russian grammar. I don't think we need to go over the same basic grammar that was covered in the previous series. In these lessons, we will get down to more complicated cases, so you can write in a grammatically correct way.

In this lesson we will be looking at grammar rules that are quite difficult even for native speakers. Believe me, Russians make a lot of mistakes in written Russian simply because they don't know grammar rules. They particularly make many mistakes in the stems with alternating vowels. In this lesson, I will introduce you to the stems -бир- and -бер- as well as other stems with the alternative vowels И and Е, and in what cases we should use И in the stem and in what cases Е.

In our dialog we have a verb with a stem -бер-. Here is the sentence:

1. Надеюсь, что ты хотя бы к концу фильма доберешься до кинотеатра.
   "I hope that you will get to the cinema by the end of the movie at least."

The verb доберешься, which means "to reach" or "to arrive" has the stem -бер- with a vowel Е in the middle. But have you ever thought, why do we sometimes write the same verb with the vowel И instead?

добираться means "to reach," "to arrive."

Here is an example with the verb добираться:

1. Нам было тяжело до вас добираться, потому что вы нам дали неполный адрес.
   "It was difficult to arrive in your place because you gave us an incomplete address."

So here we have sentences with доберешься and добираться.

GRAMMAR RULE:

The vowel И is ALWAYS used when after a stem there is the suffix A!

So, as you can see after the stem -бир- in the verb добираться there is a suffix A; that's why we should write добираться instead of добeраться. In the verb доберешься, there is no A after the stem, which why we write Е.

There are also a lot of other stems with alternating vowels И and Е in them. The grammar rule of this lesson will apply to ALL of them.

For example:

1. Она прям блистала на сцене в своем новом платье.
   "She was shining like a star on the stage in her new dress."
2. Бриллианты на этом колье так блестели, что я не могла оторвать глаз.
   "Diamonds on that necklace were shining so bright that it dazzled my eyes.
3. Много людей умирают каждый день от различных болезней.
   "Many people die everyday because of different diseases."
4. Они так любили друг друга, что даже хотели умереть в один день.
   "They loved each other so much they even wanted to die the same day."
5. Запирать эту дверь нужно на верхний замок.
   "This door should be locked with the upper lock."
6. Не забудь запереть дверь.
   "Don't forget to lock the door."

Language Tip

1. Please note that alternative vowels are met only in verbs, adjectives and nouns. Verbs with an И vowel in the stem are perfective in most cases.
2. There are some grammar rules exceptions in the stem -чит- and -чет-:
   сочетать "to combine," сочетание "combination." Although there is the suffix A after the stem, we put the vowel E instead of И.

The first key word for this lesson is an adverb вот-вот which means "any minute/second now," "soon."

In the dialogue, we saw:

1. Я до последней секунды надеялся, что мы вот-вот сдвинемся с мертвой точки.
   "I really believed that we were just about to move."

This adverb emphasizes that the action can happen any minute from now. The phrase consists of the demonstrative pronoun вот, which is repeated twice. I am sure you already know its meaning, "here." So literally this adverb means "here here." And it makes it easier to remember because "something is just about to happen because it is so close right here in terms of  physical distance and timing" in both the literal and figurative sense.

For example:

1. Машина подъехала так близко, что, казалось, она вот-вот снесёт забор.
   "A car came so close that it was just about to hit a fence."

Our adverb is used in literal meaning when describing a physical distance.

1. Её лицо покраснело от стыда, и, казалось, она вот-вот заревёт. (figuratively)
   "Her face turned red from shame and it seemed she would burst into tears any second now."

The adverb is used in a figurative meaning to emphasize an approaching time. 

Вот-вот can be a particle and has another usage which cannot be directly translated into English. It is used when somebody expresses his/her affirmation about something or share very assertive opinion. It can roughly be translated as "yes, exactly like this."

For example:

1. - Премии не будет.
   - Вот-вот, я так и знал!
   A: "You won't get a bonus."
   B: "I knew it!"

It can also be used when somebody expresses a strong agreement on something. And can be roughly translated as "it's what I mean/say."

For example:

1. - Мне кажется нужно всем проголосовать, чтобы узнать, кто из них двоих наиболее достойный кандидат.
   - Вот-вот, и я о том же. "
   A: "I think we all have to vote in order to know who is the most well-deserved candidate among those two."
   B: "Yes, that's what I meant."

In written form, the particle вот-вот should be separated from the main sentence with a comma.

The second key phrase for this lesson is ловить на слове which can be translated as "to take somebody at their word." It is used when somebody is asking or demanding another person to do or to pledge to implement what the person says.

For example:

1. Я поймала его на слове, когда он поклялся бросить курить.
   "I took him at his word when he swore to stop smoking."

Example from the dialogue:

1. С меня напиток, чтобы загладить свою вину.
   Ловлю на слове.
   A: "I owe you a drink to make up for my mistake. "
   B: "I am taking you at your word."

The phrase consists of three words, the verb ловить, preposition на and noun слово.

The verb ловить literally means "to catch."

For example:

1. Андрей пошел ловить такси.
   "Andrew went to catch a taxi."
2. Мы купили мышеловку, чтобы ловить мышей в подвале.
   "We bought a mousetrap to catch mice in the basement."

The preposition на means "on" and the noun слово means "a word," but in the prepositional case, слове. So literally this phrase can be translated as "to catch on one's word." Pretty straightforward!

When you specify who is taken at their word, you should put either the person's name or personal pronoun in the genitive case after the verb. Also in past tense, the verb ловить should be put in the perfective form, поймать.

For example:

1. Она поймала Сергея на слове, когда тот пообещал купить ей машину на день рождения.
   "She took Sergey at his word when he promised to buy a car for her birthday."
2. Ты только что сказала, что придёшь! Я ловлю тебя на слове.
   "You have just said you will come. I take you at your word."

The last key phrase for this lesson is a very famous Russian proverb, Надежда умирает последней which can be translated as "Hope dies last" or "Hope is the last thing to die." Since it is a literal translation of this proverb, it is quite straightforward. But let's break it down to know the meaning of every word.

Надежда means "hope." There is a frequently used verb надеятся ("to hope") which is derived from this noun.

For example:

1. Мы верим и надеемся, что он скоро вернется.
   "We believe and hope that he will come back soon."

Надежда is also a very popular female name in Russian. A short version for it is Надя.

The verb умирает means "to die" and the adjective последней means "the last." Both verb and adjective are conjugated to the noun надежда. The dictionary form of these is "умирать" and "последний" respectively.

В наши дни, наверное, не найдется ни одного мегаполиса, который бы не столкнулся с проблемой пробок на дорогах, и Москва, к сожалению, не является исключением. Ситуация с  пробками на дорогах столицы России, несмотря на все усилия местных властей, пока только усугубляется с каждым годом.

Каковы же причины километровых дорожных заторов? Эксперты, как правило, выделяют одну, самую главную причину - превышение максимальной пропускной способности самих дорог из-за огромного количества транспортных средств. Однако также бытует мнение, что изначально сама транспортная схема Москвы была разработана неверно и пробки на дорогах - это последствия ошибок проектирования.

Постоянные пробки - это извечный источник стресса для жителей столицы. Они не только являются причиной частого нарушения правил дорожного движения, постоянной загазованности, но и также приводят к конфликтам между участниками дорожного движения, особенно если кто-то куда-то спешит.

Сегодня правительство Москвы принимает все возможные меры для улучшения ситуации: строятся новые дороги, развязки, парковки, запрещается въезд грузового транспорта на территорию столицы с 6.00 до 22.00 и так далее. Однако до полного разрешения возникшей проблемы еще далеко. 

Did You Know?

"Nowadays, you probably cannot find even a single megalopolis that hasn't faced the problem of traffic jams, and Moscow, unfortunately, is not an exception. The situation with traffic jams on the roads of the capital of Russia, despite the efforts of local authorities, is only worsening year by year.

What are the reasons for these mile-long traffic jams? Experts, as a rule, emphasize one important reason: the exceeding of the maximum capacity of the roads in Moscow because of a large number of vehicles. However, there is also an opinion that from the beginning, the Moscow transport scheme was designed incorrectly, and the traffic jams are the consequences of design errors.

Constant traffic jams are an eternal source of stress for residents of the capital. They not only cause frequent traffic violations, and constant pollution, but also lead to conflicts between road users, especially if someone is in a hurry.

Nowadays, the Moscow city government is taking all the possible measures to improve the situation: new roads, interchanges, and parking areas are being built, the entrance to the territory of the capital by cargo vehicles is prohibited between 6 a.m and 10 p.m, and so on. However, there's still a long way to go until the full settlement of the problem."