Learn Russian from the beginning! Lesson Two

You will learn

• to talk about members of the family
• to talk about where you live and where you work
• to use numbers up to 20
• one or two crucial phrases for beginners

and you will be given an introduction to Russia and the Russian Federation.

Before you begin

As in Lesson 1, use the Study guide below to check your progress.

Study guide

1. Ira asks Anna Ivanovna about her family.

2. Maria Dmitrievna asks whether Olya has a brother or sister.

или [ili] or

Practice what you have learned

Before each exercise, read the instructions and then turn on the recording.

1. On your recording you will hear five snatches of conversation. Listen to them and decide whether the following statements are true or false.

I. Ivan is married. true; false.
II. Tanya is married. true; false.
III. Musya has a daughter. true; false.
IV. Boris Alekseevich’s daughter is called Natasha. true; false.
V. Masha's sister is called Sonya. true; false.

2. Mila is asking a man, Ivan Antonovich, and a young girl, Tanya about their families. Listen to the dialogues first with your book closed, then again, following the text. Using your pause button, fill in the gaps. The words omitted are listed in the box below but they're not in order.

Иван Антонович, у вас есть семья?

I. Да, я
А дети есть?

II. У меня есть
А как её [yiyo] зовут?

III. Её [yiyo] Оля [Olya]

She then chats with a young girl, Tanya.

Таня, у тебя есть брат или сестра?

IV. У меня брат.

(The unfamiliar letters in these words are in the Alphabet section)

3. Anna Sergeevna asks Sergey Mikhailovich what his profession is

филолог [filolag] philologist (here is used linguist [лингвист - lingvist] though it is not correct...)
в издательстве Советская энциклопедия [vizdatil'stvye Savyetskaya intsiklapediya] for the publishers of Soviet Encyclopedia

4. And what is Tamara's profession?

инженер [inzhineer] engineer (used for both men and women)
на заводе [na zavodye] in a factory

5.
Tamara asks Lyena what her husband does.

печатник [pichatnik] printer
в типографии [ftipagrafiyi] at a printing press

Practice what you have learned

As before, read the instructions for each particular exercise before you turn on the recording.

3. Ilya asks Darya Ivanovna what she and members of her family do for a living. Listen to the interview and then try matching up the people and their jobs.

4. Some people are asked where they work. Listen carefully, then look at the pictures and see if you can name the person in each scene. Their names are given in the box below.

6. Tanya wants to know where Boris Mikhailovich lives

на Остоженке [na Astozhinkye] on Ostozhinka street

7. Boris Mikhailovich gives Tanya his work and home phone numbers. Can you write them in numerals?

запишите мой телефон [zapishitye moy tilifon] take down my telephone number
на работе [na rabotye] at work

Now turn on the recording and follow Andrei while he reads the numbers aloud.

8. Ira is looking for the nearest subway station.

здесь [zdyes'] here, in the vicinity
станция метро [stantsiya mitro] subway station

Practice what you have learned

5. Participants in a folk concert in Moscow are asked where they live. Listen to their answers on your recording, then match the names below with the places.

I. Таня ; II. Тарас ; III. Мария ; IV. Олесь ; V. Нина
(а) в Минске; (b) в Москве; (с) в Киеве; (d) в Вене; (е) в Бонне

6. Masha finds it easiest to add up aloud. Listen to the recording, then fill in the missing numbers.

I. два [dva] + один [adin] =
II. семь [syem'] + = девять [dyevit']
III. один + три [tri] + три =
IV. + семь = десять [dyesit']
V. девять + = одиннадцать [adinnatsat']
VI. восемь [vosim'] + = девять

7. In this exercise, you take the role of a Ukrainian, Oksana. You live in Kiev, and, yes, you do speak Russian, but your English is pretty bad. You will need to use:

я живу [ya zhivu]
я говорю (ya gavaryu]

You'll find the numbers from 1 to 20 in the notes to dialogue 7.

In this unit you will practice reading and writing the letters that you already know and you will learn five new ones. The transliteration should help with pronunciation, but let Andrei guide you.

If you can glance over the alphabet even for just a few minutes every day, you'll find that apparently formidable letters soon become familiar.

The new letters are:

This last letter doesn't have a sound on its own. Instead it makes the consonant before it 'soft'. If this means nothing to you, listen to Andrei and try to follow the way he pronounces the following two words:

Гоголь [Gogol'] a famous writer
гол [gol] a goal in sports

Can you recognize the following cities and countries?

8. Which word is out of place in each horizontal list?

As in Lesson 1, try writing out all the words above.

9. A little geography with your Russian! The following lists of cities and countries have been jumbled up. Can you link up each city with its country? Only names with letters you haven't met are transliterated.

10. Look at the following pictures and then write out the name of the thing in the space provided. All the words are jumbled in the box below.

In Lesson 1 you saw how words that describe a noun change. This is not all! The noun itself has different endings depending on its role in the sentence, or which preposition it follows. In this unit you will see different endings after в [v] and на [na] meaning 'in', 'at', 'on'.

Before we look at these endings, a word of advice: you should be aware of these endings, but do not let them inhibit you. A wrong ending will rarely prevent you from being understood, and indeed when you listen to people speaking, you may not even be able to hear the ending.

If you ask where something is где...? [gdye ....?], the answer is likely to begin with the preposition в [v] or на [na]. There are rules as to when в is used, and when на, but there are also a bewildering number of exceptions! Whichever preposition is used, the ending of the noun will change, normally ending in -e.

Вот Киев. Я живу в Киеве. [Vot Kiev. Ya zhivu fKievye]
Here is Kiev. I live in Kiev.

Вот Москва. Я живу в Москве. [Vot Maskva. Ya zhivu vMaskvye]
Here is Moscow. I live in Moscow.

As you see, в before some consonants is pronounced [f]. This is simply because it is impossible to pronounce it as [v]!

11. Here is a list of people along with the cities they live in. Using the first sentence as an example, write down what the other people would say.

12. Can you answer the question next to each picture? The words are listed in the box below, but you'll need to change the endings.

Did you know

Russia

Since the time of Peter the Great, Russian writers and intellectuals have debated Russia's place in the world: is it part of Europe, part of Asia, or does it have a role peculiarly its own?

We will not attempt to find an answer here, but it is easy to understand how the question might arise. The Russian Federation’s huge territory spans two continents, extending from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and from Murmansk in the far North to Irkutsk near the Chinese border.

Russia’s population in 1989 was 145 million. Some 80 per cent are Russians. These, like their neighbors the Ukrainians and Byelorussians, are Eastern Slavs. They trace their common roots to Kievan Rus’, which flourished and grew from about AD 900 to AD 1240. Kiev is now the capital of Ukraine, while Russia’s capital is Moscow.

There are also a large number of non-Slavic national minorities within the Russian Federation. Some of these have ‘autonomous republic’ or ‘autonomous region’ status. During the Soviet period (1917-1991), this autonomy remained largely on paper. With the break-up of the Soviet Union, calls for greater independence have been heard from many ethnic groups.

Russia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

There has long been a tendency to treat these two terms as interchangeable. This is quite misleading. Within the Soviet Union the Russian Federal Republic (RSFSR) was the biggest of fifteen republics: the others were Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan and Kirgistan. After the failed coup of 1991, the Russian Federal Republic was among the first to declare independence from the Soviet Union and one of the most instrumental in bringing about the latter's demise. The fairly widespread assumption that the Russian Federation is the 'heir apparent' to the Soviet regime has led to resentment in many of the other republics.

Throughout the Soviet period the Russian language was spoken in all the republics. At one stage this was the language for ‘getting ahead’, and in many republics it was difficult to find a school which taught in the native language. While this has now changed, it is probable that Russian will remain a lingua franca in a large number of the republics.

In an attempt to create a new 'Soviet man', the Soviet authorities encouraged people to settle in other republics. Under Stalin vast numbers of people, indeed whole nationalities, were sent into exile or forcibly resettled. As a result, in all the republics of the former USSR there are a considerable number of Russians and other national minorities. While some have integrated fully, others have not and are increasingly expressing dissatisfaction with their status in the newly independent countries.

Your turn to speak

13. In the first exercise, you will be asking Aleksandr Nikolaevich some questions. You will be using:

у вас есть...? [uvas yest'...?]
как его зовут? [kak yivo zavut?]

14. This time you will be playing the role of Anna Sergeevna, a physicist who lives in Moscow and works in an institute. You will need the words:

физик [fizik]
я работаю [ya rabotayu]
институт [institut]
я живу [ya zhivu]