Russian A Self Teaching Guide by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Russia, Moscow, Russian Grammar, Declinations, Language, Russian Language, Русский Язык, Россия, Colloquial Russian, Russian Primer, Language Course, Slavic Languages

Teacher:

We will be reading about Russia a lot. Let’s begin today.

Mark:

What are we going to read about today?

Teacher:

Today we’re going to read about the Far East.

Pamela:

Conversation Notes

Great! We still know very little about the Far East.

1. Russian schoolchildren traditionally return to school every year on September 1, except if that date falls on a weekend. In the younger grades they bring

flowers for their teachers on the first day of school. Russian children wear uniforms. Almost every little girl wears a large bow in her hair called a fiamitK.

2. The teacher introduces himself as Anton Pavlovich, using his first name and patronymic. This is a very formal type of address. It is comparable to Western usage of an honorific such as Mr. plus last name, which is rarely encountered in Russia. To give you an idea of the formality of first name and patronymic, the Russian leader is addressed this way in almost all situations: «MHxaiiji CepreeBim, mu xorejiii 6bi...» would roughly correspond to “Mr. Gorbachev, we would like to.... ”

3. The situation in this dialogue is a Russian language class for advanced foreigners. They are still young, so the teacher addresses them individually as tw but as a group as bw {you all).

Aspect

For each verb in English there exist two forms in Russian, called the imperfective and the perfective aspect. These forms serve to convey different ideas about the nature of the verb, whether the focus is on completion or result (perfective), or whether the emphasis is on the action itself (imperfective). This dual nature of the Russian verb produces an extremely simple verb system of only five tenses: the imperfective past and future, the perfective past and future, and the present tense, which is imperfective only. The concepts upon which this system depends, however, are as opaque and impenetrable as the use of articles is in English for foreign speakers. You will make progress in understanding the difference between the forms and in choosing the correct aspect, but you will never achieve complete proficiency in this area. But there is hope: first, your chances of making the right choice are 50-50, and second, if you make a mistake you will still be understood—you will just sound odd.

Perfective verbs in Russian convey the idea of completeness, and they may often point to the result or product of the action of the verb or emphasize the moment of completion. This is the bottom line. You must have a specific, compelling reason for using the perfective aspect. If you do not, then the imperfective is used. The imperfective, therefore, is the default verb.

Some words in a sentence may lead you to choose perfective. Among them are yace and HaKOHeij, which point to a result that has been awaited or expected: «Bbi yace npourrajm nepisi.iii ypoK?» By using the perfective aspect, the teacher is asking whether the students have completed reading the first chapter and, by implication, whether they know the material.

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