Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Oxana: [Привет всем, я Оксана!]
Eddie: Eddie here. Gengo Russian Season 1, Lesson 17. Lost in translation. Finding yourself in Russian. So on today’s lesson we have a little lost in translation.
Oxana: Yes, alone in a strange land. John is saved from eternal wandering and doomed in a strange land by the good fortune of a cell phone.
Eddie: Yes, your friend is in a strange land.
Oxana: And his nice friends manage to save him too.
Eddie: Could it be that he’s a little hangover.
Oxana: It could very well be. That wouldn’t help.
Eddie: Well, let’s recap the events of last night for a moment.
Oxana: And what we learned from it.
Eddie: Well, hopefully, we learned how to fake drinking vodka, but more importantly we learned some Russian.
Oxana: Well, there was some important key vocabulary. For example, the phrase for “Are you free tomorrow” is [Вы завтра свободны?].
Eddie: : Another great phrase was [На всякий случай]. Basically it means “just in case”. In our case, the phrase referred to a cell phone.
Oxana: We also learned a few dinner ice-breakers, real Russian toasts such as [За встречу. За знакомство].
Eddie: Yes, remember? “To the meeting”, “to the new acquaintance”.
Oxana: Yes, and then a vodka shot and a juicy [шашлык] to go with it. [очень вкусно]
Eddie: Oh yes, sounds really delicious. Ok, well those are all some great things. Today’s lesson I find quite riveting as I’ve been in this situation so many times in Russia.
Oxana: Yes, me too. So let’s hear how John gets saved by the cellphone like so many before him.
Eddie: Let’s listen to the conversation.
DIALOGUE
Виктор: [Алло!]
Victor: Allo!
Джон: [Алло, это Джон.]
John: Allo, eto John.
Виктор: [Где вы, Джон?]
Victor: Gde vy, John?
Джон: [Я на вокзале. Но где конкретно, я не знаю.]
John: Ya na vokzale. No gde konkretno, ya ne znayu.
Виктор: [Мы тоже на вокзале, но мы вас не видим. Что сейчас рядом с вами, что вы видите?]
Victor: My tozhe na vokzale, no my vas ne vidim. Chto seichas ryadom s vami, chto vy vidite?
Джон: [Какой-то магазин.]
John: Kakoi-to magazin.
Виктор: [Понятно, стойте там, мы сейчас подойдём.]
Victor: Ponyatno, stoite tam, my seichas podoidyom.
Джон: [Спасибо, я жду.]
John: Spasibo, ya zhdu.
Виктор: [Здравствуйте, Джон. Наконец-то мы вас нашли, идёмте.]
Victor: Zdravstvuite, John. Nakonetso-to my vas nashli, idyomte.
Джон: [Извините за беспокойство.]
John: Izvinite za bespokoistvo.
Eddie: Once again, more slowly.
Oxana: Ещё раз, медленнее.
Виктор: [Алло!]
Victor: Allo!
Джон: [Алло, это Джон.]
John: Allo, eto John.
Виктор: [Где вы, Джон?]
Victor: Gde vy, John?
Джон: [Я на вокзале. Но где конкретно, я не знаю.]
John: Ya na vokzale. No gde konkretno, ya ne znayu.
Виктор: [Мы тоже на вокзале, но мы вас не видим. Что сейчас рядом с вами, что вы видите?]
Victor: My tozhe na vokzale, no my vas ne vidim. Chto seichas ryadom s vami, chto vy vidite?
Джон: [Какой-то магазин.]
John: Kakoi-to magazin.
Виктор: [Понятно, стойте там, мы сейчас подойдём.]
Victor: Ponyatno, stoite tam, my seichas podoidyom.
Джон: [Спасибо, я жду.]
John: Spasibo, ya zhdu.
Виктор: [Здравствуйте, Джон. Наконец-то мы вас нашли, идёмте.]
Victor: Zdravstvuite, John. Nakonetso-to my vas nashli, idyomte.
Джон: [Извините за беспокойство.]
John: Izvinite za bespokoistvo.
Eddie: Once again, with the translation.
Oxana: Ещё раз, с переводом.
Oxana: [Алло!]
Eddie: Hello.
Oxana: [Алло, это Джон.]
Eddie: Hello, it’s John.
Oxana: [Где вы, Джон?]
Eddie: Where are you John?
Oxana: [Я на вокзале. Но где конкретно, я не знаю.]
Eddie: I'm at the railway station but I don’t know where exactly.
Oxana: [Мы тоже на вокзале, но мы вас не видим. Что сейчас рядом с вами, что вы видите?]
Eddie: We’re also at the station but we can’t see you. What’s near you? What can you see?
Oxana: [Какой-то магазин.]
Eddie: Some store.
Oxana: [Понятно, стойте там, мы сейчас подойдём.]
Eddie: Got it. Stay there, we’ll come up now.
Oxana: [Спасибо, я жду.]
Eddie: Thank you, I’ll wait.
Oxana: [Здравствуйте, Джон. Наконец-то мы вас нашли, идёмте.]
Eddie: Hello, John. Finally we found you. Let’s go.
Oxana: [Извините за беспокойство.]
Eddie: Sorry to have hassled you guys.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Eddie: That was kind of stressful. I think that talking on the phone in a train station is chaotic enough in your own land, but in another language in a strange place it’s much worse.
Oxana: Yes, it’s easy to get lost in Russia as well, especially at the railway station. Just so many people.
Eddie: Ok, well, let’s look at what words we’re going to need not to get lost in translation.
VOCAB LIST
Eddie: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson.
Oxana: [где]
Eddie: Where.
Oxana: [где]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [вокзал]
Eddie: Railway station.
Oxana: [вокзал]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [конкретно]
Eddie: Specifically, exactly.
Oxana: [конкретно]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [знать]
Eddie: To know.
Oxana: [знать]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [видеть]
Eddie: To see.
Oxana: [видеть]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [сейчас]
Eddie: Now.
Oxana: [сейчас]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [рядом]
Eddie: Near, close.
Oxana: [рядом]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [какой-то]
Eddie: Some, certain.
Oxana: [какой-то]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [магазин]
Eddie: Shop, store.
Oxana: [магазин]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [понятно]
Eddie: Understood, clear, I got it.
Oxana: [понятно]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [стоять]
Eddie: To stand, to stay.
Oxana: [стоять]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [там]
Eddie: There.
Oxana: [там]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [подходить]
Eddie: To come up.
Oxana: [подходить]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [ждать]
Eddie: To wait.
Oxana: [ждать]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [найти]
Eddie: To find.
Oxana: [найти]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [идти]
Eddie: To go (on foot).
Oxana: [идти]
Eddie: Next.
Oxana: [беспокойство]
Eddie: Trouble, disturbance, bother, inconvenience.
Oxana: [беспокойство]
VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE
Eddie: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson.
Oxana: You’re already familiar with some of the vocabulary mentioned, but it wouldn’t hurt to refresh it, right?
Eddie: Of course not. First of all, let’s take a look at the word for “where”.
Oxana: [где/ Где вы Джон?]
Eddie: Where are you, John?
Oxana: Actually, I’d like to refresh some of the other question words with you very quickly. So here we go. [что]
Eddie: What.
Oxana: [кто]
Eddie: Who.
Oxana: [как]
Eddie: How.
Oxana: [когда]
Eddie: When.
Oxana: [сколько]
Eddie: How much, how many.
Oxana: [во сколько]
Eddie: What time.
Oxana: [какой/какая/какое/какие]
Eddie: “Which, what kind.” Great recap. So [Где] is John now.
Oxana: [На вокзале, но где конкретно...]
Eddie: [Конкретно] Today we learned this word as an adverb, but we’ve met it before in the context of [адрес], remember? Specific or exact address. Today it means “specifically” or exactly. So John knows that he’s at the railway station, but he doesn’t know where exactly.
Oxana: Right, he says [Я не знаю] which means “I don’t know”. The word [знаю] comes from the dictionary form [знать.
Eddie: Now his new friend Victor and his companions [тоже на вокзале] also at the railway station but…
Oxana: [Мы вас не видим] “We can’t see you”. The verb [видим] comes from [видеть] meaning “to see”.
Eddie: The only way to understand John’s location is to ask what’s around him. This is exactly what Victor does.
Oxana: [Что сейчас рядом с вами?]
Eddie: Let’s break it down into [что] is “what”, [сейчас] means “now”, [рядом] stands for “near” and [с вами] is “with you”. So literally the whole phrase sounds like “what now near you” and in case John didn’t understand the phrase, Victor puts it in different words.
Oxana: [Что вы видите?]
Eddie: “What do you see?” The next word we heard is used to describe undetermined or unspecified objects and is translated into English as “some” or “certain”. The only difference is that in Russian these words should be changed according to genders. [Какой-то] is used to describe masculine nouns. For example, [Какой-то парень] means “some guy”. With feminine nouns it sounds like [Какая-то]. For example [Какая-то девушка] means “some girl”. With neutral nouns, [Какое-то]. For example, [Какое-то здание] “some building”. And with plural nouns it should be [Какие-то]. For example [Какие-то люди] meaning “some people”.
Eddie: In our dialogue it’s used with the masculine [магазин] which means “a shop” or “a store” in Russian. And Victor seems to be pretty familiar with the station.
Oxana: Yes, because he immediately says [Понятно].
Eddie: “I got it”, the literal meaning of which is “understood” or “clear”. “Stay there,” he says.
Oxana: [Стойте там] The word [стойте] comes from the infinitive [стоять] and is used in a command form here. [там] means “there” remember? It’s the opposite of [здесь], meaning “here”.
Eddie: Then we had the phrase “We’ll come up now” where [мы] means “we”, [сейчас] means “now” or “in the very near future”, and [подойдём] means “come up” in the future tense.
Oxana: It comes from the word [подходить], “to come up”.
Eddie: Yes, we’ll delve into the grammar of all these weird sounding verbs a bit more in a second, but suffice it to know that it’s an imperfective verb which means “to come up” usually or regularly. The complete or perfective aspect will turn this verb into…
Oxana: [подойти] meaning “to come up”.
Eddie: Right. So John is afraid to move from there and is waiting for Victor to pick him up. He says…
Oxana: [Спасибо, я жду.]
Eddie: Which is “thank you, I’ll wait”.
Oxana: [Жду] comes from the verb [ждать] meaning “to wait”. There is no progressive forms of the verbs in Russian, so there is no division into “I wait” and “I'm waiting”. At least that’s something to cheer you up with.
Eddie: Don’t worry, we’ll go over the verbs again in the grammar point part. So Victor finds John finally. What does he say again?
Oxana: [Наконец-то мы вас нашли, идёмте.]
Eddie: “Finally, we found you! Let’s go.” We see another two verbs here, [нашли] “found” and [идёмте] “let’s go”.
Oxana: [нашли] comes from the verb [находить] and [идёмте] is a form of [идти].
Eddie: And the desert phrase for today is…
Oxana: [Извините за беспокойство.]
Eddie: Which is “I'm sorry to trouble you” or “I'm sorry to have caused you trouble”. This phrase doesn’t have a tense but it has multiple usages.
Oxana: That’s true. You can say [Извините за беспокойство.] before entering somebody’s office or after a tiring talk on the phone when you feel like you’ve asked too many questions. Whenever you feel that you inconvenience a person, have just done so or will do so in the future, you can use it as an apology.

Lesson focus

Eddie: So today we’ll continue digging deeper into Russian verbs. It might seem a bit complicated at first but after you learn at least 20 Russian verbs you’ll see a clear pattern in their conjugations and won’t have any more trouble using them in any tense, in any gender, with any pronoun or in any aspect.
Oxana: You started so inspirationally, but in the end it just sounds sounded awful. Just the number of things you mentioned that should be taken into consideration when learning verbs is overwhelming.
Eddie: I’ve always thought that the cruel truth is better than a sweet lie. So let’s remind you what Russian verbs are all about. First of all, they have three tenses.
Oxana: Only three tenses, unlike English?
Eddie: Yes, only three tenses. Present, past and future, but such simplicity is complicated by aspects - perfective and imperfective. Remember what they are?
Oxana: I’ll remind you. We use imperfective for incomplete, ongoing, habitual, reversed or repeated actions. We use perfective for actions completed successful.
Eddie: Right. Next, when we’re talking about the present and future tense, we have to modify each verb according to the person. Let’s try and conjugate some of the verbs from our dialogue.
Oxana: For example, “to know” [знать] and “to see” [видеть]. In the present tense they will sound like [Я знаю. Я вижу].
Eddie: I know, I see.
Oxana: [Мы знаем. Мы видим.]
Eddie: We know, we see.
Oxana: [Ты знаешь. Ты ]
Eddie: You know, you see.
Oxana: [Вы знаете. Вы видите.]
Eddie: You know, you see (plural or polite form).
Oxana: [Он/она/оно знает. Он/она/оно видят.]
Eddie: He/she or it knows. He/she or it sees.
Oxana: [Они знают. Они видят.]
Eddie: “They know. They see.” We should also mention the command form. Fortunately, there’s no command form for the verb “to see” because you can’t make a person see if he simply can’t, right? You can say “look” but not “see”, but there is a command for the verb “to know”.
Oxana: [Знай] or [Знайте] if it’s a polite form.
Eddie: Which sounds a bit strange in English, ordering to know something. But in Russian it can be translated as “you should know”. Next, the future tense. Here we should mention the aspects as there are two ways of forming the future tense. First the imperfective aspect, it couldn’t be easier - just take the verb “to be”, [быть], conjugate it according to the person and add an infinitive of the verb you’re talking about in the future. For example…
Oxana: [Я буду знать.]
Eddie: I will know.
Oxana: [Мы будем знать.]
Eddie: We will know.
Oxana: [Ты будешь знать.]
Eddie: You will know (singular of informal form).
Oxana: [Вы будете знать.]
Eddie: You will know (plural or polite form).
Oxana: [Он/ она/ оно будет знать.]
Eddie: He/she or it will know.
Oxana: [Они будут знать.]
Eddie: “They will know.” And forming the perfective aspect. Let’s say it takes some effort, mostly you’ll have to memorize them but we got lucky with the verb “to see” as it’s only different from the present tense in one letter. Listen.
Oxana: [Я увижу.]
Eddie: I will see.
Oxana: [Мы увидем.]
Eddie: We will see.
Oxana: [Ты увидешь.]
Eddie: You will see (singular or informal form).
Oxana: [Вы увидете.]
Eddie: You will see (plural or polite form).
Oxana: [Он/она/оно увидит.]
Eddie: He/she or it will see.
Oxana: [Они увидят.]
Eddie: “They will see.” Now let’s take a look at the past tense. What we have to consider here is gender and number. Let’s listen to the examples.
Oxana: Masculine. [Я знал/он видел.]
Eddie: I knew, he saw.
Oxana: [Я знала. Она видела.]
Eddie: I knew, she saw.
Oxana: Neutral. [Оно знало. Оно видело.]
Eddie: It knew, it saw.
Oxana: Plural. [Мы знали. Мы видели.]
Eddie: “We knew, they saw.” Give us some example sentences so we can engrave these verbs in our memory.
Oxana: Ok, first for the present tense. [Я знаю эту девушку.]
Eddie: I know this girl.
Oxana: [Мы тебя не видим.]
Eddie: We can’t see you.
Oxana: [Куда ты идешь?]
Eddie: Where are you going?
Oxana: Now the past tense. [Она стояла и ждала его.]
Eddie: She was standing and waiting for him.
Oxana: [Они нас видели. но не подошли.]
Eddie: They saw us but didn’t come up.
Oxana: [Наконец-то я нашла ключи.]
Eddie: Finally, I found my keys.
Oxana: And finally the future tense. [Знайте, я так этого не оставлю.]
Eddie: You should know I won’t leave it like this.
Oxana: [Мы никогда не узнаем кто это сделал.]
Eddie: We’ll never know who did this.
Oxana: [Когда я увижу тебя в следующий раз?]
Eddie: When will I see you next time?
Oxana: [Когда-нибудь мы найдём друг друга.]
Eddie: “Someday we’ll find each other.” The last two sentences were kind of romantic.
Oxana: Yes, they were. We can dream about the romantic future a bit.

Outro

Eddie: Later, Oxanna. For now I'm going to repeat some essential things about the Russian verbs that I want all of you to remember. Unlike English, the Russian language has only three basic tenses: present, past and future. The verbs in the present and future tenses are conjugated according to persons. The verbs in the past tense are conjugated according to gender and number. All tenses have perfective and imperfective aspects. However, they’re most obvious in the past and future tenses. Today, the aspect of verbs is only touched on in the future tense. That just about does it for today. Ok. [До свидания.]
Oxana: [До новых встреч. Пока!]
Eddie: [Пока!]
--
Виктор: [Алло!]
Victor: Allo!
Джон: [Алло, это Джон.]
John: Allo, eto John.
Виктор: [Где вы, Джон?]
Victor: Gde vy, John?
Джон: [Я на вокзале. Но где конкретно, я не знаю.]
John: Ya na vokzale. No gde konkretno, ya ne znayu.
Виктор: [Мы тоже на вокзале, но мы вас не видим. Что сейчас рядом с вами, что вы видите?]
Victor: My tozhe na vokzale, no my vas ne vidim. Chto seichas ryadom s vami, chto vy vidite?
Джон: [Какой-то магазин.]
John: Kakoi-to magazin.
Виктор: [Понятно, стойте там, мы сейчас подойдём.]
Victor: Ponyatno, stoite tam, my seichas podoidyom.
Джон: [Спасибо, я жду.]
John: Spasibo, ya zhdu.
Виктор: [Здравствуйте, Джон. Наконец-то мы вас нашли, идёмте.]
Victor: Zdravstvuite, John. Nakonetso-to my vas nashli, idyomte.
Джон: [Извините за беспокойство.]
John: Izvinite za bespokoistvo.

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