Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Natalia: Здравствуйте, с Вами Natalia.
Yura: Yura here, Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 6; A full House in Russia.
Natalia: So Yura, what is this lesson about?
Yura: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about your family.
Natalia: And the conversation still takes place in a café.
Yura: They can’t leave can they? The conversation is between Ben and Nika.
Natalia: The speakers are the same age, so they will be speaking informal Russian.
Yura: Let’s listen in.
DIALOGUES
Natalia: Бен, у тебя есть брат или сестра?
Yura: Да, у меня есть старшая сестра и младший брат.
Natalia: Они живут в Нью-Йорке?
Yura: Нет, сестра живёт в Калифорнии, а брат – в Мичигане.
Natalia: А где твои родители?
Yura: Они живут в Орегоне. А где твоя семья?
Natalia: Моя семья живёт в Москве.
Yura: Okay, let’s do that one more time slowly.
Natalia: Бен, у тебя есть брат или сестра?
Yura: Да, у меня есть старшая сестра и младший брат.
Natalia: Они живут в Нью-Йорке?
Yura: Нет, сестра живёт в Калифорнии, а брат – в Мичигане.
Natalia: А где твои родители?
Yura: Они живут в Орегоне. А где твоя семья?
Natalia: Моя семья живёт в Москве.
Yura: Okay, one more time with natural native speed, with the translation.
Natalia: Бен, у тебя есть брат или сестра?
Yura: Ben, do you have a brother or a sister?
Natalia: Да, у меня есть старшая сестра и младший брат.
Yura: Yes, I have an older sister and a younger brother.
Natalia: Они живут в Нью-Йорке?
Yura: Do they live in New York?
Natalia: Нет, сестра живёт в Калифорнии, а брат – в Мичигане.
Yura: No. My sister lives in California and my brother lives in Michigan.
Natalia: А где твои родители?
Yura: Where are your parents?
Natalia: Они живут в Орегоне. А где твоя семья?
Yura: They live in Oregon. Where is your family?
Natalia: Моя семья живёт в Москве.
Yura: My family lives in Moscow.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Wow, Ben’s family is really scattered around America.
Natalia: Yeah and Russians are very attached to their families. It’s not common for a typical Russian family to be scattered around the country, let alone around the world.
Yura: I see. But kids do study abroad and marry foreigners, right?
Natalia: Of course, but it’s not as popular as in the European countries let’s say. It’s still a big deal in Russia especially for the lower and middle-class families.
Yura: Right. Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson.
VOCAB LIST
Yura: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson.
The first word is?
Natalia: есть
Yura: Have.
Natalia: есть
Yura: And the next word?
Natalia: брат
Yura: Brother.
Natalia: брат
Yura: And the next word?
Natalia: или
Yura: Or.
Natalia: или
Yura: And the next one?
Natalia: сестра
Yura: Sister.
Natalia: сестра
Yura: And the next word?
Natalia: старший
Yura: Older, elder.
Natalia: старший
Yura: And the next word?
Natalia: младший
Yura: Younger.
Natalia: младший
Yura: And the next word?
Natalia: родители
Yura: Parents.
Natalia: родители
Yura: And the last word is?
Natalia: семья
Yura: Family.
Natalia: семья
KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES
Yura: Okay, let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. Not too many words in this lesson. That’s nice.
Natalia: Well, it means we’ll have a bit heavier grammar part though.
Yura: Oh, just a little. So, first we should start with the phrase do you have.
Natalia: У тебя есть?
Yura: у тебя есть is the informal way of asking do you have. To make it sound more formal or polite, all we have to do is replace the informal you with the formal one.
Natalia: Right. We should change "тебя" into "Вас". So the formal do you have would sound as "У Вас есть?".
Yura: And the answer to that would be?
Natalia: У меня есть, I have.
Yura: So Nika asked Ben whether he had any siblings, right? Literally she asked, do you have a brother or a sister?
Natalia: Yes. That’s the way it’s usually asked, У тебя есть брат или сестра?
Yura: Брат, brother and сестра, sister. There is some similarity with the English brother and sister in "брат" and "сестра".
Natalia: Yes, they sound very much alike to me. And the short conjunction "или" means or in Russian, like in "чай или кофе?", tea or coffee?
Yura: Right. So, does Ben have a sister or brother?
Natalia: All of them. Старшая сестра an older sister and младший брат, a younger brother.
Yura: Here, we have to pay attention to some grammatical nuances. As you remember from the previous lessons, every noun or every object and person has a gender in Russian. Obviously сестра would be feminine and "брат" would be masculine. But we also have adjectives to go with them, older and younger, старшая and младший.
Natalia: The thing is the adjectives in Russian language have to correspond to the genders of the nouns. Therefore, the words older and younger should be put into the feminine and masculine genders respectively, старший брат and младшая сестра.
Yura: If the age difference between you and your siblings is opposite to Ben’s, you have an older brother and a younger sister, the endings of the adjectives would alter a little according to the genders.
Natalia: Right. It would sound as старший брат and младшая сестра.
Yura: Can you hear the pattern? The adjectives that go together with masculine nouns have the endings "ий", "старший, младший". And with feminine nouns, they end in "ая" – "старшая, младшая".
Natalia: So all adjectives have to match the gender of a noun they describe. Let’s take another adjective. For example "красивый", beautiful. Give me a feminine noun, Yura.
Yura: Erm… девушка?
Natalia: Okay, девушка, a girl. Together with beautiful, it would sound as "красивая девушка". Now, give me a masculine noun.
Yura: красивый
Natalia: Город, a city, great. So how do we say a beautiful city?
Yura: красивый город
Natalia: You got it, wonderful. So красивая for feminine and красивый for masculine. Next, Nika and Ben and talking about where those brothers and sisters live, but we have learned the verb for to live before, жить, so we won’t talk about it much now.
Yura: Yeah. Let’s move on to the new vocabulary. I think the next word was the parents.
Natalia: родители. It comes from the "родить", to give birth. And "родители" literally means those who gave birth.
Yura: And the question was, “Where are your parents?”
Natalia: где твои родители?
Yura: Right and the counter question, where is your family?
Natalia: Где твоя семья? "Семья" means family in Russian.
Yura: Great. We are done with the vocabulary.
GRAMMAR POINT
Now, let’s take a look at the grammar part. I think we have some things that should be discussed there. In this lesson, we’ll talk about two things, verbs and pronouns.
Natalia: Yes, let’s start with the verbs. We already know that in the present tense, Russian verbs change according to a person, like "Я живу, ты живёшь", I live, you live. And in the past tense, they are more defined according to gender. For example "Она родилась", "он родился", she was born, he was born.
Yura: Right. We know all that already. The only thing we have to learn today is just more conjugation according to a person in the present tense. Before we only learned how to use verbs with I and you. Today, we’ll add he, she and they.
Natalia: Yes. The verb that undergoes all those changes in our dialect is the verb "жить", to live.
Yura: We heard it used with brother and sister, the parents.
Natalia: Right. So, let’s start with I again. How do you say, “I live?”
Yura: Я живу
Natalia: And you live?
Yura: ты живёшь
Natalia: Great. I’m glad you remember that. Now, brother and sister, basically it’s just he and she. Luckily the verbs are changed in the same way for he, she and it. So on he, живёт lives and Она, she also живёт.Now, tell me he lives in New York.
Yura: Он живёт в Нью-Йорке.
Natalia: She lives in Canada.
Yura: Она живёт в Канаде
Natalia: Okay, that’s clear. Next, we have the parents which are basically they if we turn them into a pronoun. They would be "они" in Russian. So they live would sound as "они живут".
Yura: Like "они живут в России".
Natalia: Right. They live in Russia. Let’s repeat once again from the beginning, я живу – ya zhivu.
Yura: I live.
Natalia: ты живёшь – ty zhivyosh
Yura: You live.
Natalia: он, она живёт – on, ona zhivyot
Yura: He, she lives.
Natalia: они живут – oni zhivut
Yura: They live. Okay, I think we got it. Now, let’s move on to the pronouns.
Natalia: Okay. Well, pronouns in Russian may seem quite complicated at first as they take many different forms according to their function in a sentence.
Yura: Why don’t we take just a general look at them in this lesson?
Natalia: Okay. In this lesson, we came across some personal pronouns, I, you, he and so on and possessive pronouns, my, your and so on. First, I’m going to list to you all personal pronouns and Yura will translate them. Will you, Yura?
Yura: That doesn’t sound like a question. Sure, I will.
Natalia: Okay great. Here they are. Я – ya - I
Yura: I.
Natalia: Ты – ty
Yura: You.
Natalia: Вы – vy
Yura: You, the formal version.
Natalia: Он – on
Yura: He.
Natalia: Она – ona
Yura: She.
Natalia: Оно – ono
Yura: It.
Natalia: Мы – my
Yura: We.
Natalia: Они – oni
Yura: They. There’s nothing much to explain here. These pronouns just have to be memorized. Let’s talk about the progressive pronouns. They might cost more trouble for us potentially.
Natalia: But in this lesson, we’ll just talk about my and your pronouns, so it’s not going to be too hard.
Yura: Let me give you a short introduction into the possessive pronouns. In Russian, we have to take into consideration, the gender of the object that goes after the pronoun. For example, in the phrases, my bag, my phone, and my keys, the pronoun my will sound different in each case. As bag is feminine, phone is masculine, and keys are plural.
Natalia: Right. I’ll give you some examples of the pronouns my and your with masculine, feminine and plural nouns now. Listen carefully, мой брат.
Yura: My brother.
Natalia: твой телефон
Yura: Your telephone. брат and телефон are masculine.
Natalia: моя сестра
Yura: My sister.
Natalia: твоя семья
Yura: Your family. сестра and семья are feminine.
Natalia: мои родители
Yura: My parents.
Natalia: твои деньги
Yura: Your money. родители and деньги are plural.
Natalia: Now, all you have to do is just memorize these pronouns, personal and possessive. It will help you a lot with more defined other parts of speech later.
Yura: Okay, that just about does it for this lesson.
Natalia: Listeners, can you understand Russian TV shows, movies or songs?
Yura: How about your friends or loves ones, conversation in Russian?
Natalia: If you want to know what’s going on, we have a tool to help.
Yura: Line by line audio.
Natalia: Listen to the lesson conversations line by line and learn to understand natural Russian fast.
Yura: It’s simple really.
Natalia: With a click of a button, listen to each line of the conversation.
Yura: Listen again and again and tune your ears to natural Russian.
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Yura: Find this feature on the lesson page under premium member resources at RussianPod101.com.

Outro

Yura: Bye

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