Learn about the genitive case of singular adjectives and possessive pronouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Yuriy: Hello and welcome back to RussianPod101.com. This is Lower Beginner season 1, lesson 24 - Talking Politics in Russia. I’m Yuriy. |
| Elena: А я Елена. Привет. Hello, I’m Elena. |
| Yuriy: In this lesson, you'll learn about the genitive case of singular adjectives and possessive pronouns in Russian. |
| Elena: The conversation takes place in a cafe. |
| Yuriy: The speakers are friends, so they’ll be using informal Russian. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Алекс: Лера, ты знаешь, что скоро будут выборы? Ты за кого будешь голосовать? |
| Лера: За известного депутата Максимова. Я слышала, что он обещал построить новые школы и детские сады, а так же отремонтировать дороги. |
| Алекс: А я слышал, что кроме этого, он обещал повысить пенсии. |
| Лера: Надеюсь, он сможет закрутить гайки чиновникам и хоть чуть-чуть уменьшить коррупцию. |
| Aleks: Lera, ty znayesh', chto skoro budut vybory? Ty za kogo budesh' golosovat'? |
| Lera: Za izvestnogo deputata Maksimova. YA slyshala, chto on obeshchal postroit' novyye shkoly i detskiye sady, a tak zhe otremontirovat' dorogi. |
| Aleks: A ya slyshal, chto krome etogo, on obeshchal povysit' pensii. |
| Lera: Nadeyus', on smozhet zakrutit' gayki chinovnikam i khot' chut'-chut' umen'shit' korruptsiyu. |
| Алекс: Лера, ты знаешь, что скоро будут выборы? Ты за кого будешь голосовать? |
| Yuriy: Lera, you know that there will be elections soon? Who will you vote for? |
| Лера: За известного депутата Максимова. Я слышала, что он обещал построить новые школы и детские сады, а так же отремонтировать дороги. |
| Yuriy: For the well-known deputy Maximov. I heard that he promised to build new schools and kindergartens, as well as to repair the roads. |
| Алекс: А я слышал, что кроме этого, он обещал повысить пенсии. |
| Yuriy: I've heard that, in addition to this, he promised to increase pensions. |
| Лера: Надеюсь, он сможет закрутить гайки чиновникам и хоть чуть-чуть уменьшить коррупцию. |
| Yuriy: I hope he'll be able to put the screws on officials and even to reduce corruption perhaps a little bit. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Yuriy: Recently, I saw the Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International. And to be honest, Russia's not ranking so good! |
| Elena: I know. It came in 133 out of 176 countries. |
| Yuriy: I guess it's become a national problem. |
| Elena: You're right. But the government does its best to fight it. New methods of attacking corruption are developed, and criminal cases against corrupt officials are opened, but still, there is still much left to do. |
| Yuriy: Knowing the Russian soul, I'd guess Russian people joke a lot about it. |
| Elena: Of course, there are a lot of sites with anecdotes on this topic. |
| Yuriy: And famous Russian comedians sometimes joke about the scale of corruption in Russia, as well as about typical officials. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Elena выборы [natural native speed] |
| Yuriy elections |
| Elena выборы [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elena выборы [natural native speed] |
| Elena коррупция [natural native speed] |
| Yuriy corruption |
| Elena коррупция [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elena коррупция [natural native speed] |
| Elena голосовать [natural native speed] |
| Yuriy to vote |
| Elena голосовать [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elena голосовать [natural native speed] |
| Elena обещать [natural native speed] |
| Yuriy to promise |
| Elena обещать [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elena обещать [natural native speed] |
| Elena отремонтировать [natural native speed] |
| Yuriy to repair |
| Elena отремонтировать [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elena отремонтировать [natural native speed] |
| Elena повысить [natural native speed] |
| Yuriy to increase, raise |
| Elena повысить [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elena повысить [natural native speed] |
| Elena уменьшить [natural native speed] |
| Yuriy to reduce |
| Elena уменьшить [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elena уменьшить [natural native speed] |
| Elena закрутить гайки [natural native speed] |
| Yuriy put the screws on |
| Elena закрутить гайки [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elena закрутить гайки [natural native speed] |
| Elena пенсия [natural native speed] |
| Yuriy pension |
| Elena пенсия [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elena пенсия [natural native speed] |
| Elena построить [natural native speed] |
| Yuriy to build |
| Elena построить [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elena построить [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Yuriy: Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase for this lesson is… |
| Elena: закрутить гайки, which can be translated as "put the screws on." |
| Yuriy: Let's break down this phrase to see the meaning of each word. |
| Elena: The verb закрутить means "to screw, and the plural noun гайки means “screw-nuts." |
| Yuriy: So, the phrase literally means "to screw screw-nuts." The meaning of this phrase is “to make some rules, orders, or requirements more severe or tougher." This phrase is widely used in Russian newspapers, especially concerning topics about governmental policy related to corruption, the responsibilities of officials, immigration, and taxes. For example... |
| Elena: Правительство планирует закрутить гайки нелегальным иммигрантам. |
| Yuriy: "The government plans to put the screws on illegal immigrants." OK, what’s the next keyword? |
| Elena: The second keyword for this lesson is a verb, повысить, which has several meanings. |
| Yuriy: The first meaning is “to transfer someone to a higher-paid, more responsible position." Or it can be translated as "to promote." For example... |
| Elena: Меня повысили на работе. |
| Yuriy: “I got promoted at work.” The second meaning of this word is “to raise” or “to increase,” for example raising taxes, prices, or blood pressure. Can we have an example with this use? |
| Elena: В Украине повысили цены на бензин на 1 процент. |
| Yuriy: “In Ukraine, the gasoline prices were raised by one percent.” How about another? |
| Elena: У мамы повысилось давление. |
| Yuriy: "My mother's blood pressure became elevated." Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Yuriy: In this lesson, you’ll learn about the genitive case of singular adjectives, and possessive pronouns in Russian. |
| Elena: The questions of the genitive case of singular adjectives are Какого? for masculine and neuter adjectives, and Какой? for feminine adjectives. |
| Yuriy: These can be translated into English as "which?" or "what?” Now let's take a look at the formation of adjectives in the genitive case. Masculine and neuter adjectives follow the same rules. If in singular form, an adjective has a stem ending in a hard consonant, the ending in the genitive case will be [ого]. For example... |
| Elena: близкий |
| Yuriy: "close" changes to... |
| Elena: близкого |
| Yuriy: And now a neuter one... |
| Elena: тихое |
| Yuriy: "silent" changes to... |
| Elena: тихого. |
| Yuriy: Adjectives with a stem ending in a soft consonant or in [-ж, -ч, -ш, or -щ] with an unstressed ending, have the ending [его]. For example... |
| Elena: синий |
| Yuriy: "blue" changes to... |
| Elena: синего |
| Yuriy: and another one... |
| Elena: младший |
| Yuriy: "younger" changes to... |
| Elena: младшего |
| Yuriy: Feminine adjectives with a stem ending in a hard consonant change their ending to [ой]. And those with a soft consonant change to [ей]. For example... |
| Elena: громкая |
| Yuriy: "loud" changes to... |
| Elena: громкой |
| Yuriy: One more please. |
| Elena: синяя |
| Yuriy: "blue" changes to... |
| Elena: синей |
| Yuriy: Okay. Now its time for pronunciation tips. |
| Elena: There are two very important rules about voiced and voiceless consonants. |
| Yuriy: If a voiceless consonant is followed by voiced one, it should be pronounced like its voiced counterpart. |
| Elena: For example, lets take the word экзамен. We write it as эк-за-мен, but pronounce it as эг-за-мен. |
| Yuriy: It's because the voiceless letter к is followed by the voiced з. And we know that г and к form a pair, where г is voiced and к is voiceless. That's why the voiceless letter к, when followed by a voiced з, changes its pronunciation to its counterpart г. |
| Elena: And the other rule is, if a voiced consonant is followed by voiceless one, it should be pronounced like its voiceless counterpart. |
| Yuriy: For example? |
| Elena: Let’s take a word вторник. We write it as в-тор-ник, but pronounce it as ftornik. |
| Yuriy: This is because the voiced letter в is followed by a voiceless т. And we know that в and ф form a pair, where в is voiced and ф is voiceless. That's why the voiced letter в, when followed by voiceless т, changes its pronunciation to its counterpart ф. |
| Elena: For more examples and information, please check the lesson notes. |
Outro |
| Yuriy: Thanks for listening everyone, and we’ll see you in our next lesson. |
| Elena: До скорого встречи! |
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