Learn about augmentatives in Russian
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are augmentatives and how are they formed in Russian? |
| Saodat: And are they commonly used? |
| Michael: At RussianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Eliza Estis has a test soon. Her mom, Emiliya Estis, asks her, |
| "Do you have a lot of homework?" |
| Emiliya Estis: У тебя много домашней работы? (U tebya mnogo domashney raboty?) |
| Dialogue |
| Emiliya Estis: У тебя много домашней работы? (Emiliya Estis: U tebya mnogo domashney raboty?) |
| Eliza Estis: Да, нужно прочитать эту книжищу. (El'za Estis: Da, nuzhno prochitat' etu knizhishchu.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Emiliya Estis: У тебя много домашней работы? (U tebya mnogo domashney raboty?) |
| Michael: "Do you have a lot of homework?" |
| Eliza Estis: Да, нужно прочитать эту книжищу. (Da, nuzhno prochitat' etu knizhishchu.) |
| Michael: "Yes, I have to read this big book!" |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In this lesson, we'll discuss augmentatives and how they're formed in Russian. |
| To "augment" means "to make larger or greater," and this is basically what an augmentative expresses. |
| If we want to express that something is uncommonly big, in English, we would express it by adding words like "big" or "huge," but in some languages, including Russian, it's just enough to add a suffix which would turn a usual noun into an augmentative. |
| In Russian, we turn nouns into augmentatives by simply adding the suffixes, |
| Saodat: -ищ (-ishch) |
| Michael: and |
| Saodat: -ин (-in). |
| Michael: And they denote something big or huge. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: To see how it works in practice, we'll take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Emiliya says "Do you have a lot of homework?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Saodat: У тебя много домашней работы? (U tebya mnogo domashney raboty?) |
| Michael: And how Elsa (pause 4 seconds) |
| Saodat: Да, нужно прочитать эту книжищу. (Da, nuzhno prochitat' etu knizhishchu.) |
| Michael: Did you hear how Elsa said |
| Saodat: книжищу (knizhishchu) |
| Michael: instead of |
| Saodat: книгу (knigu) |
| Michael: which is the usual word for "book?" |
| Just by adding the suffix |
| Saodat: -ищ (-ishch) |
| Michael: the word transforms into an augmentative giving the information that the book itself is huge or long. |
| Another thing that you might have noticed is that |
| Augmentatives are common in Russian and are important in learning the language so that you can speak more descriptively and emphatically, even in everyday conversation! |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, we learned that augmentatives are words that indicate that something is big in size, and they can be formed by adding a suffix to the noun in its infinitive form. |
| Now, let's look at some examples. Our first example is |
| Saodat: силища (silishcha) |
| Michael: huge strength. This is a female noun, so you can change it and corresponding words accordingly: |
| Saodat: Я тоже хочу такую силищу! (Ya tozhe khochu takuyu silishchu!) |
| Michael: I'd like to have such huge strength too!. |
| Saodat: котище (kotishche) |
| Michael: huge cat. This noun is masculine, so it will take different forms accordingly, the same way as the original word |
| Saodat: кот (kot). |
| Я увидел пушистого котища. (Ya uvidel pushistogo kotishcha.) |
| Michael: I saw a huge fluffy cat. |
| The next example is |
| Saodat: окнище (oknishche) |
| Michael: huge window. It's neuter, the same as the original word окно (okno) window, and we will change it the same way. |
| Saodat: Дом с огромным окнищем (dom s ogromnym oknishchem) |
| Michael: a house with a huge huge window. |
| Expansion/Contrast (Optional) |
| Michael: We learned before that the endings |
| Saodat: -ищ (-ishch) and -ин (-in) |
| Michael: indicate augmentatives. However, not all words with the suffix |
| Saodat: -ищ (-ishch) |
| Michael: are augmentatives. In Russian, many usual neuter nouns end on the ending |
| Saodat: -ище (-ishche) |
| Michael: without expressing that something is unexpectedly big, like for example the word |
| Saodat: Жилище (zhilishche) |
| Michael: meaning "house, a place to live." |
| Some other words may have two meanings, of which one is an augmentative, such as |
| Saodat: топорище (toporishche) |
| Michael: which can be an augmentative meaning "a big axe," or a usual noun meaning an "axe handle." |
| The correct meaning can be understood from the context in which the word has been used, but what may also help you distinguish them is the fact that augmentatives add some emotional coloring in Russian, and this is why they are mostly used in spoken language. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Saodat: Пока! (Poka!) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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