Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

Hello and welcome to Russian Survival Phrases. This course is designed to equip you with the language skills and knowledge to enable you to get the most out of your visit to Russia. So join us for Russian Survival phrases. You will be surprised at how far a little Russian will go.
In today’s lesson we’ll work on explaining symptoms so that you can get the proper treatment and any medicine you may need.
In Russian “I have a headache” is “U menya balit galava”. U menya balit galava. Let`s break it down by syllable: U me-nya ba-lit ga-la-va. Now, let`s hear it once again: U menya balit galava.
The first word “u menya” means “my”. Let`s break down this word and hear it one more time: u me-nya and u menya. This is followed by “balit”, which in English is “ache”: ba-lit and balit. So to recap here, we have “U menya balit”. Literally this means “My ache”.
Let`s take a look at the next “galava” which means “head”: ga-la-va and galava.
So altogether we have “U menya balit galava”. Literally this means “My ache head”, namely “I have”, which is different from English. It differs upon symptoms, so let’s go over some other symptoms.
In Russian the word for “fever” is “temperatura”: tem-pe-ra-tu-ra and temperatura. And the phrase “I have a fever” is “U menya temperatura”.
We do not use any word in Russian in this case, only a noun “fever” or literally “temperature”. This works the same with “I have a stuffed nose”: “U menya zalozhen nos”, where “zalozhen” is “stuffed” and “nos” is “nose”. “I have heartburn” – “U menya izzhoga”, where “izzhoga” is “heartburn”.
The following phrase works in two ways. “I have a sore throat” - “U menya angina”. Yet if you want to say in Russian that “My throat hearts”, than it has the same structure as the phrase with headache or “U menya balit gorla”. “I have a cold” – “U menya prastuda” or “Ya prastudilsya”.
The latter is literally close to “I caught a cold”, where “prastudilsya” means “caught a cold”.
“I have a stomach ache“ works the same way as the phrase about headache, or “U menya balit zhivot”, where “balit” is “ache” and “stomach” is “zhivot”.
The next phrase may be hard to listen to, but if it happens to you, you'll be extremely glad we went over it! In Russian the expression “I have diarrhea” is “U menya diareya”. U menya diareya, with the word for “diarrhea” being “diareya”: U menya diareya. Let`s break it down by syllable: U me-nya di-a-re-ya. U menya diareya.
This structure is a same as above mentioned. Only the name of uncomfortable filling changed to “diareya”.
Besides the symptoms, another useful phrase for you to remember is “I need medicine”, which in Russian is “Mne nuzhna lekarstva”. One more time slowly: Mne nuzhna lekarstva. The first word “mne” means “I”. The second word “nuzhna” means “need”. And the last word “lekarstva” means “medicine” in English.
So altogether we have “Mne nuzhna lekarstva”, which literally means “I need medicine”.
When you go abroad it is recommended to take your own medicine which you used every time you had indisposition, because medicine is different in different countries and some of the local production could be very strong for you or cause side effect or do not help at all. If, for some reason, you face inevitability to visit a pharmacy, just explain your symptoms to pharmacy assistant to get necessary medicine. If you happened to know medicine terms in your native language do not be afraid to use them as they are like gesture understood worldwide, but only by medical workers. If you did not find an interpretation of the symptom in your dictionary, say it in English, as it is close to the medical term anyway.
Ok, to close out today`s lesson we'd like for you to practice what we`d just learnt. I will provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you are responsible for saying it aloud. You'll have a few seconds before I`ll give you the answer. Udachi! That means “good luck”! Ok, here we go!
I have a headache……..U menya balit galava
I have a fever……..U menya temperatura
I have a cold……..Ya prastudilsya
I have a sore throat…...U menya angina
Alright, that's going to do for today. See you tomorrow, which in Russian is da zaftra!

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