Basic grammar

[mendeleyev]

Regarding plurals:

- For nouns, add ы to the end of the words which end with a consonant. These are masculine nouns. Example: билет ticket becomes билеты tickets.


- Nouns ending with a are feminine so to make it plural you drop the a and add ы instead. Example: зима winter becomes зимы winters.


- Nouns ending with the soft sign (ь) or with я are feminine and so you drop those letters and change the ending to и for plurals. Example: melon дыня
becomes дыни melons.


- Neuter nouns end either in o or with e. The o is changed to a and a noun ending in e is changed to я to make it plural. Examples: Regarding o, wine вино becomes вина wines. Regarding e (hard as so few nouns end with e), платье is a dress and more than one dress becomes платья.


There are exceptions. This exception is called the 7 Letter Rule:
After these consonants: г х ч ш ж щ k you make a noun plural by changing the ending letter to и (instead of ы). Example: juice сок becomes соки juices.

There there are exceptions with words that don't change. Cafe is one example as it is кафе with either.

[el_guero]

Awesome!

May I pick on the author and say, "It is about time!"  Without picking a fight that is.

 

[mendeleyev]

I'll be leaving for Moscow in a few days but wanted to add another piece to the grammar puzzle.

Nouns and Gender

Every Russian noun has a gender. There are three genders:
1- Masculine, (мужской род)

2- Feminine (женской род) 

3- Neuter (средний род).

Look at the ending in the nominative (dictionary) case to tell the gender of a noun. The nominative case is the default case for words.

Masculine nouns end with a consonants or with й.

Feminine nouns end with а, я, or ия.

Neuter nouns end in е, о, or with ие.


As with any language there are exceptions so we'll help with few of the more common ones.

- A few masculine nouns end in a or я; these are usually associated with male names or titles. You'll see this with мужчи́на (man,) дя́дя́ (uncle,) де́душка (grandfather,) and this is very common with shortened nicknames of masculine names. Think of Sasha, Dima and others like Воло́дя, Бо́ря. These decline like feminine nouns.

- Neuter nouns ending in о or и are often borrowed from foreign languages. Examples include кинo, ко́фe, кафe, and and такси. These borrowed words do not decline.

- There are a handful of neuter nouns that end with я. These include вре́мя (time), зна́мя (banner), и́мя (first name,) се́мя (seed) and те́мя (crown.)

- There are a few nouns that can be either masculine or feminine. These few all end with which end in the soft sign, ь.

[mendeleyev]

The 5-Letter Rule
After Ш, Щ, Ж, Ч, Ц, don’t write O if it’s unstressed; instead write e.



The Hush Rule
After Ш, Щ, Ж, Ч, don’t write Я or Ю; instead use А or У.

[mendeleyev]

Russian Vowels:

Russian has 10 paired vowels. In other words there are 5 vowel sounds but expressed in pairs, depending on whether the word needs a hard vowel sound or a soft vowel sound.


Hard Vowels

а  э  ы  у  о



Soft Vowels

я  е  и  ю  ё


So, how easy are they to learn? Very, because you have to learn only the 5 hard vowels and since they're paired you simply add the English "y" sound to the beginning of each to form the pair.

Here is how it works:
- a is a hard vowel. It is paired by adding a y to a and you have я (ya).

- э (eh) is a hard vowel. Add y and we have e (ye). 

- ы (euh) is a very hard sound. It is paired with и (e). Okay, that is the only one you don't add the y to on the front.

- у (oo) is hard and we soften it by adding the y sound to make ю (like "you").

- o (oh) is a hard vowel and we make it soft by again adding the y sound which makes ё (yo).

[mendeleyev]

The unstressed O rule:

So, when is an O an O? Sometimes it's "ah" and sometimes it's more like an "uh."

Here is a great link explaining in simple terms how this concept works: http://www.russian.ucla.edu/beginnersrussian/student/CH2/GSGCh1-2R.pdf

[mendeleyev]

There are some great phrases and verbs here: http://www.learnalanguage.com/learn-russian/

[el_guero]

  So, when is an O an O? Sometimes it's "ah" and sometimes it's more like an "uh."

.... explaining in simple terms how this concept works 

Just like English, phonetic spelling just went out the window!

 

Back to rote memorization...

[mendeleyev]

Today's Basic Grammar lesson is taken from the blog "How To Learn Russian."
http://howtolearnrussian.wordpress.com

Every noun in Russian has a gender. Unlike the Latin languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Portuguese, Catalonian etc.) which have just masculine and feminine, Russian has three genders. The extra is called neuter, a bit like German which has these three. Another thing that should be mentioned is that there is no word for the. That’s right, none of that confusing el or la or la or le stuff. So really, this won’t be too hard to remember.

The Main Rules

Masculine nouns: These all end in consonants.

Feminine nouns: These end in either -а or -я. This is easy to remember as they have that “ah” sound at the end.

Neuter  nouns: -о or -е. If there are any foreign cognates, for example меню, then the word is most likely neuter as well.

One last thing before we move onto the nominative is that if the noun is ending in ь, then it is either masculine or feminine.



The Nominative Case

If I was to say “the boy kicked the ball”, in Russian “the boy” will be in the nominative case because it is the subject of the sentence. The nominative is merely the subject of the sentence. You don’t need to learn nominative case endings as they are just what you find in a dictionary, and are the same as what’s listed in the gender section. What you do need to know is how to make them plural.

For both masculine and feminine nouns: Add an -i sound at the end. As Randy says, we’ll look into morphology a little later.

Neuter nouns: These need an -a sound at the end. Again, we’ll learn the specific ending when we get into morphology.


Here are pronouns in the nominative form:

Я – I
Ты – You (informal)
Он (m)/ Она (f)/ Оно (n) – he / she / it
Вы – you (polite/ plural)
Мы – we
Они – they


Adjectives

Masculine adjectives have an -iy sound as their ending.

Feminine has an -aya sound.

Neuter nouns have either -ое or -ее

Plurals have an -iye sound

[mendeleyev]

A nice link, including video, to Russian pronouns: http://www.russianlanguageguide.com/grammar/pronouns.asp

[mendeleyev]

Very helpful chart on prepositions, including pronunciation guide: http://www.russianlanguageguide.com/grammar/preposition.asp

[mendeleyev]

Excellent article in the Moscow Times from language writer Michelle Berdy:


Сажать/посадить: to seat, plant, imprison, put

In English, I don't have much occasion to use the verb "to seat." In fact, I think the last time I used it was a year or so ago: "Even though we made a reservation, the maitre d' didn't seat us right away."

On the other hand, in Russian I seat things all the time. That is, I use the verb pair сажать/посадить almost every day.

First of all, you use сажать/посадить when you are putting someone in a sitting position. Он посадил меня на диван и стал рассказывать о том, что случилось. (He seated me on the couch and began to tell me what happened.) Or: Я посадила ребенка к себе на колени и стала читать ему книгу. (I put the child on my lap and began to read him a book.)

And since you sit on airplanes, trains, cars and other forms of transport, you are "seated" when you board them. Hence the word посадка (boarding) and посадочный талон (boarding pass) and the announcements you hear at the airport: Идёт посадка на рейс … (Boarding flight number … ).

That's what passengers do. But planes also "sit" or are "seated" — that is, they land: Самолёт садился далеко из терминала (The plane put down far from the terminal). Пилот посадил самолёт на Гудзон (The pilot landed the plane on the Hudson). And so when посадка is used to describe planes and not passengers, it means a landing: Боинг совершил аварийную посадку (The Boeing made an emergency landing).

(For the rest of the article: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/in-the-hot-seat/453221.html#ixzz1meZ7obqV  The Moscow Times)

[FreeRabbit]

Invaluable! Thanks!

[jake11]

Please correct grammar, declension and translation.

John Napier created "Napier Bones", wooden or ivory rods used for calculating.

Ждон Напер создавался " Напер Костей ", деревянные или слонвой прутов, полезностеи для расчётливый.

Napier Bones - accusative plural.
wooden or ivory rods - accusative plural adjectives and noun.
used for calculating - adjective

Cпасибо!

[andrewfi]

Please correct grammar, declension and translation.

John Napier created "Napier Bones", wooden or ivory rods used for calculating.

Ждон Напер создавался " Напер Костей ", деревянные или слонвой прутов, полезностеи для расчётливый.

Napier Bones - accusative plural.
wooden or ivory rods - accusative plural adjectives and noun.
used for calculating - adjective

Cпасибо!

Mendy no longer posts here so don't expect any response from here through these columns.

Hopefully there will be others able to provide assistance.

[Volshe]

Please correct grammar, declension and translation.

John Napier created "Napier Bones", wooden or ivory rods used for calculating.

Ждон Напер создавался " Напер Костей ", деревянные или слонвой прутов, полезностеи для расчётливый.

Napier Bones - accusative plural.
wooden or ivory rods - accusative plural adjectives and noun.
used for calculating - adjective

Cпасибо!

 


Джон Непер изобрел устройство для арифметических операций  - "палочки Непера", которое изготовлялось из дерева или слоновой кости. 

[jake11]

Blaise Pascal introduced the Pascaline digital adding machine.

Блаис Паскал ввестл паскалина цифровая добавочный машинy.

Pascaline digital additional - accusative adjective

machine - accusative feminine noun.

Спасибо!

[andrewfi]

Is somebody getting their homework done for them?

[jake11]

Satisfied pupil, sir! Fully satisfied.

[jake11]

Is somebody getting their homework done for them?

No sir Andrewfi. I love the Russian language. I want to be proficient in it. If only Russian is the universal language, I would be a proud Russian linguist. Seriously. I have the habit of picking up simple English sentences which I translate into Russian and see how I fare. Besides I cannot afford schooling.

[yankee]

Is somebody getting their homework done for them?

No sir Andrewfi. I love the Russian language. I want to be proficient in it. If only Russian is the universal language, I would be a proud Russian linguist. Seriously. I have the habit of picking up simple English sentences which I translate into Russian and see how I fare. Besides I cannot afford schooling.

If you cannot afford schooling how do you think you can afford a woman from the FSU?

[jake11]

I earn $14 dollars an hour. Good enough for rent and food. But tuition is $5000 per semester. How much do you earn? "A pessimist is either a ______or is _____"- Donald Trump. Why do you ask so many questions. Moderators, I invoke privacy.

[Volshe]

I cannot afford schooling.

Where there is a will, there is a way. You could start learning basic Russian for free online: http://www.russianlessons.net/

Then you could also find a language partner by registering at some Russian social network, or by looking up Russian people who are willing to study English (and there are hundreds of thousands of them, if not millions) on fb, and maybe even here if someone is interested*; set a SKYP account and meet 2 or 3 times a week (or more) for at least an hour, where for 30 min (at least) you'll teach them English and for 30 min they'll teach you Russian.

*Maybe there are even some members or guests of this board, who'd be interested, post more about yourself and ask them to contact you via private message if they don't feel like posting publicly.