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*
NOTE *

All
phrases intended for translating/listening practice have been
deleted.

Welcome
to Episode #4 of Understanding Spoken Russian. Let’s jump right to
our new word for today. мой
We’ve
heard versions of it in prior episodes, but today we’ll officially
add it to our core vocabulary. Let’s look at it in context. If Sophia
is eating popcorn, and you try to take it away from her, she’ll
scream…

If
William is playing with his toy cars, just try taking one away from
him!

And
if Andrei, our five yr old, is drinking milk…well, don’t take it
from him, either. Or else…

So
the words мой
моя моё…they’re
all forms of the same word…and
they all translate as My.

Imagine
Sophia has lost two of her toys. Her… динозаврик
which is a “little dinosaur,” and her игрушка
which is a toy. As she
wanders the apartment looking for them, what do you think she’s
saying?

–
– –

Or
maybe she’s lost some clothing. Her wool свитер
and her short-sleeved футболка.

Listen
to those again. What are the genders?

Okay,
so… what’s Sophia saying here?

–
– –

In
Russian, the words for “my” and “your”—like,
this is my salad, and that’s your salad—they’re
adjectives. And because they’re adjectives, they, too, have to rhyme
or “agree” with the noun.

Granted,
the masculine МОЙ doesn’t really rhyme
with the nouns динозаврик свитер
грейпфрут,

but
the other forms rhyme. Even
the plural.

So,
we got МОЙ…Let’s
see if we can guess what this
word means: ТВОЙ

Imagine
William is sitting in front of a mound of toys and is sorting them
into two piles as Sophia watches. Let’s stand in the doorway and
listen…

–
– –

So,
what do you think твой and твоя
mean? They’re forms of “your.” And notice how мой
rhymes with твой…just as моя
rhymes with твоя and моё
with твоё

Anyway,
now Sophia will go through the two piles and confirm whose toy is
whose. This time, try to translate what she says. And if you’re not
sure what the toy is, just say something like:

“And
this is your…masculine noun.” Ready?

–
– –

Although
they have a lot of forms, these adjectives for my and
your are so
common, you won’t need to actively study them. They’ll sink in
naturally with lots of exposure.

So,
how would you translate the following two phrases…

–
– –

Easy
enough, right? Now brace yourself. Here comes a massive grammar
point. Listen to this…

(monster
movie scream) Now wait a second! I was positive that the word for
guitar was гитара.

Alexei,
can you please say: This is my guitar.

Это
моя гитара.

And
I’m positive the word for car is just машина.
Alex, how do you say: Is this your car?

Это
твоя машина?

So
what’s going on here? Well, as we already know, the ends of Russian
words change depending on how they’re used. We know that from the
very first lesson. Take the word парк (a
park).

If
you’re headed towards it, it keeps its basic form. Я
иду в парк. But if you’re located in the park, it has
to change its ending: Я сейчас в парке.

Well,
in Russian, whenever you do something to a feminine noun, its “ah”
ending changes to an “u” sound. I don’t normally request
this, but would you mind repeating that point with me?

In
Russian, whenever you do something to a feminine noun, its ‘a’ ending
changes to an ‘u’ sound.

Listen
as the speaker says: Anton bought a car.

Buying
something counts as ‘doing something’ to the car, and so it had to
change its ending. Or this..

Galina
bought a guitar.

Again,
гитар has to change to гитару.
And if you add “my” in there—Anton bought my car—the
word моя has to change to rhyme with
машину. Listen…Anton bought my
car.

Or
this: Galina bought my guitar.

In
fact, all the adjectives that describe the object would
change. And they’d all rhyme.

Here.
Listen….A “biblioteka” (библиотека)
is a library. Think of the word bibliography, right?

So
she’ll say: This is our new, big, beautiful library.

And
now she’ll say: In the center I saw a new, big,
beautiful library.

Did
you hear all those feminine adjectives rhyming with библиотеку?

новую,
большую, красивую

So
what else counts as “doing something” to a word? Taking
it, putting it, seeing it, eating it, opening or closing it, throwing
or catching it…the list goes on.

Hey
Alex, did you see the library? Listen to his response…

He
says Библиотека at first, because
he’s just naming the place. But when he says that he saw
it, “seeing something” counts as doing something to it. And
so it changes to “biblioteku” (Библиотеку)

This
happens even to a person’s name. “Hey Alex, did you see Galina?”
Listen to his response…

So
in our next exercise, all I want you to say is whether there’s a
feminine noun that’s being acted upon in the phrase. You can tell by
hearing the “u” sounding adjectives. Ready?

–
– –

<<Language
tip…>>

In
today’s tip, I’d like to talk about an interesting parallel between
learning to play a musical instrument, and learning to speak a
foreign language. I have a lot of experience there, because—
before I developed this passion for the Russian language—I taught
guitar professionally for years.

And
from time to time I’d get a new student who wanted to learn to play a
style of music that they’d barely listened to. “My Dad says I
should learn classic rock,” the student would say.

“Ok…”
I pick up my guitar. “So, what are some of your favorite classic
rock groups? Led Zeppelin? (Whole Lotta Love) AC/DC? (Highway to
Hell) Boston? (Peace of Mind)

And
the guy shrugs. “I never really listened to classic rock.”

Hmm.
Ok. So, I’d give him homework: “Take some time—just for a
little while—to listen to the style. Put your guitar away. Dont try
to play any of it. Just listen and get a feel for the phrasing, the
chord progressions, the keys and time signatures.”

In
the next lesson, we’d sit and I’d point out those things. “This
is a pentatonic scale, which is the backbone of classic rock riffs.
And this is call and response (demo) which is a fundamental part of
how solos were constructed.” And so on. Those stylistic elements
of rock music—of any style of music—are analogous to the
vocabulary, the grammar and syntax of a language. Once you’ve heard
them and are aware of them, it makes learning to play the style so
much easier.

After
a few listening sessions, I’d put on a tune…say, the solo from Good
Times Bad Times, and now he can hear it. “Oh, that’s just a
pentatonic lick, right? Descending in triplets?” And bingo—now
that he understands what he’s hearing, he can very quickly
express it himself on the instrument. He’ll need to practice it,
obviously, to get fluent, but it’s no longer foreign to him. It makes
sense.

Similarly,
as you progress through these lessons, you’ll be hearing things with
confidence. “Oh, that’s just the feminine ‘doing something’
rule, right?” And like my guitar student, once you understand
what you’re hearing, you’ll be able to quickly express similar
concepts. Yes, you’ll need to practice to become fluent, but the
grammar and syntax of Russian will no longer be foreign to you. The
changing word endings won’t surprise you….you’ll expect them. Even
predict them.

That’s
when learning to speak Russian becomes easy.

<<TIP
END>>

Speaking
of predicting, that’s what I’d like you to do in this next exercise.
First the native speaker will say a word in its basic, dictionary
form. Then, they’ll say a phrase that has that same word at the very
end of it. I’ll hit pause just before
that word, and you need
to say just the ending of the word. For ex: It’s going to end with an
“u” sound.

And
you know why. Because buying something counts as doing something to
it. Ready?

–
– –

An
interesting sidenote: In English, when we talk about playing a
musical instrument, sometimes we use the word “on” and
sometimes we don’t. It depends, of course, on context. For ex: I play
guitar. We don’t say “on”. But in a different context, I
might say…”Oh, I played that solo on my Stratocaster.”
Or, when introducing the members of your band…”On drums we
have John Bonham. And on bass guitar, we have John Paul Jones.”

In
Russian, the idea of playing an instrument is always “on”…and
so it takes that locational “yeh” ending. Listen…Mark is
now playing guitar. ..or…Charlie Parker played the saxophone.

In
Russian we always play “on” an instrument. And yet….we
play “towards” sports. And
here’s why I believe Russian does this. When you play a musical
instrument, you’re more or less s