Posts tagged w/ грамматика

Word of the Week: «Время» [Time]

Posted by Josefina
Sep
4
2009

Sometimes Russian Blog’s Word of the Week is solely grammatically interesting, sometimes purely culturally or historically fascinating. Seldom can our Russian word of the week be both. But this week’s word is actually both! The Russian word «время» [time] is grammatically interesting because it is a neuter noun despite ending on «я» [ya] (which is usually the marker for feminine nouns) and has a highly intriguing declension in the six cases (just wait for it!) that might confuse you the first time but is well worth learning by heart. The Russian concept «время» [time] is culturally and historically fascinating since Russia is an enormous country with a total of eleven time zones. And that’s even though the entire «европейская часть России» [European part of Russia (that's all of Russia in front of the Ural Mountains)] has one and the same time - colloquially as well as officially known as «московское время» [Moscow time]. Historically the time in Moscow has been more important than the time in the rest of the ten Russian time zones; for example, all train times are according to «московское время». Though on your train tickets you’ll see that this is written as «время московское» [the change would make it correct to translate as ‘the time is Moscow time']. On plane tickets, however, the time marked for take-off and landing is always «время местное» [local time]. In Russia one often meets Moscow time on TV (news are often broadcast according to the capital), and also on the radio - yet after a while you will have learned to ignore it and apprehend that the popular provincial saying from the Soviet times: «Что Москва? Москва далеко» [What about Moscow? Moscow's far away], is very true indeed.

If you don’t live in Moscow and listen to the radio «в провинции» [in the province] you might hear the following: «Сейчас два часа дня по Москве». Probably you understand the part about ‘now it is two o’clock [p.m.]‘ but what does «по Москве» mean? Clearly not “on Moscow”. It is actually short for «по московскому времени» [according to Moscow time].

When talking about «время» [time] in Russian language and culture we could also bring up the Russian approach to time. What makes the Russian approach different from our own (now I mean to compare mostly with European or Western approach to time, since that’s closest to home for me)? Is it simply prejudice to say that «русские всегда опаздывают» [Russians are always late] or is there some truth to it? Speaking from my own personal experience I have to admit that it’s more than just a little bit true; even though one should always keep in mind that «все русские разные» [all Russians are different]. During five years in Russia I’ve learned that it is best to tell Russians to be somewhere at 11.30, for example, if you want to be sure that they’ll have arrived in time for 12.00. I don’t know why a majority of Russians can never be on time - is it because their lives are so full of stress? That they have too much to do? Or is it due to those «бесконечные пробки на улицах» [endless trafficjams on the streets] which we cannot even imagine before we’ve seen them (not to speak of getting stuck in one of them!)? When I discussed this with one of my professors in Yekaterinburg she said that before, «в советские времена» [in Soviet times], people weren’t at all late as often as they are now. She said it’s mostly «молодёжь» [young people; youth] that is never on time in Russia today. I couldn’t argue with her, obviously, since I’ve never lived in the Soviet Union due to being born in the beginning of «перестройка» ['perestroika' - or, more correctly translated as reconstruction; conversion; realignment; alteration]. That’s why I don’t know what kind of approach the average «гражданин Советского союза» [citizen of the Soviet Union] had. Maybe someone of you readers know more about this? Maybe someone has seen ‘time’ in both the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation?

Okay, enough with the cultural ponderings - let’s decline this noun!

A good way of showing what happens to «время» [time] in the six cases depending on whether it’s SINGULAR or PLURAL («времена» [times] - did you see how the stress just jumped from being on the first vowel in singular to the last in plural? Now that’s confusing to me!) is to give twelve sentences in which this word is portrayed in all of its twelve forms. Okay? Let’s do it then!

«ЕДИНСТВЕННОЕ ЧИСЛО» [SINGULAR]:

Nominative: «Время - деньги» - [Time is money].

Genitive: «У меня нет времени» - [I don't have the time].

Dative: «Поезд придёт в Иркутск в пять часов утра по местному времени» - [The train arrives in Irkutsk at five in the morning according to local time].

Accusative: «Какое время года ты любишь?» - [What time of the year do you love?]

Locative: «Он не ориентируется во времени и пространстве» - [He doesn't orientate himself in time and space].

Instrumental: «Со временем ты меня поймёшь» - [With time you'll understand me].

«МНОЖЕСТВЕННОЕ ЧИСЛО» [PLURAL]:

Nominative: «Что за новые времена!» - [What kind of new times are these!]

Genitive: «Кто сейчас помнит нравы старых времён?» - [Who remembers the manners of old times now?]

Dative: «А ты скучаешь по старым временам?» - [(But) do you miss the old times?]

Accusative: «Я-то стараюсь забыть старые времена!» - [I for one try to forget the old times!]

Locative: «Не будем говорить о старых временах тогда» - [Let's not talk about the old times then].

Instrumental: «Всё изменится с новыми временами» - [Everything will change with the new times].

I hope that you found these twelve sentences to be helpful and that you’ll be able to forgive me for only using the word combinations «новые времена» [new times] and «старые времена» [old times] in plural. Suddenly, while writing this post, I came to suffer from instant brain freeze and couldn’t come up with any other combinations in which you use the word ‘time’ in plural in Russian. If anyone else out there has a clue, please leave it in a comment! I love to read your comments; they help me make this blog better. And I really want this blog to be the best - the best for learning Russian and keeping one’s affectionate feelings for Russian culture in the best of shapes.

 
Posted under Culture, Soviet Union, Traditions, language
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Another Russian Eternal Question: Soul [«одушевлённый»] or No Soul [«неодушевлённый»]?

Posted by Josefina
Jul
15
2009

Pictured above is «Марфа» [Marfa], a handmade «кукла» [doll] given to me by my very talented and close friend in Tomsk in May earlier this year. Even though I would argue - being as it is that I’m an adult nowadays - that Marfa in her capacity as doll is «неодушевлённое существительное» [‘without soul'; an inanimate noun], according to Russian grammar she is not. According to Russian grammar a doll is «одушевлённое существительное» [an animate noun]. Female nouns in singular act the same in accusative case, no matter if they’re animate or inanimate. For example: «я вижу Марфу» [I see Marfa] and «я вижу куклу» [I see a/the doll]. It only gets interesting when we have animate nouns in their plural form, because that’s when accusative uses the form for GENITIVE PLURAL. Look: «я вижу кукол» [I see dolls].

In the last post about «винительный падеж» [accusative case] I left out information about what happens to «одушевлённые существительные множественного числа» [animate nouns in plural] because this whole Russian grammatical phenomena of «одушевлённость» [‘be-souledness'; or, more properly ‘animatedness',] versus «неодушевлённость» [not ‘be-souledness'; ‘inanimatedness'] deserves a post of its own. And today is the day I will dedicate to explaining this further (though not completely, of course, since nothing in Russian language can ever be explained completely, and that’s one of the many reasons as to why we’re studying it, right?) But why on Earth do I confuse the readers by translating these Russian abstract words with a little help from the English word ‘soul’? Well, because inside both of these Russian words we find traces of the word «душа» [soul]. Knowing this, then the basic rule should be very simple and sound something like: «одушевлённые существительные» equal living creatures, i.e. nouns with a soul, and «неодушевлённые существительные» equal not living creatures, i.e. nouns without a soul. Female nouns in singular, both animate and inanimate, use the same form in accusative:

«Вы знаете мою жену?» - [Do you know my wife (animate)?]

«Вы знаете эту книгу?» - [Do you know this book (inanimate)?]

Female nouns in plural, however, have a distinct difference between animate and inanimate nouns. For inanimate female nouns in plural, the form used is accusative. For animate female nouns in plural, the form used is the same as in genitive plural. For example:

«Мы встретили жён Паши и Жени» - [We met the wives (animate plural) of Pasha (short for Pavel) and Zenya (short for Eugene)].

«Мы купили книги» - [We bought (the) books (inanimate plural)].

Male animate nouns - both singular and plural - always use the same form in accusative as in genitive. It could be argued that the accusative form is entirely borrowed from the genitive form. Let’s have a look at a few sentences where this is illustrated:

«Я люблю мужА» - [I love (my) husband (animate)].

«Я люблю Китай» - [I love China (inanimate)].

«Обычно жёны любят своих мужЕЙ» - [Usually wives love their husbands (animate plural)].

«Она видит мальчикОВ» - [She sees (the) boys (animate plural)].

«Она видит цветы» - [She sees (the) flowers (inanimate plural)].

«Мы купили котА» - [We bought a (male) cat (animate)].

«Они купили фильм Тарковского» - [They bought a movie by Tarkovsky (inanimate)].

«Играть в шахматы на улице» [to play chess outside (lit. 'on the street')] is a very popular pastime among many Russians (mostly for men, though, for some strange reason) in cities of all sizes and populations. And in chess we find one of the exceptions to the rule ‘soul’ or ‘no soul’ in words like «ферзь» [in chess: queen (masculine noun) - genitive and accusative: «ферзя»] and «слон» [in chess: bishop, otherwise: elephant].

Other strange exceptions to this rule in Russian language are the words «мертвец» [dead person] and «покойник» [the deceased] which are animate, whereas the word «труп» [dead body; corpse; cadaver] is inanimate. Because of this you must remember that there’s a clear difference between the following three sentences: «я увидела мертвеца и закричала» [I saw a dead person and started to scream], «я увидела покойника и закричала» [I saw the deceased and started to scream] and «я увидела труп и закричала» [I saw a dead body and started to scream]. Maybe this clear difference is not so much as in WHAT you saw, but in HOW you put it GRAMMATICALLY. Also in the last sentence - where the noun is inanimate - it could be argued that it differs from the other two because the ‘dead body’ is just a ‘body’ or a ‘corpse’ thus clearly lacking any soul whatsoever. The two first sentences could be indicating that the dead person is moving in some way or another - a ghost, perhaps? - and maybe still in possession of his or her soul. And who said Russian grammar wasn’t logical?

And a last note regarding the word «лицо» [person; face]. This word has two meanings: one is animate (person) and the other is inanimate (face). When using the word «лицо» in the meaning of ‘face’ a correct sentence with plural form of this noun would sound something like: «на вечеринке я видел красивые лица» [at the party I saw beautiful faces]. But use the word «лицо» in the meaning of ‘persons’ and you must use the genitive form in accusative, like this: «на вечеринке я видел важных лиц» [at the party I saw important persons].

Next time we’ll continue our exploration of accusative! 

 
Posted under Culture, The Russian Emotion, language
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Russian Cases: «Дательный падеж» [Dative]

Posted by Josefina
Jun
21
2009

And where might one find this bold statement made out of red metal on red wood pictured above? I found it in an old and forgotten «дом культуры» ['house of culture'] in Krasnoyarsk in July 2005. What does it say, anyway? «Мир народам, власть советам» ["Peace to the peoples, power to the soviets"] written in old school Russian with the «ъ» [hard sign] at the end of masculine words which was what they did before another important Russian revolution of 1917 - the Orthography Revolution.

The Soviet kitsch on the picture above isn’t solely opening today’s post because it is worth sharing with the world, but because it contains two whole constructions with the dative case, and that is - incidentally - what we’re going to discuss today: «дательный падеж» [dative case]. In this case the question «Что?» [‘what?'] becomes «Чему?» [‘what?'] and «Кто?» [‘who?'] turns into «Кому?» [‘who/whom?']. Masculine nouns that end on a consonant get an «у» added on to the end of the word, which means that the male professions «врач» [doctor] and «шахтёр» [miner] become «врачу» (note how the stress in this word falls on the last vowel!) and «шахтёру» in dative case. Masculine nouns that end on the soft sign - «ь» - receive the same kind of ending, but a soft one in the form of the letter «ю». Thus «водитель» [driver] turns into «водителю» and «учитель» [teacher] to «учителю». Female nouns that end on an «а» change that letter into a «е»; for example «учительница» [teacher] becomes «учительнице» and «продавшица» [saleslady; salesgirl] turns into «продавшице». Female nouns that end on «ь» [soft sign] on the end - mostly this is abstract words like «возможность» [possibility; opportunity] and «жидкость» [fluid; liquid] - receive their ‘dative case change’ in the form of the letter «и». Thus in dative the two words above will look like this: «возможности» and «жидкости». And how about «средний род» [neuter]? Even though neuter will pretend to be its own grammatical unit, it is only really so in the first nominative case, because that’s when you can see that the neuter words have an «о», like the word «озеро» [lake], or a «е», like in «знание» [knowledge], at the end of them - which is, as we all know, the first sign of a word being neuter. But when you start changing these words in different cases you’ll soon come to find out that most of them behave just as if had they been masculine! Both of the words receive letters at the end according to the same rule that goes for masculine nouns. Thus «озеро» becomes «озеру» (because «о» is considered a hard vowel) and «знание» turns into «знанию» (since «е» is a hard vowel).

Clearly, we should discuss the ’sexes’ of Russian nouns more. I’ll make a note of it and promise to return to it. But for today, let’s go ahead and go through some of the basics concerning the case of the day - dative!

This is a Russian/Soviet classic: «Миру мир» ['Peace to the world']. The Russian word «мир» means both peace and world and that’s why you can write tricky sentences like this one. But that’s not why scholars are still discussing what Tolstoy actually meant with the title of his little fictional work «Война и мир» ["War & Peace"], but because the old Russian word «мiр» used to mean ‘society’ way back when…

The dative case is, as is the general rules with Russian’s six cases, closely linked with a couple of verbs that always demand to be followed by it. For example:

«звонить/позвонить» - [to call]

«Позвони мне!» - [call me!]

«Я звонил другу весь день, но тот трубку не берёт» - [I've been calling my freind all day, but he isn't answering; lit.: ‘but he doesn't pick up the reciever].

Dative is mostly famous for being the case used in IMPERSONAL CONSTRUCTIONS. Yes, we have reached the very core of the mysterious Russian language! Let’s have a look at a few ways to express an ‘impersonal construction’ using the dative case.

«Вам не холодно?» - [Aren't you cold?]

«Не стыдно вам!» - [Aren't you ashamed of yourselves!]

«Им не кажется, что этот ресторан - дорогой» [It doesn't seem to them that this restaurant is expensive].

«Тебе это не нужно» - [You don't need this].

«Ему хочется спать/есть/пить» - [He is tired/hungry/thirsty].

«Нам пора пойти домой» - [It is time for us to go home].

«Ей придётся пересдать на водительские права» - [She'll have to retake the driver's license test].

«Как это ему удалось, не знаю!» - [I don't know how he succeeded with this!]

«Брату нездоровится» - [My brother is feeling ill].

«Сестре надоело ждать меня» - [My sister got tired of waiting for me].

«Петру, наверное, скучно одному на даче» - [Pyotr is probably bored alone in the summer house].

«Матери некогда» - [Mother has no time].

«Мне лень готовить и прибираться» - [I'm too lazy to cook and clean].

The dative case is also used in constructions with numbers expressing AGE:

«Сколько тебе лет?» - [How old are you?]

«Мне 32 (тридцать два) года» - [I'm thirty-two years old].

«Бабушке Маше недавно исполнилось 88 (восемьдесят восемь) лет» - [Granny Masha recently turned 88].

«Петру будет 12 (двенадцать) зимой» - [Pyotr will turn twelve in the winter].

«Моему городу почти 500 (пятьсот) лет» - [My town is almost five hundred years old].

This is, of course, not everything there is to know about the dative case in Russian language, it’s more of a ‘brief introduction’ but I hope that you got the general idea. Dative expresses the indirect object, or an impersonal object in Russian language, and is highly important, because with it one must express almost all Russian emotions! By the way, my finals are over for this year, I got straight A’s and am now officially halfway to a master’s in Russian literature! And what does that mean? That I’ll have more time to blog, of course!

 
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Celebrating Russia, or ‘aspects’ of the 12th of June

Posted by Josefina
Jun
11
2009

The pictures are back! «Замечательно!» Now the blog will be complete again! «Как хорошо!» And what better a tribute to Russia’s uniqueness - which we are about to celebrate tomorrow on the 12th of June - than pictures taken from the last wagon on a train while traveling through Siberia?

The choice made for the post’s title today is unfortunate since it cannot be translated back into the language of our affectionate obsession - «празднуем Россию!» [‘we celebrate Russia!'] Is that something one is allowed to say in Russian (not politically, of course, but grammatically and stylistically speaking)? I have no idea! But what I do have an idea about is how to best prepare for tomorrow’s «день России» [‘Russia's Day'] - with looking into the most difficult part of the Russian language: «совершенный и несовершенный виды глагола» [perfect and imperfect aspects of the (Russian) verb]. Yes, the time has finally come to clear up a thing or two about the most dreaded aspect of learning Russian - funny enough it is also known as ‘aspect’. Why have I as of yet - after a year and a half of writing for this blog - failed to pay proper attention to this highly significant part of Russian language, why have I cautiously ignored the fatal question of ‘«делать» versus «сделать»‘ for so long? Well, it is time for a confession: the aspect system of Russian verbs is so complex that a foreigner cannot comprehend it fully and wholly EVER. Now don’t let that get you down (or you could argue with me on this point; having a profitable dialogue with people of different opinions is what I’m all about - bring it on!) because you can learn the basics of it almost painlessly. «Почти» [almost] is the key word right now, right here. But let’s forget about that for a moment and focus on what we CAN learn - the foundation. The foundation for the Russian aspect system is easy because it is built around two central moments:

1) Whether or not the action achieved a RESULT. If yes, then the verb should be perfect - «да, мы это сделали!» [yes, we did it!]; if no, then imperfect is to be used: «нет, мы этого не делали» [no, we didn't do it]. (Do note that «это» in the second sentence is in genitive. Why? Because of the tiny little word «не»! Remember the rule about how negative statements should have the object in genitive? Well, here you have that rule in practice!).

2) Whether or not the action was REPEATED. If the action was preformed only once, it should be perfect - «ко мне сегодня зашёл Иван» [today Ivan came to see me], but if the action was repeated, then the aspect used is imperfect: «ко мне сегодня часто заходил Иван» [today Ivan came to see me often]. (Pay attention to the addition of the adverb «часто» [often] in the last sentence; usage of such adverbs that imply repeated actions, like for example «всегда» [always], «обычно» [usually], are always used with imperfect verbs! And not only in textbooks for foreigners, but also in real Russian life, so be aware of this and it will make things a lot easier!)

Now all of my examples above were concerning «прошедшее время» [past tense], but we all know that Russian language have two more tenses: «настоящее время» [present tense] and «будущее время» [future tense]. And how is the system of aspect reflected in these two other tenses? Let’s start with present tense first, since that’s by far the simplest. In Russian present tense is almost always (except when Russians say: «сейчас скажу» [lit. ‘now I will tell you'] and you think you have to wait for a while before they’ll tell you what they wanted to say to you, but then they tell you this straight away, and you realize that the perfect verb in future tense here is really about the present, but let’s not get into that today…) presented by an imperfect verb. To illustrate all of the following I will use ‘aspect couple’ (or ‘friend-verbs’ as I like to call them on a good day) «сдавать/сдать» [to hand in, to turn in; to hand over, turn over; to return; to bring back; to rent; to lease; to surrender; to give up] in the context of «сдавать/сдать экзамен» [to take/to pass an examination], because this combination is extremely present in my life at the current moment, «поскольку летняя сессия в полном разгаре» [since the summer session (examination period at the end of the spring semester in institutes of higher education in Russia) is ‘in full swing'; ‘at its height'].

In present tense the verb used is in imperfect, thus defining the action as yet lacking any result: «Я сдаю экзамен по истории русского литературоведения» [I am taking an examination in the history of Russian literary theory].

If that was easy, then let’s move on and discuss the future tense. In Russian language there are two different kinds of future tense. The first one uses «быть» [to be] in present tense plus an imperfect verb in infinitive. «Я буду сдавать экзамен по современным концепциям литературоведения» [I will take an examination in modern concepts of literary theory]. This construction tells nothing of whether or not this action will have any result, whether or not it will be repeated - it is focused solely and entirely on the mere reality of a fact that will take place in the future. The second way of making future tense in Russian language is by using a perfect verb (which only have the functions of future or past tenses; they have nothing to do with ‘here and now’). But with the verb I have chosen for today the future perfect verb used in the sentence: «Я сдам этот экзамен!» will mean not ‘I will take this examination’, but ‘I will pass the examination!’. Not all Russian verbs in perfect have such a ‘semantic twist’ [change in meaning] about them, but some do and it is important to be aware of this already from the beginning so as not to get too confused once you’ve dug your nose deep into the textbook to study them.

The perfect future tense means that the action will have not only an end - that this action will not go on forever - but also that there is some sort of result expected to come out of it. If I say: «я не сдам этот экзамен» it means ‘I will not pass this examination’, and the result here is clear for everyone to see: «неудовлетворительно» [the grade 'fail']. The imperfect future tense does not care for results or ends of the action mentioned. Thus if I state: «я не буду сдавать этот экзамен» [I will not take this examination], there is no way of knowing what is to follow such an action of mine.

Of course, this was but a very short introduction to ‘aspectology’ in Russian language, written merely because tomorrow is Russia’s Big Day and what better way to celebrate her than to try to learn something really ‘Russian’ (or ‘very Slavic’ at least)?

 
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