Sunday, March 17, 2024

Сегодня в лингафонном кабинете ELEMENTARY RUSSIAN УРОК 6 (Урок 6, неделя 3 Unit 6 Week 3 Elementary Russian)

Среда... значит (=means) лингафонный кабинет!

  




ПРИХОДИТЕ! БУДЕТ ИНТЕРЕСНО!


I'm a simple guy...... it's my exams that are complicated. 


На сегодня! 

Here is a link to Memrise for the Genitive Case Review. It's all there. Spend at least 10 minutes on it and then take the quiz!

А теперь... And now for something completely cool! 

Download our lab worksheet or grab it at the lab.

The topic of the phonetics exercise is voicing and devoicing of consonants. English does it too, but there aren't any rules... thing of "cats and dogs" (the s in the first word is pronounced /s/ but in the second it's /z/... why? I don't know!).

There are two main rules concerning voicing of consonants. 
1) "Word-final devoicing." Voiced consonants are always DEVOICED when word-final... the word гараж is pronounced /garash/ because the last letter in the word is devoiced, ж gets "hushed" and pronounced /ш/. 2) The second phonetic phenomenon is what we call, in class, "the Vodka Rule"... In clusters of consonants, the cluster-final consonant dictates the voiced or devoiced status of all preceding consonants. The word водка sounds like /votka/ because the cluster final consonant K is unvoiced, so it "triggers" the preceding consonants, making them voiceless, too: д-->/t/.

 

This phenomenon is most notable in borrowings from English into Russian like баскетбол /baskedbol/ and the Russian numerals like пятьдесят /piddisiat/. You'll find a convenient table of voiced and unvoiced consonants on your handout. 

Look through the tables, and try to figure some of the consonants in Exercise A that will get devoiced or voiced because of the "Vodka Rule" or because they are word-final voiced consonants. Now, listen to Exercise A. Were you right?

4. Go to the tables and learn a bit about verbs of position. Notice that they are ALL 2nd-conjugation verbs that are ending stressed.  So their они forms end in а/я: СтоЯт, лежАт, висЯт. Notice, too, the 123545 vowel spelling rule, that you cannot write я after a husher (makes you go HUSH!), so you get лежат (not лежят). Good spelling is for suckers. 

5. Listen a few times to the dialogue. read the dialogue and translate it. иконы - icons, верующие - believers

6. The last page of the handout is Dr Denner's шпаргалка for the genitive case... Now you know all that about the genitive, well, wow. Time for a PhD in linguistics! 

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Сегодня в лингафонном кабинете. Урок 6. Второй курс. Неделя 3.





НЕ ПРОПУСТИТЕ!




Здравствуйте! 

1. Сначала квиз по грамматике =take the grammar quiz.

2. Потом возьмите хэндаут или скачайте хэндаут здесь

Слушайте to the recordings of the poems in your handout Давайте послушаем! и читайте текст ниже:


Ответьте на вопросы из хэндаута=answer the questions in your handouts.

Russians attach great importance to the style of reading. Pushkin and Lermontov are read in a standard dramatic style and standard poetic rhythms iamb and trochee. That's why classic poetry can be sung well; both the Pushkin and the Lermontov poems in your handout have been set to music. Check them out!
"Я вас любил" в исполнении Дмитрия Хворостовского


"Выхожу один я на дорогу" в исполнении Анны Герман

Ну, к столу! Поработаем над грамматикой!


Сделайте упражнение из хэндаута (oral drill 7)

И если еще не устали, посмотрите, как шестилетний Саша читает "Гамлета" и поет песни по-английски, по-латински, по-немецки...вундеркинд!






Monday, March 11, 2024

Elementary Russian: EXTRA PRACTICE FOR EXTRA CREDIT (MARCH 2024)

A few words and exercises on ASPECT.


Aspect is probably the most complex concept you'll encounter when learning Russian: Unlike so many phenomena in language learning (like, say, verbal conjugation), there's often no right/wrong answer. That might SEEM to make it easier -- "Hey, I can't get it wrong! -- but aspectual choice is tough because it requires the speaker to be "context aware." This awareness is precisely what makes 99% of exercises on aspect choice total garbage. 

I speak the language pretty good, and I still get confused about aspect in certain circumstances... It's the one thing that Russians still correct me on, so it must "sound really wrong" when I pick the wrong aspect. 

But, FOR OUR PURPOSES in Elementary Russian (heck, in ADVANCED Russian!)... aspect is pretty simple: 
  • In the present tense, use only IMPERFECTIVE. 
  • In the FUTURE tense, use only PERFECTIVE. (Really, how often do you talk about how you spend time in the future? Usually you are listing things you will get DONE, thus emphasizing result, this using the perfective.)
  • In the past tense, if you want to emphasize the result of an action, use PERFECTIVE. 
  • In the past tense, if you want to emphasize how you spend time (especially repetition), use IMPERFECTIVE. 
📣 I say present, you say IMPERFECTIVE. I say perfective, you say RESULT. I say imperfective, you say PROCESS. 

If you follow these rules, you'll get it right 90% of the time. 

So, three things you have to understand about aspect.

  1. Virtually all verbs in Russian exist in pairs, one imperfective and one perfective. You've ONLY learned imperfective verbs... Now, you're going to start learning perfective forms, too. 
  2. The only way to express the PRESENT tense is imperfective verbs: Я читаю книгу. I am reading a book. 
  3. Perfective verbs conjugate just like imperfective verbs, they do not have a separate conjugational pattern. You are learning nothing here! When you conjugate a perfective verb, you AUTOMATICALLY leap into the future. When you put an "el and gender marker" on a perfective verb, no surprise, you're in the past.

And so... 
  • Я читал книгу. I was reading a book. (Imperfective, past, you care about the process. Perhaps you finished, perhaps you didn't.)  
  • Я прочитал книгу. I read a book. (Perfective, past, note the prefix! You care about the result. Maybe you finished it, maybe you just read some of it and then did something else.) 
  • Я читаю книгу. (Present, therefore imperfective. Present is always focussed on "how I spend my time.") 
  • Я прочитаю книгу. (Perfective, future, note the prefix. Conjugate the darn verb! It's a claim about what you will do, result oriented.) 
  •  Я буду читать книгу. (Imperfective, future, note the auxiliary verb. This is theoretically possible, how you will spend time in the future... but, practically, it's very rare. How often do you say, "I will be reading a book"? You almost never talk about how you'll spend your time in the future; instead, you make claims about how you will finish something! "I'm going to read a book!") 
Look through this Power Putin Presentation. It contains wisdom and information.

Here's a "basic list" of the verbs you know and their PERFECTIVE counterpart, with a few clues to remind you how they conjugate.
  • смотрéть (смо́трят)/посмотрéть to watch
  • писа́ть (пи́шут)/написáть to write 
  • чита́ть (-ают)/прочита́ть to read
  • ви́деть (ви́дят)/уви́деть to see
  • по́мнить (по́мнят)/запо́мнить to recall, remember
  • пить (пьют)/вы́пить (пью, пьёшь, пьёт) to drink
  • есть/съесть to eat, eat up (ем, ешь ест, еди́м, еди́те, едя́т)
  • гото́вить (гото́вят)/пригото́вить (пригото́влю) to prepare
  • расска́зывать/рассказать (расска́жут) to tell
  • зака́зывать/заказа́ть (зака́жут) to order
  • покупа́ть (покупáю)/купи́ть (куплю́) (to buy)
  • говори́ть (говоря́т)/сказа́ть (ска́жут) to speak, say
Do this exercise! 

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Second-year Russian: Additional Work for March 12 REMOTE


Привет, ребята!
Красивые куличи и крашеные яйца, правда?

Here is our extra work for this week (do it optionally for extra credit)

1. Let's start with the review of numbers. Carefully examine this chart:

2. Download our handout for today. Listen to the information comparing average U.S. and Russian salaries HERE and type what you hear in the handout. 

3. Read the dialogue in our handout and translate it. Make sure you know how to ask in Russian to bring you the check and pay the check.

Сделали? Молодцы! ... Now, memorize the conjugations of these two crucial verbs⇩



4. Finally! Go to Flipgrid and do this task. You will need to know how to say "I drink", see the conjugation pattern above.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Сегодня в лингафонном кабинете ELEMENTARY RUSSIAN (Урок 6, неделя 2 Unit 6 Week 2 Elementary Russian)



Сегодня среда! 

Привет! Как дела? У меня всё хорошо! Или нет...


1. Spend TEN MINUTES practicing our vocab quiz on Memrise. Then take the quiz (just a reminder, this is a closed book quiz)
 

2. Почитаем!  read this article (did you know that you can subscribe to NYTimes through Stetson and ERAU libraries?) for some cultural insights about the question, How are you?...  In my experience, it's mostly true, though younger Russians understand that you're not really asking how they're doing when you ask... How do you do?








3. А теперь... Review quickly counting by tens. Listen to this recording and read along with the numerals from below. Listen a couple times...



NB a couple things: Thousand in Russian is тысяча. That word's etymology traces back to *tuHsont-, a proto-Indo European root that also gives us thousand.  So, like сто hundred (like cent), there's an historical connection between тысяча and thousand. (Without geeking out TOO much, the really old word in Russian for thousand was тьма, which now means, like, "darkness" or "gloom"... which is what tuhsont meant, too... You get a lot of stuff, and it looks like a cloud, like gloom! Russian stopped using тьма to mean a thousand a thousand years ago... COOL!) 

In Russian (as in English) the word is a noun. Think about, for instance, the difference between: "Ten cats sat in the room" and "A thousand cats sat in the room." Weird, isn't it? That's because thousand is a noun in English. 

The word for thousand, тысяча, is feminine, so you get однА тысячА; in 2, 3, and 4 thousand, the word тысяча is in the genitive singular form, две (feminine form of 2) тысячИ, три тысячИ, четыре тысячИ.

Five thousand and higher, the word тысяча is in the genitive plural form, тысяч. (You don't yet know that form! Все ХОРОШО!)


4. PRINT OUT OR DOWNLOAD THIS LAB WORKSHEET or grab it from the lab table. Do упражнение А, writing down the prices of the items (it's on the second page of the lab worksheet). The challenge here is to figure out how many thousands and hundreds each item costs. You'll hear the word тысяча in various forms; the forms aren't as important as the numbers in front. 

Then, come back to the first page of the worksheet! Work some more on the use and formation of the Genitive case. Do oral drills 7,8,9. Do them in writing. Pen or pencil or just type in the word document. Have them checked by our tutors. 

Anyone interested in poetry, history, politics... try giving this poem (from like 1917) a shot...

Скифы
Мильоны — вас. Нас — тьмы, и тьмы, и тьмы.
Попробуйте, сразитесь с нами!
Да, скифы — мы! Да, азиаты — мы,
С раскосыми и жадными очами!
Александр Блок

Mmmmmm... Блины! East Slavs eat a lot of pancakes. Everyone should eat more pancakes. 


Monday, February 26, 2024

Сегодня в лингафонном кабинете... Русский язык (второй год) (Урок 6 Неделя 2)






1) Сначала поработайте с этим списком слов QUIZLET. review the words and take the VOCAB QUIZ (15 мин)

2) Now, grab from the table or download and then print  THIS WORKSHEET (it does not work if you open it in google doc, in order to see all the images properly you need to download it on your laptop). 

3) прослушайте разговор 2 и ответьте на все вопросы! You'll find the questions on the хендаут and below:

Трудности? ... ну, спрашивайте! Ask a tutor for help understanding, if you need it (15 мин)

3) Немного грамматики... =Now, a little grammar...
First, watch this mini-lesson on how to use indefinites in Russian (-то, -либо, -нибудь) This presentation has a practical part. Pause at those moments to check your understanding.



4) Now, Double negation ни- не ... or ни- нет. Watch this fabulous explanation first:
Then read this concise explanation in English with excellent examples:

 Now, do the handout assignments on negative constructions:  I have not heard nothing about it...

На сегодня всё! Молодцы!

Monday, February 19, 2024

Сегодня в лингафонном кабинете ELEMENTARY RUSSIAN (Урок 6, неделя 1 Unit 6 Week 1 Elementary Russian)

Доброе утро! Сегодня среда.





Итак...

First, here is the Memrise quiz that will prepare you for the quiz NEXT WEEK (=на следующей неделе!). Spend 10 minutes reviewing these new phrases that we'll go over as we proceed through the dialogs.

Print out your handout HERE or grab it from the lab table.


Next, listen to the three разговоры (1 3) (кликните по ссылке! Click on the links!). Don't listen more than three times! Я вам помогу! I can help you... just ask! Попросите!


On the back of one of your handout, jot down the answers, in English, to the following questions:


Before completing handout assignments, take a second and listen to me read the conjugational pattern of a new verb, хотеть, to want. Notice that it's irregular: the singular present tense has -e- as its vowel (like работать); the plural persons (мы, вы, они) have -и- and -ят (like говорить). It's not irregular, хотеть is a hybrid, half first, half second!

Listen to the recording at least twice, and read along:


***

Now, come join us at the tables... Пожалуйста, к столам! Поработаем вместе! Do all the assignments in your handout. Read dialogue 5 and answer the questions.

Sunday, February 18, 2024

СЕГОДНЯ В ЛИНГАФОННОМ КАБИНЕТЕ ВТОРОЙ КУРС, УРОК 6, НЕДЕЛЯ 1


Привет! Вы узнали этих писателей и поэтов? 
Давайте поработаем!
0. First things first: memorize the new Quizlet vocabulary HERE. We will have the vocab quiz next Wednesday.

Print out the handout HERE or grab it from the lab table.

1. Сначала почитаем в парах. Read the dialogue ты любишь стихи in your handout.

Ответьте на вопросы к диалогу письменно в ваших хэндаутах...=answer the questions in writing in your handouts

2. Examine the main rules of "который" constructions! Watch this video and examine the rules below:


Do ex. 6-20 on your handout (choose between что, кто, какой, который)
Pay attention to this rule:

3. "НУЖНО/НУЖНА/НУЖНЫ/НУЖЕН" + Dative Subject: выполните упражнение на третьей странице вашего хэндаута (4 предложения) =do the assignment on page 3 of your handout



На сегодня все! Спасибо за хорошую работу!



Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Сегодня в лингафонном кабинете ELEMENTARY RUSSIAN (Урок 5, неделя 3 Unit 5 Week 3 Elementary Russian)

Ну, погоди means "Just you wait!"

Привет!

Возьмите хендаут! На if you want a virtual one! (In Russian, you can say На! and it'll be understood as "Here, take this!" It's not super formal, but it's not rude...) 


Let's start with the grammar quiz! Grab it in the lab and have it checked by us before you leave the class (аудиторию)


А ТЕПЕРЬ (=and now...)

Next 5 minutes. «Ну погоди!»

Не хотите посмотреть мультфильм? Do you want to watch a cartoon? Русские (скорее советские граждане) очень любят серию «Ну погоди!». Watch an episode of the much-loved animated series «Ну погоди!» ("Just You Wait!"). Every Russian-speaker I know can recite these series from memory... Watch one episode! It's just ten minutes!




Закончили?? МОЛОДЕЦ! Ну погоди makes Tom and Jerry look like Teletubbies, right? Wipe the blood off your computer screen. 

There was a time before trigger warnings... было да сплыло... 

Last 30 minutes.
А теперь... Поработаем! Handout

On your handout, you'll find some exercises for за столом и за компьютером, for table work with tutors and for work at the computer. Do whichever you wish first! Как хотите! But do them both and include the completed handout in your Unit 5 portfolio.

1) The work at the tables is on the tricky Russian translation of "CLASS"... I'm going to class! I'm taking a class! Class! Класс! (That word, класс, means (among other things)... "That's cool!")
2) Listen to 5-41 (the first exercise below) and 5-42 (the second). Just jot down the answers on the handout. You'll find the exercise additionally printed there, on your handout. 


Sunday, February 4, 2024

RUS 202 ВТОРОЙ КУРС Unit 5 LAB 3



Здравствуйте, дорогие студенты!

1. Сначала.... КВИЗ по грамматике ! 

2. Теперь... посмотрите программу "Лучше всех" про повара Полину (3 года). Посмотрите 8 минут, она готовит салат Оливье... ням-ням... (10 мин)


Вам понравился ролик? Правда, очень мило? А теперь давайте поработаем!

3. Возьмите наш хэндаут. Сделайте устные упражнения 11 и 12 (15 мин)

4. А теперь давайте повторим reflexive verbs=REVIEW THE FOLLOWING VERBS (PAY ATTENTION TO STRESS!!!) (5 min)

USE  the nonreflexive form (WITHOUT –СЯ) when an animate being is the grammatical subject (Миша начал смотреть кино) Use the reflexive form (with –ся) when something inanimate is the subject (Библиотека закрывается в 7 часов)



5. Теперь устное упражнение 16 (10 мин)

ВСЁ! УРА!