ELEMENTARY RUSSIAN: Lab Unit 1 Week 2 Numbers and reduction)

Welcome back to the lab!

Здравствуйте, студенты! Вы знали, что первое сентября - День знаний в России? = Hello, students! Did you know that the first of September is Knowledge Day in Russia (when the school starts)...

Q. Where is День знаний celebrated?
День знаний по-прежнему отмечается в разных странах: в Белоруссии, Казахстане, Кыргызстане, Армении и Латвии. (See if you can figure out the countries where it's still celebrated as it was in the USSR.) I don't think most schools for most grades have classes, per se. It's more of a party: The kiddos march in groups, the teachers get flowers, fireworks, speeches are speeched. That sort of thing. The event figures large in the imaginations of children, to be sure.

This short video is a glimpse of how they celebrated the first of September 2021 in one of the Moscow schools. Can you hear the name and the patronymic of the teacher? Ask me about this video if you have any questions ...

Can you read the cursive below? It says ВСЁ БУДЕТ ХОРОШО! = Everything will be OK!

Сначала! First: Grab a worksheet for today= хендаут!  



1) On a computer or heck even your PHONE, listen to & start learning the cardinal numerals 11-20. The numbers (Числительные) exercise is on the LL handout. If you're feeling confident, try to write the numbers out in words, not figures! (Links are below.) 
11 Одиннадцать 
12 Двенадцать 
13 Тринадцать 
14 Четырнадцать 
15 Пятнадцать 
16 Шестнадцать 
17 Семнадцать 
18 Восемнадцать 
19 Девятнадцать 
20 Двадцать 

Listen to the Числительные (Numbers) exercise here. 

Write down the numbers you hear here on your handout.

2) Now, listen to the three “разговоры” (conversations) and answer the questions. (Links below.) Don't worry that you cannot understand everything!!! Get used to it. Just jot down the responses, to the best of your ability, directly on the LL handout wherever there's room next to the corresponding questions. Remember: We listen to a lot of Russian in this class to train your ear. How can we train your ear if we only listening to stuff you understand? Here are some suggestions how to proceed:

• Read the questions in the handout first
• Listen to the whole conversation to get the gist of it.
• Look out for words that sound familiar (the names of the US states for instance)
• Keeping the questions in mind, listen to the conversation again for more details.
• Listen one more time (3-4 times would be enough). Don't worry if you don't understand everything. (This cannot be overemphasized! 

Listen to the разговоры here: 

Разговор 1 Здравствуйте! | 

Разговор 2 Добрый день! | 

Разговор 3 Вы канадец?

3) With a partner (or me! Or the tutor! or by your lonesome dove!) read the Доброе утро dialogue on the LL handout. 

Can you read cursive above? :) It says:

лишишься... 

 

Russian Tea Cakes

Ingredients 

• 1 cup butter or 1 cup margarine, softened
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup finely chopped nuts
• powdered sugar

Directions

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Beat butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and the vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon.
3. Stir in flour and salt.
4. Stir in nuts.
5. Shape dough into 1-inch balls.
6. Place about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.
7. Bake 8 to 9 minutes or until set but not brown.
8. Immediately remove from cookie sheet; roll in powdered sugar.
9. Cool completely on wire rack.
10. Roll in powdered sugar again.(food.com)

The Queen of Spades

Alexander Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades" is my one of my favorite Russian works of literature. Its about a Russian/German man that resisted the urge of gambling for his entire life, due to not wanting to lose too much. However, he soon learns of a secret, but sure way to win at gambling and does anything he has to do in order to get that secret. With a few surprises here and there, this short story kept me entertained all the way through, and had an amazing ending. It's also nice that it takes only forty-five minutes or so to read.

Tolstoy's "Family Happiness" *SPOILERS*

This blog contains spoilers so if you plan on reading this book turn back now.

My favorite part of all tolstoys works is that they can be interpreted in many different ways. Many see his works as terribly depressing, and others see them as uplifting. I am in the latter group,  and family happiness is on the examples that put me in that group.

Summery: This short story pries into the life of  Mashechka, a young woman in 1800's Russia. She believes that marriage is whimsical, romantic and full of love. She soon marries one of her fathers friends, Sergey, who had known her  since she was young.  Sergei was weary of the marriage because he believed that here youth would cause here to want to find adventure and excitement when he only wanted a happy and simple(aristocratic) lifestyle and especially detested the upperclass society of dances and city life. They lived on his estate in the country and had an easy and happy life. However, Mashechka wanted to go to St. petersburg and see the city. Wanting for her to learn of the horrbilness of the city life on her own, Sergey agreed and and they kept going back. However, she never does and keeps wanting to go back. Eventually they confront each other, but both are too full of pride to talk  it out. They eventually go back to his estate in the country and have a family. At one point Mashechka  full of despair, asks her husband why he does not have the same love and passion that he had for her when they first married. He explains that nothing has changed with his love for her, It is merely that they are not young anymore. While early in their marriage he loved her passionately, and their marriage was romantic, he  know loved her in a different way. She finally understood that she too did not want what they had in the past, but instead loved him as the father of her children and as an old friend. This gave her happiness that she had not had in a long time, and it stayed with her forever.

Many will believe that this is a depressing story about marriage that exemplifies how marriages can lose their passion and fall to pieces. However, I see this as a story that truly shows what it is like to grow old with one another, from the point of a passion filled new marriage to the days of a family where you see your spouse as an old friend who gives you happiness. "Family Happiness" is one of my all-time favorite's of Tolstoy's works.