Spanish version:

RUSSIAN COURSE

-Basic Russian for beginners-

LESSON 1: HELLO, HOW ARE YOU?

In this lesson you will learn:
- how to say hello to a friend.
- basic rules of the verb "to be" in the Present tense.
- basic rules about the gender of nouns.




Welcome to our online course of Russian language. We have created 14 lessons for you to discover this wonderful language, so you can have a basic first contact. In other words, here you won't find long lessons with never-ending grammar explanations. We want you to see many different details of the Russian language in the least possible time. By doing so, you'll have a general understanding in a short period of time. Russian has grammatical concepts which might be non-existent in your own language. That's why we'll see most of them briefly, so you get to know them, without having to read long  explanations.
 


1. USEFUL PHRASE IN RUSSIAN
                          Listen and repeat the following sentence:

- HI, HOW ARE YOU?   - ПРИВЕТ, КАК ДЕЛА?
                                         (pri-vyet, kak dye-La?)


Привет is an informal greeting equivalent of our "hi". It is used when meeting friends.
Как дела? is the short form of "как твои дела?" (literally "how (are) your things?"). It's an informal question used with friends.
 




 2. RUSSIAN VOCABULARY
   Read, listen and repeat the basic vocabulary of this lesson:


 In every lesson you'll find a short list with new words. You don't need to memorize them now, because later in the lesson you are going to listen to dialogues which contain this new vocabulary. At the end of the this course you'll have learnt more than 200 Russian words, which is enough to have a basic conversation. Listen carefully to the pronunciation and repeat each word.


  ENGLISH
  • Hi
  • Russian (masculine)
  • Russian (feminine)
  • Yes
  • No
  • I
  • You
  RUSSIAN
  • Привет
  • Русский
  • Русская
  • Да
  • Нет
  • Я
  • Ты
  PRONUNCIATION
  • pri-vyet
  • rus-kij
  • rus-kaya
  • da
  • nyet
  • ya
  • ty







 3. DIALOGUES IN RUSSIAN
    These dialogues will help you memorise this lesson's vocabulary:

As you can see, you'll find plenty of dialogues in the course. If you want to learn Russian, you have to listen to Russian. It's as simple as that. We have developed original dialogues, which are entertaining and easy to understand. Each lesson uses the vocabulary from the previous ones, so you'll be learning little by little, lesson after lesson. We hope you enjoy this method.
DIALOGUE 1:

ENGLISH

- Hi!

- Hi! How are you?
I (am) Elena, and you?

- And I (am) Michael.

- (Are) you Russian?

- No, and you?

- Yes, I (am) Russian.

RUSSIAN

- Привет!

- Привет! Как дела?
Я - Елена, а ты?

- А я Майкл.

- Ты русский?

- Нет, а ты?

- Да, я русская.

PRONUNCIATION

- pri-vyet.

- pri-vyet. kak dye-La?
Ya ye-lye-na, a ty?

- a ya maj-kl.

- ty rus-kij

- nyet a ty?

- da ya rus-ka-ya


DIALOGUE 2:

ENGLISH

- (Are) you Russian?

- Yes, I (am) Russian.
And you? (Are) you Russian?

- No, I (am) American.

RUSSIAN

- Ты русская?

- Да, я русская.
А ты? Ты русский?

- Нет, я американец.

PRONUNCIATION

- Ty rus-ka-ya?

- Da, ya rus-ka-ya.
A ty? Ty rus-kij?

- Nyet, ya a-mye-ri-ka-nyets.



 
 4. RUSSIAN GRAMMAR

                                          Read the following grammar explanations for this lesson:
 
The verb "to be" in present

The verb "to be" is expressed in Russian by the verb "быть" (pronunciation: [byt']). In the dialogues above you have seen that the verb "to be" only appears in the English translation (I am, you are, he is,...). 

That is because in modern Russian, the verb "быть" is not written when used in present tense (but it is in the past and future). Look at the following examples:

- Ivan is an actor.
- You are Peter.
- I am Helen.
- Иван - актёр.
- Ты Пётр.
- Я Елена.

In the fist phrase (Иван - актёр) you can see that in the punctuation mark "-" is used instead of the verb to be.

You will see this mark often in books and it is useful to know how to use it. Just remember that the meaning of a sentence is the same with or without this mark
 
The three genders

Russian nouns, adjectives and pronouns have genders:
  1. masculine
  2. feminine
  3. neuter
In English nouns have no gender, so this can be a confusing concept. It is difficult to say why a table in Russian (стол) is masculine and a bed (кровать) is feminine. There is no logic in the elections of genders and you simply must learn it.

The ending of a word can help us to identify its gender. Look for example at the endings we have seen in the dialogues:

- "русский" (masculine)
- "русская" (feminine)

The word "Russian" is an adjective. In the dialogues we have seen that "ий" is a masculine ending for adjectives and "ая" is a feminine ending for adjectives. There are many other endings which you will be learning little by little during this course.





 5. TEST

                          Check how much you have learnt in this lesson:
1. The word русский is of ...gender          masculine      feminine

2. The word русская is of... gender          masculine      feminine

3. How do you say "hi" in Russian?              как дела       привет    хорошо

4. How many genders are there in Russian?        one       two         three

5. In Russian the verb "Быть" is always omitted. true      false





DO YOU THINK THIS IS A USEFUL COURSE TO LEARN RUSSIAN?
 PLEASE, SHARE US!
This is a free course and it will always be free.
When you share us, you are supporting our work. Thank you!



go to lesson 2

You can also learn this course
in our Spanish version:


Contact us       Site map       Terms of use       Privacy policy     Russian lessons via Skype
Copyright © www.russianforfree.com. All rights reserved.