Russian course - Lesson 9

Russian course
Basic Russian for beginners

Lesson 9:
My name is Natasha, and what's your name?


In this lesson you will learn:

  • the cases of some personal pronouns
  • to form the opposite (antonym) of an adjective
Useful phrase in Russian

Useful phrase in Russian

Listen and repeat the following sentence:

Меня́ зову́т Ната́ша. А как тебя́ зову́т?
mye-nyá za-vút na-tá-sha. a kak tye-byá za-vút?
My name is Natasha. And what's your name?

Russian cases: In this lesson you will see that sometimes instead of saying я, we say меня́ or мне. That is because я is sometimes the "direct object" in the sentence (and turns into меня́) or the "indirect object" (and turns into мне).

In English he transforms into him (direct object) in a sentence like "I saw him".

If you want to learn more, visit our course on Russian Cases.

Russian vocabulary

Russian vocabulary

Read, listen and repeat the basic vocabulary of this lesson:

English

Russian

Pronunciation

To say / to tell

Сказа́ть

ska-zát'

Time

Вре́мя

vryé-mya

Please

Пожа́луйста

pa-zhá-Lus-ta

If

Е́сли

yés-li

Good-looking (male)

Краси́вый

kra-sí-vij

Good-looking (female)

Краси́вая

kra-sí-va-ya

True / really

Пра́вда

práv-da

There is / there are

Есть

yést'

I have

У меня́ есть

u mye-nyá yest'

You have

У тебя́ есть

u tye-byá yest'

For me

Для меня́

dlya mye-nyá

For you

Для тебя́

dlya tye-byá

Russian dialogues

Dialogues in Russian

These dialogues will help you memorise this lesson's vocabulary:

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Russian grammar

Russian grammar

Read the following grammar explanations for this lesson:

What is "to decline"?

When you decline a word you modify it. After that, the word has a new function in a sentence.

In English we don't decline nouns:

  • Subject: The man is big.
  • Object: I saw the man.

However, pronouns are declined:

  • Subject: he is big.
  • Object: I saw him yesterday.

This modification is called "case". So, you could say that "him" is a case of the pronoun "he".

Some opposites (antonyms) in Russian

In Russian you can find adjectives like these:

  • Good (хоро́ший) - bad (плохо́й)
  • good-looking (краси́вый) - ugly (уро́дливый)

But there is an easier way to create the opposite of an adjective: simply adding "не" to the adjective:

  • хоро́ший (good) - нехоро́ший (not good = bad)
  • краси́вый (good-looking) - некраси́вый (not good-looking = ugly)

Pay also attention to the transformation of the following particles when adding "ни":

  • когда́ (when) - никогда́ (never)
  • где (where) - нигд́е (nowhere)
  • кто (who) - никто́ (nobody)

Examples of cases seen in this lesson

In Russian we decline pronouns, nouns and adjectives. In other words, pronouns, nouns and adjectives can have "cases".

Now you will see examples of cases from this lesson's dialogues. They are cases of the pronouns you already know (я, ты, он,...). In this lesson you have seen, for example, меня́ / мне (cases of "я") or тебя́ / тебе́ (cases of "ты").

Example taken from dialogue 1:

  • You saw me yesterday?
  • Ты ви́дела меня́ вчера́?

"Me" is the accusative case of "I". In English we can't say "You saw I yesterday?", we have to transform "I" into "me".

"Меня́" is the accusative case of "я". In Russian we can't say "Ты ви́дела Я вчера́?", we have to transform "я" into "меня́".

Example taken from dialogue 3:

  • I saw you yesterday.
  • Я ви́дел тебя́ вчера́.

In this example "you" doesn't change. We can say "You have money" and "Mary saw you".

Pay attention that this doesn't happen to "I", because we say "I have money" and "Mary saw me" (instead of "Mary saw I").

In Russian "тебя́" is the accusative case of "ты". We can't say "Я ви́дела ты": we have to transform "ты" into "тебя́".

The Russian cases

When we decline a word, we classify it in "cases". The grammatical case expresses the function of a word (subject, direct or indirect object...). In Russian there are 6 cases (so far you only know the nominative):

  1. Nominative (subject)
  2. Genitive (possession)
  3. Accusative (direct object)
  4. Dative (indirect object)
  5. Instrumental ("with someone" / "with something")
  6. Prepositional (when there is a preposition before the noun)

* Remember that we have a course to help you with cases. Here you can go to lesson 1

Russian test

Test

Check how much you have learnt in this lesson:

1. What can be declined in Russian?
only nouns
nouns, pronouns and adjectives
only pronouns

2. Complete the sentence: У меня́ есть время́ для ...
ты
мне
тебя́

3. What does "У тебя́ есть вре́мя?" mean?
I don't have time.
Do you have time?
Don't you have time?

4. How do you say "never" in Russian?
никогда́
никто́
нигде́

5. How do you say "It's not true" in Russian?
э́то некраси́во
э́то нехорошо́
э́то не пра́вда



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