Reviewing is important in a foreign language. In fact, it’s said that once you learn something, you should spend double the amount of time reviewing it.
As we progress through these lessons, we’ll revisit certain grammar points. This is done for the purpose of clarity when explaining more advanced concepts. [Often, in order to understand and conquer advanced concepts, one must first be aware of simpler ones related to them.]
But some we won’t, that’s why you should be reviewing on your own, revisiting the lessons to make sure you’ve understood and mastered everything. And when you read, don’t just read – that’s too general. Let’s be clearer – peruse the lessons, rather than skim them.
I. это returns, а too!
In the last lesson we learned about the pronoun это. It’s a very short, simple word with many uses! Let’s expand on this useful word. It’ll do wonders for your Russian.
Это дом means this is a house. If we add a question mark and change our intonation [это дом?], it means is this a house? Very easy, as we see. Now, how do we confirm or deny this? Let’s take a look!
Confirmation:
–Это дом? –Да, это дом.
-Is this a house? -Yes, this is a house.
…The word да means yes in Russian. However, there is more to this word than its standard meaning. We’ll take a look at this in later lessons.
So, this is indeed a house. What if it’s not? Maybe it’s actually a store.
Denial:
–Это дом? –Нет, это не дом. Это магазин.
-Is this a house? -No, this isn’t a house. This is a store.
There is a slightly more advanced way to phrase this sentence. Remember the conjunction а? Among other things, it can mean but (rather) when negation is used.
–Это дом? –Нет, это не дом, а магазин.
-Is this a house? -No, this not a house, but (rather) a store.
Look at that! You’re already capable of making pretty little sentences with just a few words and without an extensive knowledge of the case system. 🙂
Going back to the confirmation part, what if you want to ask what something else is? Maybe you’re not sure what it is. Well, you can say а это? [and (what about) this?]
–Это дом? –Да, это дом. –А это?
-Is this a house? -Yes, this is a house. -And (what about) this?
I reckon you’re fed up with это. Let’s shift our focus to something else for now.
II. Adjectives
Time for adjectives! If you don’t know what an adjective is, look at the box below. If you do, then you can skip it.
Adjectives in Russian agree in gender and case, but we’ll only focus on the former in this lesson. We learned gender in our last lesson. We can now describe nouns successfully.
There are two types of adjectives in the Russian language: hard and soft. Soft adjectives are a rare bunch. Only around 40 of them exist in the entire language. Their endings differ and they have oddly specific uses. We will not focus on them in this lesson.
I present to you below a list of 10 commonly used adjectives in Russian, alongside their English translation.
| добрый | nice |
| странный | strange |
| холодный | cold |
| приятный | pleasant |
| красивый | beautiful |
| тёмный | dark |
| интересный | interesting |
| милый | cute |
| старый | old |
| новый | new |
What did they all have in common? Think endings! Yes, they all ended in –ый. The vast majority of adjectives in Russian end like this. This is also the base form, i.e. the form listed in all dictionaries. This also happens to be the masculine form. How do we make the feminine and neuter forms? Plural? Just remove the ending [-ый] and replace it with the proper ending below.
| masculine | feminine | neuter | plural |
| –ый | –ая | –ое | –ые |
Now that we’re familiarized with gender, how to determine it, and can use adjectives properly, how would you say, a nice student? Think!
добрый студент
And that’s if you’re talking about a male student – masculine ending to match the masculine gender. Now what about a female student?
добрая студентка
Feminine gender and a feminine ending to match it.
Now how would you say, this is a kind student, male and female!
Это добрый студент.
Это добрая студентка.
And what about saying, he is a kind student? she is a kind student? Get the proper personal pronoun and match it up with its proper gender.
Он добрый студент.
Она добрая студентка.
And you can of course just say things like he’s/she’s kind. Isn’t this easy?
Он добрый.
Она добрая.
Don’t forget to make the adjective agree with yourself, or the person you’re speaking to.
Я добрый [добрая].
I’m kind.
Ты добрый [добрая].
You’re kind.
So, if you’re speaking to a male, use the masculine ending with your adjective and if you’re speaking to a female, use the feminine ending. And the same goes if you’re speaking about yourself. If you’re a male – masculine ending, and a female – feminine ending.
III. Translating it
If you recall the content of lesson one, you are aware of the fact that in Russian there is no exact word for it, thus if you want to say, this is a house, it’s old, it would be like this:
–Это дом. –Он старый.
This is a house. -It’s old.
As you see, дом is a masculine noun, which is why он replaces it. If we translated the sentence literally, it would be he’s old.
Let’s recycle this construction – shake things up and replace дом [masculine] with книга [feminine]. How would that be?
Это книга. –Она старая.
This is a book. -It’s old.
To remind you one more time, in addition to meaning he and she, он and она also mean it.
Well recycle this construction once more, shaking things up one more time by replacing книга with море [neuter]? How would that look?
Это море. –Оно старое.
This is a sea. -It’s old.
With that lesson 3 is over. See you in the next lesson!
My Slavic Studies 