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*
NOTE *




All
phrases intended for translating/listening practice have been
deleted.



Welcome
to Ep. 17. Glad you tuned in because I think this episode will prove
to be instrumental to your success in Russian. Yeah, I know&#8230;You&#8217;re
thinking: Why did he use that particular word, instrumental?
You guys are on to me. Hang around and you&#8217;ll see. For now, listen as
our speaker tells you who he was talking with&#8230;



Я
говорил&#8230;с Владом. / &#8230;с Марком. / &#8230;с
доктором. / с Толиком.



A
lot of &#8220;Oms&#8221; there. You catch that? And that &#8216;C&#8217; by the way
translates as &#8220;with&#8221;. Anyway, you try it. Say: Mom was
talking with Chris. 




Мама
говорила&#8230;с Крисом. 




You
added that &#8216;s&#8217; sound before the name, right? S krisom



Say:
Mom was talking with Andrei&#8230;with William&#8230;



Мама
говорила с Андреем. Мама говорила с
Уильямом. 




Now
you might be wondering: Wait&#8230;Doesn&#8217;t &#8216;talking with someone&#8217; count
as doing something to them? Why aren&#8217;t we saying:
Криса&#8230;Андрея&#8230;Уильяма



Well,
because we&#8217;re not talking at them. We&#8217;re talking with
them. In Russian that makes a big difference. Here&#8217;re some more
examples&#8230;Some female names now&#8230;



I&#8217;m
talking with Karina&#8230;.with mom&#8230;with Nina.



Я
говорю&#8230;с Кариной. / &#8230;с мамой. / &#8230;с Ниной.
/



Interesting
sound there at the end. That ой sound. 
Let&#8217;s do more&#8230;



I
work with Franklin&#8230;.with John&#8230;.with Christina&#8230;.with Olga.



Я
работаю с Франклином. / &#8230;с Джоном. / &#8230;с
Кристиной. / &#8230;с Ольгой /



I
live with Greg&#8230;with a musician&#8230;.with grandpa&#8230;with Yana



Я
живу с Грегом. / &#8230;с музыкантом. / &#8230;с
дедушкой. / с Яной. /



So
far so good? Now let&#8217;s listen to some more complex phrases that use
these new forms. See if you can get the gist&#8230;



Я
говорил с официанткой, и сказал что ты
ещё ждёшь омлет.



I
was speaking with the waitress, and said that you are still waiting
for the omelet.



Я
говорила с барменом, и сказала что ты
ещё ждёшь вино.



I
was speaking with the bartender—lit: barman—and said that you are
still waiting for the wine.



Это
моя мама и это мой папа. Сегодня я говорил
с ними через Скайп.



This
is my mom and this is my dad. Today I was talking with them via
Skype. 




Это
моя сестра Сара, и мой брат Эрик. Сегодня
я говорила с ними через Фейстайм.



This
is my sister Sara, and my brother Erik. Today I was talking with them
via Facetime.



с
ними&#8230;with them One more:



Это
мой друг Чарли и моя подруга Настя. Я
жила с ними в Лондоне.



This
is my friend Charlie, and my female friend Nastya. I was living with
them in London.



You
try it. Say&#8230;I lived with them in Moscow.



Я
жил с ними в Москве.



I
worked with them in Epicenter.



Я
работал с ними в Эпицентре.



Next,
let&#8217;s listen to our speakers. They&#8217;re going to pretend to be my kids.
First, Alex will say: 




&#8220;Mom,
Andrei hit me with&#8230;&#8221;



Then
see if you can guess what he was hit with. It&#8217;ll be the
last word each time.



Мама!
Андрей ударил меня&#8230;телефоном. / …рюкзаком.
/ &#8230;магнитом / Вини-пухом



Mom,
Andrei hit me with a telephone&#8230;with a rucksack&#8230;with a
magnet&#8230;with Winnie the Pooh



Same
&#8220;om&#8221; ending we heard earlier. Like: I was talking with
John. Я говорил с Джоном. 




One
more round&#8230;



Папа!
София ударила меня&#8230;книгой / &#8230;игрушкой.
/ &#8230;вилкой. / 




Dad!
Sophia hit me with a book&#8230;with a toy&#8230;with a fork



Those
were all feminine objects&#8230;книга игрушка
вилка&#8230;and they got that ОЙ ending
we heard earlier with feminine names. So, what&#8217;s going on here?



Well,
those endings—OM with masculine nouns and ОЙ with
feminine ones—those are &#8220;instrument markers.&#8221; They tell a
Russian person how something was done.
If English did this, it would sound like this: 




What
did Andrei hit you with? – A pillow-om



How&#8217;d
you open that rusty door? – A crowbar-om



What&#8217;d
you use to smash the glass? – A hammer-om



What&#8217;d
you use to wash away the chalk? – SodOI



To
bust out another fancy grammar term, words with these endings are in
their instrumental form. Or the instrumental case. No need to
memorize that, but I wanted to toss it out there. 




And
when we say who we did something with&#8230;that person&#8217;s name
also goes into its instrumental form. That&#8217;s what we were doing at
the start of the lesson. In both situations, there&#8217;s this idea of
&#8220;with.&#8221; I broke it with a brick. I was talking with Jim.



Try
to say: I was working with the manager.



Я
работал с менеджером.



I
was working with a client.



Я
работала с клиентом.



I
was playing with grandma.



Я
играл с бабушкой



I
was playing with Maxim.



Я
играла с Максимом.



I
was waiting with Vladimir.



Я
ждал с Владимиром.



I
was waiting with Larrisa.



Я
ждала с Ларисой.



This
stuff is starting to get pretty advanced, so if you&#8217;re hanging in
there&#8230;.that&#8217;s really impressive.



So
let&#8217;s take a step back and look at the big picture. Specifically, the
different endings of people&#8217;s names
that we&#8217;ve encountered so far. There&#8217;s been a lot. Listen. I wont
translate for now.



Это
Полина.Это Джон.



Я
знаю Полину.Я вижу Джона.



У
Полины есть кошка.У Джона есть собака.



Я
дал книгу Полине.Я дал журнал Джону.



Я
говорил с Полиной.Я играл с Джоном.



In
these last ones, a паук is a spider&#8230;



Есть
паук на Полине. Есть паук на Джоне!



Incredible,
isn&#8217;t it? All those forms of the same name? And what&#8217;s even more
incredible is, now you understand them. You understand what
each version means, and how it functions. I say incredible, because
it&#8217;s so foreign to how we think in English. And yet you&#8217;re getting
it.



Of
course, now it&#8217;s your turn. I&#8217;ll prompt you to say those same
phrases. Ready?



This
is Polina. This is John. I know Polina. I see John. Polina has a cat.
John has a dog.



I
gave the book to Polina. I gave the magazine to John. I was talking
with Polina.



 I
was playing with John. There&#8217;s a spider on Polina. There&#8217;s a spider
on John.



<<TIP
OF THE DAY>>



Today&#8217;s
tip is simple, yet challenging. Try to run other names through all
the forms that we just covered. And here&#8217;s a tip: A lot of names
won&#8217;t work,especially non-Russian girls names.



Jennifer,
Sally, Michele&#8230;pretty much any female name that doesn&#8217;t end with an
&#8216;a&#8217; sound won&#8217;t change. And guy&#8217;s names that end, for ex, with an
O&#8230;.Pablo&#8230;also wont change. Or an &#8216;E&#8217; sound, like Harry. But
still, give it a try. Start with Darina and James.



In
fact, one second&#8230;Andrei, иди сюда. Say
hi everyone.



ANDREI:
Hi, everyone.



How
would you say in Russian&#8230;This is Yana. Say: I know Yana. Yana has a
son. I said to Yana Hi! There&#8217;s a spider on Yana!



Ok&#8230;now
it&#8217;s your turn, guys&#8230;



(END
TIP)



Time
for our Russian Immersion section.



&#8211;
&#8211; &#8211;



What
do you think С кем means? 




C&#8230;.translates
as &#8216;with&#8217;



кем
is &#8216;who&#8217;&#8230;(in its instrumental form.)



Ask
me: Mark, who were you talking with?



Марк,
с кем ты говорил?



Ok&#8230;sorry
for the interruption. Back to our immersion&#8230;



&#8211;
&#8211; &#8211;



Чай
с лимоном&#8230;What does that mean? Tea s lemon-om. 




Tea&#8230;with&#8230;lemon.





So
what&#8217;s the basic form of the word lemon? Take your time on that one.
It must be just: лимон
 




But
that little word &#8216;C&#8217;&#8230;with&#8230;forced it into which form? Its
instrumental form. If you got that, you&#8217;re doing awesome. Ok, one
more&#8230;.



&#8211;
&#8211; &#8211;



So,
that word кукуруза&#8230;What is it? I
actually did define it for you way back in Episode 11, but I never
tested you on it, so I&#8217;m guessing you don&#8217;t know what it means. But
here&#8217;s a really important point&#8230;Perhaps the most important thing I
can convey to you in this whole course. In language, meaning isn&#8217;t
all or nothing. What I mean is, It&#8217;s not like you either know what
the word means or you don&#8217;t. That&#8217;s not how language works, and
that&#8217;s not how the brain organizes information.



Tell
me. Is кукуруза the word for
&#8220;fuzzy&#8221;? It&#8217;s not? I thought you didn&#8217;t know what the word
meant. Is it the word for &#8216;winter&#8217;? No? How about &#8216;clock&#8217;? How do you
know? 




You
know it&#8217;s none of those things because in the last conversation, Mom
made tort with kukuruzoi.



So
you know it&#8217;s some kind of food. And so, you know a whole lot more
about kukuruza than &#8220;absolutely nothing.&#8221; Right? Because
meaning is a continuum. From having zero clue what a word might mean,
to knowing it so precisely, you could draw a picture of it.



For
so many words—even in our native language, okay—meaning is hazy.
We kind of know what certain words mean. And not knowing them
precisely&#8230;it&#8217;s no big deal. Can you precisely define the word
capitulate? Like, The other side capitulated. I&#8217;m not saying it&#8217;s not
useful to know the definition. Of course it is. But it doesn&#8217;t stop
us from speaking English, right?



So,
what&#8217;s кукуруза? I&#8217;ll give you a
hint:
It&#8217;s the most important crop in Nebraska. And you usually eat it on
the cob. 




Here,
translate this phrase: Я
люблю кукурузу. 




I
love&#8230;..corn.



Want
a way to remember the word? You&#8217;d have to be cuckoo
not to love corn. Maybe that&#8217;ll help you remember it. 




Alright,
you ready for our final exam? As always, there will be words here we
haven&#8217;t covered. Just try to get the gist.



&#8211;
&#8211; &#8211;



Alright&#8230;how&#8217;d
you do? Hopefully you&#8217;re still doing great. So keep it up and I&#8217;ll
see you in the next episode.

Podurama

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