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*
NOTE *




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



Welcome
to Ep15. Straight to business today. How would you translate the
following phrase:



Папа
дал мне ключ.



Dad
gave me the key.



So
that little word мне translates as &#8220;to
me.&#8221; We&#8217;ve heard it a lot throughout the course, but I&#8217;d like,
now, to work specifically with it in some cool new constructions.
Listen to these four short phrases&#8230;



Мне
холодно.



Мне
интересно.



Мне
нравится твоя гитара.



Мне
пора.



Let&#8217;s
hear that first one again&#8230;Мне холодно.





Холодно
translates as cold. Maybe you know the word холодильник
which is a refrigerator. Anyway, the phrase: мне
холодно translates literally as: To me&#8230;.cold. 




In
English, we&#8217;d phrase it as either: I&#8217;m cold&#8230;or: It&#8217;s
cold in here&#8230;.but we might use the same construction as
Russian. Your roommate says: &#8220;Are you crazy? It&#8217;s hot in here.&#8221;
And you say: &#8220;It&#8217;s cold to me.&#8221; 




Then
we heard: Мне интересно. 




You&#8217;re
in a museum with some friends, in the ancient pottery wing, and they
all leave. &#8220;It&#8217;s boring.&#8221; And you tell them: А
мне интересно.



Well,
to me it&#8217;s interesting.



Next
one: Your friend made a guitar in wood-shop. Not the prettiest one
ever made, but you encourage him&#8230;Мне нравится
твоя гитара.



Literally:
TO ME is pleasing your guitar. 




Of
course, in normal English we&#8217;d say: &#8216;I like your guitar.&#8221; But
you have to think the way Russians do. Literally: The guitar
is pleasing to me.



And
here you might call out&#8230;Wait! Why didn&#8217;t гитара
change to гитару? Doesn&#8217;t
liking it count as doing something to it? No. Not in the literal
Russian version. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m making such a huge point about
that&#8230;about thinking and translating literally. In Russian, things
are pleasing to us.



It&#8217;s
the guitar that
is doing the action&#8230;pleasing
me. Yes, in Russian, loving
something&#8230;that counts as doing something. So&#8230;I love the guitar. 
Я
люблю гитару.



But
not liking. Russians don&#8217;t really have the verb &#8216;like.&#8217; Things are
pleasing to us. We&#8217;ll come back to that in a minute. The last phrase
we heard was: Мне пора



You&#8217;re
with a friend and realize you&#8217;re late for a meeting. Glance at your
watch, then pack up your things, explaining: Мне
пора. 




Literally
just: For me&#8230;it&#8217;s time. (For me it&#8217;s time to go, or to leave.&#8221;



Let&#8217;s
listen to those again in slightly longer phrases. Can you translate?



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



So
that whole liking vs loving issue. Let&#8217;s work with that. Because if
you get that down, you&#8217;ll really be
thinking the way Russians do. Try to say the following in Russian:



Pizza?
I love pizza!



Пицца?
Я люблю пиццу!



I&#8217;m
doing the action&#8230;loving the pizza.



I
like your T-shirt.



Мне
нравится твоя футболка. 




The
T shirt is doing the action&#8230;pleasing me.



Nina?
I love Nina!



Нина?
Я люблю Нину!



I&#8217;m
doing the action. I&#8217;m loving Nina.



I
like your car.



Мне
нравится твоя машина.



The
car is doing the action&#8230;.it&#8217;s pleasing me.



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



Speaking
of music&#8230;the basic form of the word is feminine. Listen: музыка



I
like music.



Мне
нравится музыка.



Whereas
I love music.



А
я люблю музыку.



Now
here&#8217;s where it gets cool. You can use these new constructions with
all those forms we learned way back in Episode 6. Remember that
&#8220;recipient ending&#8221; stuff? Try to say&#8230;



I
told Alina no.



Я
сказала Алине нет. Lit: I said TO
ALINA&#8230;no.



I
told George no.



Я
сказал Джорджу нет. I said TO
GEORGE



In
Paris, I bought Mom chocolate.



В
Париже я купила маме шоколад. I
bought FOR MOM



Dad
bought Maxim a new Toyota.



Папа
купил Максиму новую Тойоту. Dad
bought FOR MAXIM



Джорджу
 and Алине&#8230;To
George, and To Alina&#8230;those are the same recipient forms as мне.





So
how would you translate the following phrases?



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




Another
flashback, this time to Episode 8, and those clips from SAM &
CAT. Remember these&#8230;




Кто
тебе сказал что я работаю телохранителем?!




Кто
тебе дал эту информацию? 





Кто
тебе сказал?




Who
told you? Literally: Who said TO YOU?




Кто
тебе дал?




Who
gave it to you?




тебе
is the recipient form of &#8220;ты&#8221;&#8230;And
of course, it rhymes with the &#8220;to me&#8221; version



Мне?
Тебе.



Ask
a friend: Do you like borscht?



Тебе
нравится борщ?



Are
you cold?



Тебе
холодно?



Or,
if you&#8217;re surprised that they&#8217;re wearing only a T shirt and shorts,
you might ask:



You&#8217;re
not cold? Lit&#8230;what? TO YOU not cold?



Тебе
не холодно?



You&#8217;re
watching a show about Indonesian grubworms&#8230;and your roommate leaves
to his room.



You
ask: It&#8217;s not interesting to you?



Тебе
не интересно?



Andrusha,
it&#8217;s time for you to sleep.



Андрюша,
тебе пора спать.



So
in this next exercise, what I&#8217;d like you to try to do is guess the
basic, dictionary form of the final word. Ready?



Я
люблю твою майку. 




We&#8217;re
doing the action&#8230;loving the майку&#8230;so
it must be a feminine noun



майка&#8230;твоя
майка



Кларе
нравится твоя кукла.



твоя
кукла is doing the action, so it&#8217;s already
in its basic form



Я
люблю Галину.



I
am doing the action&#8230;so the woman&#8217;s name must be Galina



Есть
суп в холодильнике. 




There&#8217;s
soup in the refrigerator. The basic form of refrigerator is: 
холодильник



Толику
не нравится каша



The
kasha is doing the action&#8230;it&#8217;s not pleasing Tolik. So it&#8217;s
already in its basic form



Кто
купил тебе эту игрушку?



Buying
something counts as doing something to it, so игрушка
must be a feminine noun.



That&#8217;s
a challenging exercise, so if you did well, you should feel
very good about your progress. And if it was hard, no problem. I
think if you listen to the whole episode again, you&#8217;ll do better with
it the second time. Alright, on to our Russian Immersion section.
Listen to the speakers, and answer when prompted&#8230;



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



Hey&#8230;What
do you think ему
translates as?
Note that it rhymes with кому&#8230;and
Марку.
Because it has
that recipient marker. It simply means, &#8220;to him.&#8221; 
So she was asking, &#8220;Is he cold?&#8221; Lit: TO HIM cold? Ему
холодно?



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



<<TIP
OF THE DAY>>



I
got an email the other day from a listener about reading Russian. Hey
Mark, Loving your podcast. I think I&#8217;m ready for your Accelerator
course, but I don&#8217;t know how to read Russian..or if I need to.



That&#8217;s
a great question. The short answer is: No, you don&#8217;t need to read
Russian to speak it. My kids speak Russian and English great,
but trust me, they can&#8217;t read a letter yet. So it&#8217;s pretty obvious
you don&#8217;t need to read to be able to speak. But&#8230;.



&#8230;If you want to read Russian, that&#8217;s great. And it&#8217;s actually much easier than you&#8217;d think. In fact, I have a free app you can get, called <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.caesar.rusalphabet">Russian Alphabet Mastery &#8211; 3 Hour Cyrillic</a><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.caesar.rusalphabet">.</a> Free on iTunes and Google Play. Also comes with my <a href="http://russianaccelerator.com/">Russian Accelerator</a> course. It&#8217;s a great app because as you learn each letter, I show you photos of signs that you can then read and understand. 



Anyway,
I hope that answers that very common question. You don&#8217;t need to read
in order to speak.



But
if you want to, you can learn it in a few fun days. Again, the app is
called: Russian Alphabet Mastery &#8211; 3 Hour Cyrillic



I
think you&#8217;ll really enjoy it.



<<TIP
OUT>>



Alright&#8230;.time
for our final exam.



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



Great job, guys! Maybe I&#8217;ll see you in my <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.caesar.rusalphabet">Russian Alphabet Mastery app.</a> And if not, I&#8217;ll see you in the next episode!

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