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Course for Beginners »
Lesson 3. Where are you from?
In this lesson you will learn:

In this lesson, you will find Russian expressions used to tell where you come from and you will learn:

  • Countries and nationalities names
  • Basic info about Russian cases
  • Basic info about Russian grammatical gender

I. Let me introduce myself

Listen and answer the question:

c0203011.I.1)
Record 1


1. This man's name is:
Mark
Alex
2. He is from:
France
Spain




c0203012.I.2)
Record 2


1. This woman's name is:
Olga
Dorothy
2. She is from:
Ukraine
Russia



II. Countries

a) Listen and repeat. Pay attention to the nouns' endings:



Transcription
Россия - из России
[rassiya - iz rassii]
Russia - from Russia
Великобритания – из Великобритании
[vilikabritaniya - iz vilikabritanii]
Great Britain - from Great Britain
Австралия – из Австралии
[afstraliya - iz afstralii]
Australia - from Australia
Франция – из Франции
[frantsiya - is frantsii]
France - from France
Канада – из Канады
[kanada - is kanadi]
Canada - from Canada
США – из США
[se she a - is se she a]
the USA - from the USA

Basic information about cases

In Russian, the form of nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numbers may change depending on their role in the sentence or for some other reasons. Such word form changes usually manifest themselves in the word's ending alteration. For example, we can see in the phrase above, that nouns forms given in the dictionary (on the right) and nouns following the preposition из from have different endings. At the same time, there are some nouns, including abbreviations (for example, США USA), that do not change and always have the same form.

Such changes of word forms are closely related to the concept of cases in Russian. A case is a set of word forms that is used to perform certain functions in a sentence or phrase. For example, nouns forms that are given in the dictionary usually play the role of the subject in a sentence. These forms are called nominative case forms. In other words, the nominative case is used to indicate the subject of the sentence.

For more info, see the page Russian Cases



b) Listen to the Russian words and choose the right translation from the list:

 
Go to next automatically
 

Is this translated as:

 
    
[ Use virtual keyboard ]220
 
   


c) Give a positive or a negative answer following the model and check yourself:

Model 1

Вы из Канады? (Canada)
[vi is kanadi?]    

-

Да, я из Канады.
[da, ya is kanadi]    

Are you from Canada? (Canada) - Yes, I am from Canada.


Model 2

Вы из США? (Canada)
[vi is se she a?]    

-

Нет, я из Канады.
[nyet, ya is kanadi]    

Are you from the USA? (Canada) - No, I am from Canada.

Questions
Вы из России? (Russia) - ...
[vi iz rasii? ]    
Check yourself
Вы из США? (USA) - ...
[vi is se she a? ]    
Check yourself
Вы из Великобритании? (Australia) - ...
[vi iz vilikabritanii? ]    
Check yourself
Вы из Австралии? (Canada) - ...
[vi iz afstralii? ]    
Check yourself
Вы из Франции? (France) - ...
[vi is frantsii? ]    
Check yourself


III. Nationalities

a) Listen and repeat. Pay attention to the nouns endings:



Transcription
британец / британка
[britanits - britanka]
Briton (male) / Briton (female)
русский / русская
[rooskiy - rooskaya]
Russian (male) / Russian (female)
француз / француженка
[frantsoos - frantsoojinka]
French (male) / French (female)
канадец / канадка
[kanadits - kanatka]
Canadian (male) / Canadian (female)
австралиец / австралийка
[afstraliits - afstraliyka]
Australian (male) / Australian (female)
американец / американка
[amirikanits - amirikanka]
American (male) / American (female)

Basic info about grammatical gender

All Russian nouns have gender, masculine, feminine or neuter, without regard what they mean, a person or an object. In the majority of instances, you can determine the grammatical gender of a noun based on its ending of the dictionary form. Thus, feminine nouns usually end in -а/-я, masculine nouns usually end in a hard consonant or -й, neuter nouns usually end in -о or -е.



b) Read Russian words and choose the right translation from the list:

 
Go to next automatically
 

Is this translated as:

 
    
[ Use virtual keyboard ]220
 
   

c) Translate into Russian and check yourself:

Phrases to translate
1. John is Americain.
Check yourself
2. Christine is French.
Check yourself
3. Oleg is Russian.
Check yourself
4. Mary is Briton.
Check yourself
5. Sarah is Americain.
Check yourself
6. Paul is Canadian.
Check yourself
7. Jeff is Australian.
Check yourself
8. Kelly is Canadian.
Check yourself


IV. Personal pronouns

a) Learn the following Russian pronouns:



Transcription
он
[on]
he*
она
[ana]
she*
оно
[ano]
it
Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are words used in place of a noun or another pronoun to indicate the speaker (first person, in English the pronouns "I", "we"), the person or persons to whom one is speaking (second person, in English the pronoun "You"), and persons and objects spoken about (third person, in English the pronouns "he", "she", "it", "they").

You already know Russian first person personal pronouns я I and second person ты you (informal), вы (or Вы)you (plural or formal).

In singular, Russian third person pronouns он and она may refer not only to people, but also to animals and objects, depending on the grammatical gender of the nouns they are related to.



b) Paraphrase sentences below using Russian pronouns.

Model

Линда из Канады.
[linda is kanadi]    

-

Это Линда. Она канадка.
[eta linda. ana kanatka]    

Linda is from Canada - This is Linda. She is Canadian

Questions
Сергей из России. - ...
[sirgyey iz rasii ]    
Check yourself
Марк из Франции. - ...
[mark is frantsii ]    
Check yourself
Тифани из США. - ...
[tifani is se she a ]    
Check yourself
Джон из Австралии. - ...
[djon iz afstralii ]    
Check yourself
Кэтрин из Канады. - ...
[ketrin is kanadi ]    
Check yourself

V. Let me introduce myself

Listen to the phrases in Russian and choose the right translation

Listen to the phrases. Drag the English phrases from the list below and drop them into the corresponding fields.

Phrase 1
 
Phrase 2
 
Phrase 3
 
Phrase 4
 
Phrase 5
 
Phrase 6
 
Phrase 7
 
Phrase 8
 


  • 6He is from France.
  • 2Are you from Russia?
  • 4John is Americain.
  • 3She is from Canada.
  • 1I am from Australia.
  • 5Hello, I am Peter.
  • 7This is Helen.
  • 8My name is Chris.















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