Thread: "Hello World" in Russian

You don't have to worry chemist, it's quite normal. I remember how foolish I felt when I first tried to pronounce a TH sound like TH as in think. So it's a matter of practice and yes, your tongue really needs some time and practice to get accustomed to this new way of articulation. Which doesn't mean that I refuse a small Skype talk.

It's Medved, hi again. Here's some grammar I promised. Well, grammar is how words link to each other to create phrases and stuff. I'm going to show you which words are used in these phrases and how they link together in the Russian language.

So here's the list:

стоять (stay)
на (on)
место (place)
не (not)
ходить (go)
там (there)
опасно (dangerous)

First of all, some words about negations.
We use the "не" particle to negate things. Like these:
I love = Я люблю,
I don't love = Я не люблю.

I am strong = Я сильный,
I am not strong = Я не сильный

The "НЕ" sounds like "neh", well, the tip of the tongue is down, just like for the whole phrase. The Н (sounds similar to an English N) is soft (palatalized) because of the E sound. A very common mistake which learners of Russian make, is that they pronounce it adding the sound "j" like the "Y" as in "yes" inbetween the Н and the E so that it sounds like "N-yeh". It's wrong. A palatalized consonant is already a step to make a right soft vowel so you don't need to make this j-sound, you should, sort of, include it in the Н sound. Soften the Н the right way and the transition from the soft Н to the soft Е will come natural and smooth.

Now a couple of words about the word THERE. This is a tricky word in Russian. In English you don't change it to mean a location or a direction. In Russian we do. Moreover, we have three words for "THERE" in Russian. Location "there", direction "toward there", and direction "away from there". They are all in the next picture.



We have ТАМ for a location, ТУДА for a direction toward there, and ОТТУДА for a direction away from there. I underlined the stressed vowels.

Here are the "here" variants in Russian for a change. You will definitely need them in future so it's high time you learned them.



ЗДЕСЬ, СЮДА, ОТСЮДА.

Okay, now Стоять means "to stay". When you give an order, it's called "imperative", in Russian стоять transforms into стой (or стойте when you want to sound polite). In Russian we have two forms of addressing people, polite and informal. You may talk with your close friends using the informal form but you have to use the formal/polite one to address elders, strangers, dominant people etc. Otherwise it may sound impolite or even rude. We have two variants of "you" - "ты" and "вы". "Вы" is used for plurals, like you are addressing a group of people, or to address a person in a polite way. We also change the endings of words to correspond to the polite form: стоять -> стой (informal) -> стойте (polite). Идти - иди - идите (adding a ТЕ is a polite or plural form). It sounds like teh. Идите sounds like ee-dee-teh. Стойте = S-toy-teh.

на is a preposition. It's the same as "on" referring to a place. I'm on a table. I'm on the roof. Like you are standing on the roof of a building.

место is the same as "place". I said "на месте", not "на место" it's because of the case system of the Russian language. The preposition "на" referring to a location needs the prepositional case, "на месте". When the same preposition "на" refers to a direction, like the English "onto", it needs accusative, "на место" like "иди на место" (literally: go onto the place), go to your place. Nouns change their endings according to cases. And cases are evoked by verbs or prepositions or other things, you may read about the case system somewhere else. Here the reason to use the "на" as a location is the verb "stay". You can stay somewhere, not "to" somewhere. It's only used for a location. That's why I said "стой на месте", not "стой на место". Although as I said, "иди на место" sounds perfectly fine, because иди (go!) conveys a movement, so it needs a direction, the direction will be conveyed by "на место". Иди на место.

Now let's move to the second clause. "Don't go there" Не ходи туда.
You already know about the negation "не" and the directional "to there" aka туда.
The only thing left is the verb "ходи(ть)". Ходить is the infinitive form and the imperative will be "ходи". Or "ходите" for plurals or polite addressing. So if you say "не ходите туда", it means that you're asking someone who is not your close friend not to go there. Or you're asking a group of people. Стойте на месте. Не ходите туда. Another trick in Russian is that the verbs of motion also have two forms, unidirectional and bidirectional. Ходить is the bidirectional form of the Russian verb, and Идти is the unidirectional. When you are using a negation, you have to use a bidirectional form and when you're not using a negation, use a unidirectional one. It is a rule. So if you want someone to "go there" you say "иди туда", and when you don't want them to go there, you say "не ходи туда". Of course you can add "ТЕ" to be polite. And I think you already guessed why I used "туда", not "там". It's because of "direction vs location". And yes, you can say "не ходите сюда" (look at the picture above) meaning "don't go here" in a polite version because of the "те" in the "ходите".

Here's a list of some verbs with unidirectional and bidirectional forms.

go -- идти (иди), ходить (ходи)
swim - плыть (плыви), плавать (плавай)
run - бежать (беги), бегать (бегай)
crawl - ползти (ползи), ползать (ползай)
drive - ехать (едь), ездить (езди)
carry - нести (неси), носить (носи)

All of those verbs have an imperative form, I gave it in parentheses after the infinitive form. Of course you can add a "те" to be polite. Like "не ползайте туда" means a polite version of "don't crawl there". And "ползите сюда" means a polite/plural version of "crawl here".

Okay, now it's time for the last phrase, "it's dangerous there". As you can guess, I use the same word "there" but meaning a location, not a direction. I logically use the "там" instead of a "туда" because it's a location, not a direction (look at the picture above). Там опасно. Or Здесь опасно (It's dangerous here).
Or Там опасно, здесь не опасно. It's dangerous there, it's not dangerous here.

Опасно is "dangerous" as well as "холодно" is cold and "жарко" is hot.

Well, I think that's all. Next time I'll give some glue how to use them to create your own sentences using the words I mentioned, well, I hope you have already guessed how to do that, but at least I'll give the correct variants like:
Здесь жарко, не стойте здесь, идите туда, там не жарко.

See you next time, good luck!