Thread: How to form a question with accent?

Hi.

In all the book I am reading, they mention how the russian

'Do you understand English?' and 'you understand English' are written the same (apart from the question mark):

vui gavareetye paruskee (dont have russian keyboard)

Could someone please record the difference in how to make it a question, and how to make it a statement? As I am from England, I am finding it really hard not to have the higher bit of the voice raised at the end.

If someone could demonstrate the above example, but also maybe show some other simple examples that a beginner would understand it would be a great help.

When i get my mic, Im hope to record my attempt and see if it is an ok accent etc.

Andy

Does it mean you're learning Russian only through books and without any records whatsoever at all?

понимать = to understand
говорить = to speak

понимать = to understand
говорить = to speak

I'm very tired, just got back from holidays...

I am using some audio - I have the pimsleur cd's, but that is all. I find it hard to distinguish between questions and statements you see..

Andy

My CD course explains it this way:

In Russian you simply raise the tone of your voice when you come to the main word of a question.

For example,

THE DOG IS SLEEPING is SABAKA SPEET

IS THE DOG SLEEPING? is SABAKA SPEET?

You raise the tone of your voice on SPEET.

IS THE BEDROOM BIG? is SPALNYA BALSHAYA?, raising the tone of your voice on BALSHAYA.

As you can see, it is usually towards the end of a question that you need to raise your voice.

- Linkword languages Russian level 1

For statements, you don't raise your voice.

So in the sentence you gave, you would raise your voice on paruskee.

I think that's right anyway, for all I know my course may not be very good compared to others. It doesn't work in cyrillic.

Worth hearing it in audio still...

I know this is on old thread (ish) but would someone be able to help with this one?

Thanks
Andy

Originally Posted by andrewsco

vui gavareetye paruskee (dont have russian keyboard)

You transliterate like this:

Vy govorite po-ruski.

Originally Posted by волк

So in the sentence you gave, you would raise your voice on paruskee.

No-no!
Our sentence is: "Вы говорите по-русски?"
If you raise your voice on "по-русски" that would mean "Is the language that you are talking in (right now) Russian?"
And if you wanna say "Do you speak Russian?" you should raise your voice on "говорите".

If you raise your voice on "по-русски" that would mean "Is the language that you are talking in (right now) Russian?"

Or it would mean that you are surprised that somebody can speak Russian.
Though, I think, even with wrong intonation people will understand what you are trying to say.

I think the Pimsleur course does it in the very first lesson.

Originally Posted by Vadim84

Originally Posted by волк

So in the sentence you gave, you would raise your voice on paruskee.

No-no!
Our sentence is: "Вы говорите по-русски?"
If you raise your voice on "по-русски" that would mean "Is the language that you are talking in (right now) Russian?"
And if you wanna say "Do you speak Russian?" you should raise your voice on "говорите".

Ah, I see. Thank you.

*considers throwing CD course in the garbage*

It's hard for me to picture how that would sound. Like Andrew, I'd still like to hear a spoken example of that sentence.

Originally Posted by волк

Like Andrew, I'd still like to hear a spoken example of that sentence.

Here it is. (too much noise I guess but I hope it will help nevertheless)

Originally Posted by Vadim84

Originally Posted by волк

So in the sentence you gave, you would raise your voice on paruskee.

No-no!
Our sentence is: "Вы говорите по-русски?"
If you raise your voice on "по-русски" that would mean "Is the language that you are talking in (right now) Russian?"

or a surprise at finding out that you can speak Russian.

or
ВЫ говорите по-русски? I didn't know any stupid американецes spoke Russian.

Not that different from English, you see.

YOU speak english? same thing as above.
You SPEAK english? in case you thought he was a mute or something.
You speak ENGLISH? in case he was a Martian or something.

Then comes the miracle of word order. It is my understanding that the most important idea of the question and/or statement usually goes last.

Вы по-русски говорите?? If you can't tell whether he's speaking or writing or something else :P

Here is my attempt to record this for you. The first part would be telling the person they understand English. The second part is asking if they understand English. I try to focus on понимаете in the question. I forget the word that is often referred to with this topic....hmmm

like you want to ask if someone has a car, you would say....

у вас ЕСТЬ машина?

нет, нет.
or
у меня нет машины.

The O in по-английски is right, like an A. But your O in Понимаете sounds like a O. It should be an A. You sound like a Ukrainian or something.

Also your T's sound hard, and at the speed you are speaking, I think your Es at the ends of words should be slightly more ye, and less И.

Your stress is not heavy enough on английски. It almost sounds like you are stressing the A. The stress should be on the second sylable, with a good eeee sound.

Regarindg Машина.

У вас есть машина

I THINK you'd say

Машины нет.

Чай будешь
-(Не) буду

Вы живете в Лондоне?
(Да), в Лондоне

Ты хочешь кофе?
(не) Хочу.

The first sentence sounds like "You understand English, don't you?". May be your "понимаете" shouldn't be so stressed here.