RUSSIAN FOR DUMMIES

403 Pages·2022·13.787 MB·English

by  ANDREW KAUFMAN

Russian

Russian
3rd Edition
by Andrew D. Kaufman, PhD,
and Serafima Gettys, PhD
Russian For Dummies®, 3rd Edition
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022936572
ISBN 978-1-119-86860-6 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-86861-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-98463-4 (ebk)
Contents at a Glance
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Part 1: Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
CHAPTER 1: Russian in a Nutshell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
CHAPTER 2: Checking Out the Russian Alphabet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
CHAPTER 3: Warming Up with Russian Grammar Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
CHAPTER 4: Getting Started with Basic Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67
CHAPTER 5: Getting Your Numbers, Times, and Measurements Straight . . . . . . . . . 81
CHAPTER 6: Speaking Russian at Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Part 2: Russian in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
CHAPTER 7: Getting to Know You: Making Small Talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
CHAPTER 8: Asking for Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
CHAPTER 9: Dining Out and Going to the Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
CHAPTER 10: Shopping Made Easy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
CHAPTER 11: Going Out on the Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
CHAPTER 12: Taking Care of Business and Telecommunications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
CHAPTER 13: Recreation and the Great Outdoors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Part 3: Russian on the Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
CHAPTER 14: Planning a Trip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
CHAPTER 15: Dealing with Money in a Foreign Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
CHAPTER 16: Getting Around: Planes, Trains, Taxis, and More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
CHAPTER 17: Finding a Place to Stay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
CHAPTER 18: Handling Emergencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Part 4: The Part of Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
CHAPTER 19: Ten Ways to Pick Up Russian Quickly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
CHAPTER 20: Ten Things Never to Say in Russian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
CHAPTER 21: Ten Favorite Russian Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
CHAPTER 22: Ten Phrases That Make You Sound Fluent in Russian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Appendix A: Russian-English Mini-Dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Appendix B: Verb Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Appendix C: Answer Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Conventions Used in This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
What You’re Not to Read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Foolish Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
How This Book Is Organized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Part 1: Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Part 2: Russian in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Part 3: Russian on the Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Part 4: The Part of Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Appendixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Icons Used in This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Beyond the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Where to Go from Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
PART 1: GETTING STARTED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
CHAPTER 1: Russian in a Nutshell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 .
Discovering How Easy the Russian Alphabet Really Is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Tackling Basic Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Easing into Common Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Counting on Numbers, Times, and Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Speaking Russian around the House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Using Russian in Social Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Starting conversations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Finding your way around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Eating out and buying food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Going shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Exploring entertainment opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Doing business and communicating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Enjoying sports, hobbies, recreation, and more . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Getting a Handle on Travel Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
CHAPTER 2: Checking Out the Russian Alphabet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Recognizing Russian Letters (It’s Easier Than You Think) . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Introducing the entire alphabet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
I know you!: Familiar-looking, same-sounding letters . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Playing tricks: Familiar-looking, different-sounding letters . . . . . . . 22
How bizarre: Weird-looking letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Sounding Like a Real Russian with Proper Pronunciation . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Understanding the one-letter-one-sound principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Table of Contents vii
Giving voice to vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Enunciating consonants correctly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Surveying sticky sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
CHAPTER 3: Warming Up with Russian Grammar Basics . . . . . . . . 33
Beginning with Nouns and Pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Defining a noun’s gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Making a noun plural . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Replacing nouns with pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
The Case of Russian Cases: What Are They For? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
The nominative case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
The genitive case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
The accusative case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
The dative case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The instrumental case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The prepositional case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Putting Nouns and Pronouns in the Correct Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Checking out cases for singular nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42
Trying your hand at changing the case of a singular noun . . . . . . . 44
Putting plurals in proper cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Trying your hand at putting nouns into plural cases . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Perusing the correct cases of pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Decorating Your Speech with Adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Making sure that adjectives and nouns agree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Adding Action with Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Spotting infinitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Living in the present tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Describing action in the present tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Talking about the past tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Planning for the future tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Using the unusual verb “to be” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Expressing possession with a special phrase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Helping yourself with modal verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Providing Extra Details with Adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Describing how . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Describing when and how often . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Constructing Sentences Like a Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Enjoying the freedom of word order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Creating a Russian sentence step by step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Connecting with conjunctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Forming questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64
CHAPTER 4: Getting Started with Basic Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
To Whom Am I Speaking?: Being Informal or Formal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Comings and Goings: Saying Hello and Goodbye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
viii Russian For Dummies