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Немно́го о языке́ 3.8 Джош на уро́ке

Playing musical instruments…

You’ve already seen that when talking about games and sports, the verb игра́ть (stem: играй-) has a complement of в plus the accusative case. 

In this section, we will see that to talk about playing musical instruments, we use the construction игра́ть + на + prepositional case.

If you play an instrument that is not listed here, you might have a look at this illustrated Энциклопе́дия музыка́льных инструме́нтов before you ask your teacher.

Упражне́ние 1

Inidcate what instrument the people below play.

Учи́ться and other verbs with the particle –ся

In this section of the unit you meet the verb учи́ться in its meaning “to be a student, to study in an institution.” 

The stem of the second conjugation verb учи́ться is уч- , and the ч  at the end of the stem requires us to adjust our spelling of verb endings.

You already know that the letter ч is one of the seven letters (г к х ж ш ч щ) after which you must write –и (and not ы). After these same seven letters and ц, one can also not write –ю and –я (standard endings for second conjugation verbs) but writes –у and –а in their places. This is known as the eight-letter spelling rule.

After г, к, х, ж, ш, ч, щ and ц,
write -у instead of –ю, and –а instead of –я.

The second issue with conjugating the verb учи́ться concerns the particle –ся.  It attaches to the end of the conjugated verb, and it is spelled as –ся when the verb form ends in a consonant, but as –сь when the verb form ends in a vowel.

Stem Endings Particle Conjugated Forms Meanings
уч- + у + сь → я учу́сь I am a student, I study
+ ишь + ся → ты у́чишься You are a student, etc.
+ ит + ся → он/она́ у́́чится He/she is a student, etc.
+ им + ся → мы у́чимся We are students, etc.
+ ите + сь → вы у́читесь You are students, etc.
+ ат + ся → они́ у́чатся They are students, etc.
The –сь spelling is found in which of the following forms?
а. я
б. ты
в. он/она́
г. мы
д. вы
е. они́

While the –ся particle causes no change in how verbs conjugate, you should be careful not to leave off the  -сь/-ся or add –сь/-ся unnecessarily.  For many verbs, the present or absence of ся will significantly change the meaning of the verb.

Verbs for Talking about Locations.

In this section of Unit 3, you encounter the forms нахо́дится and нахо́дятся. These are the third-person singular and third-person plural forms of the verb находи́ться = to be located.  These forms are frequently used in specifying locations, especially when dealing with proper place names that might be unfamiliar to a Russian ear.  It is grammatically correct to say:

            Про́виденс в Род-А́йленде. = Providence is in Rhode Island.

            Топи́ка в Канза́се. = Topeka is in Kansas.

HOWEVER, your Russian listeners will benefit from you being more explicit, labeling the proper place name with a generic term (го́род, штат) and using the forms нахо́дится/нахо́дятся to let your listeners know that you are talking about locations.

            Го́род Про́виденс нахо́дится в шта́те Род-А́йлeнд.

            Го́род Топи́ка нахо́дится в шта́те Канза́с.

            Штат Канза́с нахо́дится в Аме́рике.

            Города́ Миннеа́полис и Сент-Пол нахо́дятся в Миннесо́те.

Adjective endings in the prepositional case

In Unit 2, the adjective endings that you learned (basic endings: ый / -ая / -ое) agree with nouns in the nominative case.  When nouns are in the prepositional case, adjectives will have to match them in the prepositional form. 

In the prepositional case, the basic adjective ending for masculine and neuter forms is –ом and for feminine nouns is –ой. The alternative endings for spelling rule considerations is: -ем and –ей, respectively.

These adjective endings are summarized in this table:

Nominative
Adjective-Noun phrases		 Prepositional
Adjective-Noun endings		 Prepositional
Adjective-Noun endings
Spelling rule
Masculine
Neuter

деся́тый класс
пе́рвый курс
большо́й университе́т
интере́сный музе́й
ма́ленькое зе́ркало
но́вое общежи́тие

хоро́ший институ́т
хоро́шее зда́ние
 -ом

в деся́том кла́ссе
на пе́рвом ку́рсе
в большо́м университе́те
в интере́сном музе́е
в ма́леньком зе́ркале
в но́вом общежи́тии
 -ем









в хоро́шем институ́те
в хоро́шем зда́нии
Feminine

но́вая кварти́ра
больша́я ко́мната
ма́ленькая ку́хня
ста́рая тетра́дь


хоро́шая шко́ла
хоро́шая семья́
 -ой

в но́вой кварти́ре
в большо́й ко́мнате
в, на ма́ленькой ку́хне
в ста́рой тетра́ди

 -ей








в хоро́шей шко́ле
в хоро́шей семье́

Упражне́ние 2. Listening and hearing adjective endings

You will hear a number of sentences, each of which contains a single adjective. Some of the sentences will have adjectival phrases in the nominative case, others will have phrases in the accusative or prepositional case.  Listen and choose the correct ending for the adjective you hear.

Упражне́ние 3

Pick the nouns that best complete the sentences from a grammatical standpoint.

Talking about universities

Most university names in Russian are expressed by an adjective plus the word университе́т.  When a person talks about studying at that university, then one will use the verb  учи́ться + в + prepositional case of the adjective + университе́те.

Упражне́ние 4.

Listen to each statement about where each character is studying and choose whether the statement is true or false.

In the exercise above you can see adjectives made from the names of the places where our students are studying. Can you figure out how that process works?

The -ский suffix is very productive in Russian and is often used for turning foreign names and foreign place names into adjectives.  Below are some common US institution names. 

Ordinal numbers

So far in Russian you have learned to count using the cardinal numbers for 0-10.  In the table below you will find the associated ordinal numbers.

1st пе́рвый 6th шесто́й
2nd второ́й 7th седьмо́й
3rd тре́тий 8th восьмо́й
4th четвёртый 9th девя́тый
5th пя́тый 10th деся́тый

The ordinal numbers in Russian are adjectives and agree with the noun they modify. With the exception of тре́тий, they all have regular adjective endings. Третий has the following exceptional forms that occur because the и is a fill-vowel that is replaced by –ь- when followed by endings that begin with a vowel.

Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative singular тре́тий эта́ж тре́тья ко́мната тре́тье окно́
Accusative тре́тий эта́ж тре́тью ко́мнату тре́тье окно́
Prepositional на тре́тьем этаже́ в тре́тьей ко́мнате в тре́тьем окне́

Упражне́ние 5.

Images of musical instruments courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Pixabay:
trumpet, clarinet, piano, drums, saxophone, guitar, violin and viola, cello, flute, balalaika.