Lesson 1

Welcome to the course, all you need to do in these lessons is listen to me and whenever I
give you a prompt, think about the answer and if possible, say it out loud. Let’s begin. To
say “this is” in Russian, you say the word это. Это means “this is”. Это.

Now it’s your turn. How would you say “this is":

Naturally, you want to follow it up. You want to say “this is something”, right?

And I’ve got good news: if you speak English, French, German, or any other Romance or
Germanic language, you likely already know a lot of words in Russian.

Take the word for theater, for example. In Russian, theater is театр - театр. Now you:
театр.

It’s basically the same word, but “Russified”.

So how would you say “this is theater":

You’ve probably noticed an incongruence here. I asked you in English “this is theater”. But
we skipped the article, you would usually say in English “this is A theater”.

“This is theater”: doesn’t it sound like any Russian character in a Hollywood movie?

Well, the Russian language does NOT have these articles. This is a reason to be happy,
because it’s simply one less thing to think about.

If a Russian person says это театр, it can mean “this is a theater”, or “this is the theater”.
Context usually makes this clear. This is refreshing, because to be honest, a and the don’t
really add that much to our speech. If I were to create a new language from scratch, I’d also
skip the articles.
Native Russian speakers who speak English find this difficult, that’s why they often forget it.
and then they say something like “I put chicken in oven” or “this is theater”. Which, by the
way, how would you say “this is theater” in Russian again?

Now, in the rest of the course I WILL say articles in the English prompts. This just makes it
easier on your ears.

So whenever I ask you to say “this is a bank”, you say the Russian equivalent of “this is
bank”. How would you say “this is a bank":

If you guessed that bank is банк, good job. If not, we’ve just learned another word. Just like
театр, банк is a cognate. A cognate is a word that exists in both languages. And these
words make it much easier to learn Russian, since you already know them.

Want to know a secret? Here it is: секрет. Now you: “секрет”:

And how would you say “this is a secret”:

If you’re reading along, you see that these cognates are usually written similarly, and only
the pronunciation changes. Speaking about that…

You may be wondering about your pronunciation and if you say the words correctly? The
reality is that pronunciation is not that important in the beginning. I know plenty of native
Russian speakers who moved abroad, and who have a horrible accent in English or Dutch,
but they still manage to live their lives perfectly fine.

So you have my permission to be bad at pronouncing Russian words.

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And here’s a little-known секрет: If you just listen carefully to the correct pronunciation,
and repeat it, your pronunciation will get better over time automatically, without you
focusing on it.

Listening + repeating is key here.

Let’s try it, how would you say “this is a bank":

And how would you say “this is a secret":

But what if you want to say “this is NOT a bank"? In English you just add the word not in
front of the thing that’s not there.

Luckily, Russian works the same way, you just add не in front of the word. Repeat that: не:

So how would you say “not a bank":

And how would you say “not a secret":

And how would you then say “this is not a secret":

Or how would you say “this is not a theater":

Now, another interesting thing is that это can also mean “it is”, so это means “this is” and “it
is”.

So how would you say “it is not a secret”:

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…

Yes, it’s the same это не секрет. This is a fun phrase to reply if someone asks you a
common question and you want to add a bit of playfulness to the conversation.

Now, let’s try combining everything we’ve learned in the last couple of minutes. Imagine
you’re taking a walk in the center of your city with a Russian-speaking friend named Ivan.
He points at a magnificent old building, and asks “театр?”

How would you reply "It's not a theater, it’s a secret":

Or how would you say “it’s not a secret. It’s a bank":

Now, do you remember that Russian does NOT have articles? Russian usually uses fewer
words than English to express the same thing. Это президент means “this is the president”.

We say “the president” here, because there’s usually only one president.

But did you notice that we only needed 2 Russian words to explain 4 English words here?

"This is the president” - 4 words in English is 2 Russian words: это президент.

Repeat this: это президент:

So we can forget about the articles, but you can also skip the “is” form. Это actually means
just “this” or “it”, but in Russian you don’t need to say “is”. It’s like pointing at the president
in English and saying “this president”. In Russian that means “this IS the president. This is
great because you need one less thing to think about.

See how we’re already making larger sentences? We’ve just broken down simple
grammatical constructions, such as это, and это не, and how Russian does not have
articles or the absence of the “is” form. Then we’re putting them together to create
everyday sentences.

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Though, it’s probably not everyday that you’re discussing architecture or the president.

You probably also want to introduce yourself. The word for “I” is я. Repeat that “я”:

Just take the English I and say it the opposite direction. Iiiiijj = jjjjaaa.

So how would you say “I am the president":

Just like how это театр means “this is a theater”, and you can skip the “is”, in a sentence like
“I am the president”, you skip the “am” and just say the Russian equivalent of “I president” -
я президент.

Though it’s more likely you’re not the president”, right? How would you say “I am not the
president":

Now, a common Russian word for “hi” is привет. Now you: привет:

So how would you say “hi, I’m the president”:

And how would you say “hi, it’s not a secret. I’m the president”:

A phrase like this may be a bit silly, but it’s great to break the ice or answer a question
about your work or something. It shows you’re learning the language because you want to
communicate with people and create a connection and not just robotically say phrases.

Want another fun word to use on an occasion like this? The Russian word for “spy” is
шпион. Now you шпион:

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…

So how would you say “I’m not a spy”:

And if someone asks why you’re learning Russian, how would you reply “hi, I’m a spy”:

Though to be honest, I wouldn’t say that to a Russian customs agent who’s checking your
passport.

Alright, imagine meeting Ivan the first time, it would be nice to explain where you’re from,
right? Let’s say you’re from Canada or the U.S., so you’d be an American.

An American in Russian is американец. Now you: американец:

But if you’re a woman, it’s американка. Now you: американка:

So you could say that the Russian language isn’t very politically correct, as there are
different endings for a single word, depending whether you’re a man or a woman. Russian
is very gender-centric, so you’ll encounter these differences between masculine and
feminine more often in the rest of the course.

Now, the official translation of американец or американка is ”an American” - a noun, but
in colloquial language you can also use it to indicate “American” as a nationality. So how
would you say “I’m American” as a man:

And how would you say “hi, I’m American” as a woman:

But what if you’re from Britain, then you’d be a британец. Now you: британец:

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…

And a woman from Britain would be an британка. Now you: британка:

Now, imagine meeting Ivan. He looks at you and asks “британец?”

But if you’re not from Britain, but from America, how would you say as a man “it’s not a
secret. I’m American":

Or oppositely, how would you reply “I’m not American, I’m British”

And if you’re an American woman, how would you say “I’m not British. I’m American"

And to make a great first impression, how would you say “hi, it’s not a secret. I’m American.
I’m a spy”:

In these examples I used 2 common nationalities. But maybe that’s not you, in that case,
you can look up your nationality in the table in the additional materials below. Or, what’s
easier, just go to any translation app or site, and just translate your nationality. Type in “I
am Dutch - I am Spanish - I am Chinese”, or wherever you are from. If you’re a woman, just
write “I am a German woman - I am a Swedish woman - I am a French woman” and you’ll
get the feminine word.

By the way, about translating, it’s good to get into the habit of writing sentences when you
use these translation apps. That drastically increases your chances of getting a correct
translation - versus if you were to just translate a single word.

Alright, that was it for the first lesson. I hope you enjoyed it, and see you in the next one!

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Lesson 2

Imagine walking around in Moscow, and seeing a large statue. It would be nice to ask what
it is, right?

The word for “what” in Russian is что. Repeat: что.

And how would you say “this is":

So what would we get if we combine these 2 words что and это? How would you say “What
is this":

Что это? Means “what is this?”

So let’s go back to this large statue you saw in Moscow. How would you ask your Russian
friend “what is this":

And how would he reply saying “this is a monument":

Did you guess that “monument” was another easy cognate? Usually if I haven’t specifically
taught you a word in Russian, you can try to “Russify” it. This is a skill that will come in
handy later once you try to have conversations, as you can often guess words correctly, or
at least native speakers will understand what you’re trying to say.

Now, imagine seeing the monument, and wanting to ask: “is this a monument?” in Russian.

In English you’d need to switch words around. “This is a monument” is a statement. And “Is
this a monument?” is a question.

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Russian does this in another - arguably easier - way. You just add inflection. Here’s the
Russian statement “It is a monument”: это монумент. Repeat this это монумент:

And now we turn it into a question “is this a monument?” это монумент? Repeat that: это
монумент?

So you can just turn any statement into a question by raising your voice’s pitch a bit at the
end. However, if you have an obvious question word such as что, you’re not obliged to do
this. But you still can. How would you ask “What is this?":

If you raised your pitch a bit, try now saying it in the affirmative way. Since it’s a question
word, it doesn’t matter how you say it. Try again without raising your pitch. How would you
say “what is this":

Let’s learn another Russian question word. The word for “who” in Russian is кто. Repeat
that: кто:

Let’s combine this with what you’ve learned previously. How would you say “who is this":

Now, imagine sitting on the couch with Ivan, looking at a photo album of when you were a
child. There’s a big photo of your entire family on the front.

Ivan points at the young version of you and asks “кто это?”. How would you reply saying
“this is I” in Russian.

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In English, you might’ve said “that’s me”, but Russian cannot always be literally translated.
Sometimes Russian uses different words to explain the same thing. Like in this instance
“that’s me” turns into “this is I”.

This is important to keep in the back of your mind. As we’ll encounter plenty of words and
phrases that mean the same thing, but use different words for it.

While this may seem confusing, it’s actually a good thing. It forces you to start thinking in
Russian. Often Russian students struggle with speaking, even if they know plenty of words
and grammar, because they try to literally translate everything in their mind. They take an
An English sentence, translate everything into Russian, and are then confused why Russian
people don’t understand them.

By thinking in concepts rather than literal translations, we force ourselves to create a much
deeper bond with the Russian language. And this will help you speak much more fluently
and develop a conversational ability to speak Russian.

Alright, let’s get back to learning some more words. On the left of you in the picture there is
your brother. Brother in Russian is брат. Repeat: брат:

If you struggle to roll your R, that’s okay. Plenty of native Russian speakers also struggle
with it. And did you hear that the “t” is pronounced hard. Russian does not have the “th”
sound from English. How would you say “this is brother":

Again, in Russian you can leave out words. In this example it’s obvious that you want to say
in English “this is my brother”, so “this is brother” is completely fine.

On the right of you in the picture there is your sister. Sister in Russian is сестра. Repeat
after me сестра:

This word also looks similar to the English translation. How would you say “this is sister":

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…

Now, your brother used to have long hair when he was young. Ivan points at him and
wants to ask “is this sister?”. How would you ask “is this sister?":

But it’s your brother. So how would you say “this is not brother. This is sister.”

In a later lesson I’ll explain how to say “this is not my brother, this is my sister”. You can use
that to clarify that it’s really MY brother and sister we’re talking about. But in an example
like this where we’re talking about my family album, it’s obvious that they’re my brother
and sister.

You’ve got some more family members in the picture. For example papa and mama. How
would you say “papa":

And how would you say “mama":

And how would your friend ask “is this papa?":

And how would he ask “is this mama":

And how would you reply “this is papa and mama":

Oh, I completely forgot to teach you the word for “and” in Russian. But chances are you
already answered correctly right? The word for “and” in Russian is и. Repeat that и:

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…

How would Ivan ask “is this papa and mama?":

Did you remember to raise your voice a bit at the end? Now how would you reply “this is
brother and sister":

Alright, let me give you 2 super useful words that you probably already know in Russian.
The words for “yes” and “no”. “Yes” in Russian is да. Repeat да.

And “no” in Russian is нет. Repeat нет:

So how would you say “Yes, this is a monument":

And how would you say “No, this is not papa, this is brother":

It’s funny that “no” in English is нет, and “not” in English is не. So we switch the t sound
around.

And how would you say “No, this is not a theater. This is a bank":

And “No, this is not sister. This is brother":

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Lesson 3

Imagine taking a walk in the center of Moscow and really needing a bathroom. You finally
enter a restaurant and want to ask “where is the toilet?”.

The word for “where” is где. Repeat that: где.

The word for bathroom, or toilet, is туалет. Repeat that туалет:

Now combine these two words and ask “where is the bathroom?":

Do you remember that you can just skip the “is” and “the” in the sentence? How would you
ask “where is the restaurant?” in Russian:

Did you guess that restaurant was ресторан? Lots of place-related vocabulary are all
cognates. Can you guess what the following words are:

●​ Бар
●​ Музей
●​ Аеропорт
●​ Офис
●​ Метро
●​ Кафе
●​ Супермаркет
●​ Университет

And here are the translations:

●​ Бар - bar
●​ Музей - museum

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 ●​ Аэропорт - airport
●​ Офис - office
●​ Метро - metro
●​ Кафе - cafe
●​ Супермаркет - supermarket
●​ Университет - university

How would you ask “where is the supermarket?":

Now, it’s always good to be polite and use words such as“excuse me” or “sorry”. Especially if
you’re a guest in another country. Even though in my experience, you can get away with
quite a lot if you are a foreigner who’s learning the language and is genuinely interested in
Russia and Russian culture. But still, to be on the safe side, it’s good to add “excuse me” or
“sorry” before asking a question like this.

“Excuse me” in Russian is извините. Repeat that: извините:

This is your first difficult Russian word. It’s longer than what we’ve learned before, and it
doesn’t look like its English equivalent at all. Some people may recommend using
“mnemonics” or memory tricks to remember these words better. For example if we take
извините, из becomes “is” вини becomes “Vinny”, те becomes “there”. So извините
becomes “Is Vinny there?”. Imagine Vinny being your polite British uncle who’s always
saying “excuse me” before saying anything.

Now, as you can see this is quite a stretch. First of all, not each word is suitable for doing
this. And then it also takes some time, and the connection can turn out to be well, weird.

In my experience, these mnemonics or memory tricks aren’t worth spending much time on.
Much better to hear words often and repeat them in different ways and sentences.
Especially with these common words, such as “excuse me”, you’ll read and hear them often
enough for them to stick relatively quickly anyway.

So what was “excuse me":

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…

So how would you say “Excuse me, where is the university?":

And “excuse me, where is the toilet?":

The person replying might point at a door next to you and say “here”, which is здесь.
Repeat that здесь.

How would you say “the toilet is here":

And how would you turn it into a question and ask “is the toilet here?":

And how would you say “I am here":

And how would you ask “is sister here?":

Now we know the word for "here”, but it’s also good to know the word for “there”. That’s an
easier word там. Repeat там:

So how would you say “the metro is there":

And how would you say “papa is there":

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…

And how would you turn it into a question by raising your voice at the end “is papa there?":

How would someone reply “No, papa is here":

Now, you just entered the restaurant, see a long corridor and think the toilet is there, but
you’re not sure. So how would you ask the staff “excuse me, is the toilet there?":

And how would the staff reply saying “No, the toilet is here":

He also could’ve replied: “it’s here”. In Russian you can use the word это also for “it is”. So
это can be “this is” or “it is”. So how would you say “it’s here":

Another useful word here is the word for “far”. Far in Russian is далеко. Repeat that
далеко.

So how would you say “the restaurant is far":

And how would you ask “is the restaurant far?":

And how would you ask “is the restaurant not far?":

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Now make it more polite and ask “Excuse me, is the restaurant far?":

Alright, now ask someone “excuse me, is this a bar?":

And how would the waiter reply saying “No, this is not a bar, this is a restaurant":

And how would he say “The bar is there, it’s not far":

And how would you say all this together “No, this is not a bar, this is a restaurant. The bar is
there, it’s not far":

Alright, that was quite a sentence, right? These sentences may feel difficult, since you need
to remember a lot of things to say. But this is really what this course is all about. You want
to be practicing making longer, more complicated sentences, because that’s what
communication is all about. And this is also something that most Russian students never
learn. They just learn words and grammar, without ever really trying to put everything
together. And when they try to have a conversation with a native Russian speaker, they
struggle tremendously. So that’s why we already practice this upfront. “The more you sweat
in peace, the less you bleed in battle.”

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Lesson 4

In this lesson we are going to learn more about verbs. So far you have already learned “I
am” and “it is” in Russian. Let’s do a quick recap of those.

What is “I am":

And “it is":

Simple, right? The conjugation of the verb “to be” in the present tense does not exist. It
makes the language much simpler. If you want to say “I’m a businessman”, you say in
Russian я бизнесмен. Repeat that: я бизнесмен:

Wouldn’t it be nice if in English you could just say “I businessman”, and be understood.

Now if you want to say “I know” in Russian, you say я знаю. Repeat that я знаю:

The у or ю sound at the end always indicates that it’s the I-form of the verb: у ю. This will
come back later once we learn more verbs, so it’s okay to forget about this now.

So how would you say “I know":

Alright, do you remember how to say “where is the supermarket?":

Now, let’s try combining these 2 phrases together. “I know” + “where is the supermarket”.
Let’s just try it. “I know where the supermarket is”. Remember that you can leave out “the”

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and “is”, so the phrase we want to make sounds more like “I know where supermarket”.
How would you say “I know where supermarket":

Let’s try something else. How would you say “I know where the restaurant is":

In English you might’ve noticed that the word order changes around. If you ask a question
you have to say “where is the supermarket?”. But if it’s part of a statement, you say “I know
where the supermarket is”. English has a strict word order. You cannot just place any word
at any spot, and hope it makes sense. You can’t say “I know the supermarket where is”.

Russian has a flexible word order. That means that it usually doesn’t really matter where
you put words in a sentence. We’ll come back to this later, but for now just understand that
я знаю где супермаркет is completely fine in terms of word order.

Native Russian speakers actually find this difficult to learn in English, because Russian is
much more flexible in where you put words.

Let’s get back to playing around a bit more with saying that you know something.

Do you remember how to say “what is this?":

Now let’s try combining 2 phrases again. What do you get when you combine я знаю with
что это? How would you say that?

“I know what this is”. I hope you just were able to say “I know what this is” to yourself about
this phrase 🙂
я знаю - i know - что - what - это - this is.

And how would you say “I know where this is":

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The word for “who” in Russian was кто. So how would you say “I know who this is":

Do you remember how to say “this is not a restaurant":

If you want to negate something, you use the Russian не in front of the word you’re
negating. This works the same for verbs. So here’s a little challenge. How would you say “I
do not know":

In English we put the “not” in front of the “know”. And we do the same in Russian. я не
знаю.

So how would you say “I do not know where the restaurant is":

And how would you say “I don’t know what this is":

Or how would you say “I don’t know who this is":

And let’s try how would you say “I don’t know where it is":

Did you notice we said “it is” for это in the last sentence? Like we spoke about in another
lesson это can mean “this is” or “it is” in English. Another word that has several meanings is
что.

We’ve learned so far that что means “what”. But it can also mean “that”. This happens when
you want to say “I know that”. In Russian “I know that” is я знаю что. Repeat that я знаю
что:

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…

Okay, here’s a difficult one: how would you say “mama is a doctor":

Doctor is another cognate. So how would you say “I know that mama is a doctor":

And how would you say “I know that papa is a businessman":

The word for “far” in Russian was далеко. So how would you say “I know that the restaurant
is far":

And how would you say “I don’t know that the restaurant is far":

Or how would you say “I know that the restaurant is not far":

The word for “but” in Russian is но. It’s like when in English you make a statement, and
someone disagrees and says “no, but that’s not true”. Let’s repeat that но.

How would you say “I’m not a businessman, but I’m a doctor":

And do you remember how to say the words for “here” and “there": Here is здесь, and
“there” is там.

So how would you say “it’s not here, but there":

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…

Now how would you say “it’s not there, but here":

Let’s try making a bigger sentence. Are you ready? Let’s first break it down in parts. How
would you say “I don’t know where the restaurant is":

And how would you say “but I know that the bar is not far":

Now try combining these 2 sentences. How would you say “I don’t know where the
restaurant is, but I know that the bar is not far":

Alright, let’s take a quick breather. Making these long sentences can be exhausting. You’re
combining everything you’ve learned so far and using all these building blocks to create a
new sentence. This creative process is the most valuable skill in speaking Russian, and
something many people forget to train. But it can be frustrating.

Now, if you feel that these audio lessons go a bit too fast, and you’d prefer to have extra
practice, there’s one great tool you can use for extra repetitions and practice. If you go to
the “bonus” section in the membership area, you’ll find flashcards there. You can install
these on your phone or PC - the installation instructions can be found there too. So that
you can repeat the new words and sentences from these lessons more often.

And even if you find that these lessons are at a good speed for you, it still might be a good
idea to install these flashcards and spend a couple of minutes per day on them. Repetition
of the basics is always a good thing.

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Lesson 5

Last lesson we learned how to say “I know” in Russian: я знаю.

In this lesson we will learn “you know”. “You know” in Russian is вы знаете. Вы is “you” and
знаете is the “know” conjugation form that follows you. Repeat that вы знаете:

You might’ve noticed that the зна part stays the same in “I know” знаю and “you know”
знаете. This is the stem of the verb. And you can use it later to build more forms, such as
for he knows, they know, and we know. The ете part of знаете indicates that it’s “you” who
knows. You can forget about all this now, we’ll come back to this later.

If you want to make an affirmative statement saying “you know where the bar is”, then you
say вы знаете где бар. Repeat that вы знаете где бар:

And if you want to turn this into a question, all you do is raise the tone a bit towards the
end of the sentence and on the verb that’s being questioned. The rest stays the same.
Here’s how it sounds: вы знаете где бар? (question). repeat that: вы знаете где бар?

So вы знаете где бар? means “do you know where the bar is?”.

So how would you say “do you know where the toilet is?":

And how would you ask “Excuse me, do you know where the toilet is?":

Let’s go back to making statements. How would you say “you don’t know where the toilet
is":

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And how would you say “you don’t know where the toilet is, but I know”.

So how would you ask the question “don’t you know where the toilet is?":

By adding не in front of the verb in a question, you make the question more polite. It’s
similar in English if we compare “do you know where the toilet is? vs “don’t you know where
the toilet is?”

Now, let’s make it double polite by saying the question “Excuse me, don’t you know where
the toilet is?":

Okay, I hope by now you’ll never be lost for words in case when you really need to go badly.
Let’s switch things up a bit.

How would you say “I know where the theater is, but you don’t know.":

And how would you say “you know where the theater is, but I don’t know":

Okay, the word for engineer is инженер. How would you say “you know that papa is an
engineer":

And how would you turn this into a question saying “do you know that papa is an
engineer?":

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Alright, now imagine you need to withdraw some money, and you want to ask someone
politely “Excuse me, don’t you know where the bank is?”. How would you say “Excuse me,
don’t you know where the bank is?":

And how would that person reply saying “I know where the bank is. The bank is not here,
but there.”

Afterwards you’d like to take a walk in the park. How would you ask “Excuse me, do you
know where the park is?":

And how would the person reply saying “I don’t know where the park is, but I know that the
park is not far":

Alright, we’ve now had some quite long sentences. If you haven’t yet taken a look at the
flashcards in the bonus section, I highly recommend you do so. The extra repetition will
make it much easier to remember the words and phrases.

The flashcard app we’re using also uses a technique called spaced repetition. This sounds
difficult, but in reality it just means that you practice new words and phrases often. And as
you get to know them better, you repeat them less often. It’s similar to what we’re doing
here with the audio lessons actually. You might’ve noticed that once I introduce a
grammatical concept, we first repeat it often. And then this concept makes an occasional
appearance at different points later in the course.

The word for “good” in Russian is хорошо. Repeat that хорошо:

In Russian, you can just use this word all the time. Just like in English actually, whenever
you’d say “good” or “okay”, you can say хорошо.

25
Now how would you say “it’s good":

And how would you say “no, it’s not good":

Okay, now imagine you’re taking a walk through Moscow with Ivan and he’s getting hungry.
He offers to go to a traditional Russian restaurant to grab a bite to eat.

How would you ask “good, where is the restaurant?":

Another useful word to know is the word for “thank you” or “thanks”. In Russian that is
спасибо. repeat that: спасибо.

And how would you say “good, thanks":

And how would you say “it’s good, thanks":

Now, even though we use the English informal translation “thanks” here, the Russian
спасибо can be used in formal and informal situations. So that can range from saying
“thanks” to a child for passing you the salt on the table, to receiving your passport at the
customs from an unhappy looking customs agent, and saying “thanks” to him.

There are ways of making it more or less formal, but to be honest if the ONLY word you
ever learned for saying “thank you” or “thanks” was спасибо, that would be perfectly fine.

About that customs agent. Imagine getting your passport back with a stamp, but you’re
unsure if it’s good.

So how would you ask “thanks, is it good?":

26
…

You walk out of the airport and look for a taxi. You show him the address on your phone,
the taxi driver puts it in his navigation app, and shows you that it’s only a 20 minute drive
away. How would you say “thanks, this is good. It’s not far":

You arrive at the hotel, but there’s no one in the reception. You ring the bell and hear from
a small room to the side “кто там?”.

You’re a bit angry at the service so you ask them “don’t you know who I am?”. How would
you ask “don’t you know who I am?":

The receptionist replies “No, I don’t know who you are.”. How would she say “No, I don’t
know who you are":

Then you start to doubt yourself. You want to ask “is this the Hilton?”. how would you say
“Is this the Hilton?":

The receptionist replies “No, this is not the Hilton. The Hilton is there” while she points to
the hotel on the other side of the road. How would she say “No, this is not the Hilton. The
Hilton is there”:

You now realize your mistake, and want to say “Excuse me, thanks”. How would you say
“excuse me, thanks":

….

Alright, that was it for our little roleplaying conversation. See you in the next lesson. And if
you haven’t yet installed the flashcards on your phone or PC, please do that now!

27
Lesson 6

In this lesson we are going to learn a valuable word that you can use in all sorts of
situations. But let’s start simple. In order to explain this, imagine Ivan is a smoker.

The word for “to smoke” in Russian is курить. Repeat that курить:

Just imagine getting a package by courier, and once he’s delivered the package, he lights up
a cigarette. Courier - курить.

And if you want to say “it is possible” or “it is allowed” in Russian, you say можно. Repeat
that можно:

Ivan wants to light up a cigarette, and looks at you if you’re okay with him smoking. How
would you say “It is possible to smoke":

And how would Ivan ask “is it possible to smoke?":

And how would he ask “is it possible to smoke here?":

And how would you reply, “it’s possible to smoke there":

Ivan wants to smoke in the restaurant. He wants to ask the waiter. How would he ask
“where is it possible to smoke?":

28
The waiter gives him directions to the smoking room, your friend leaves, but comes back
unable to find it. He says “I don’t know where it’s possible to smoke”. How would he say “I
don’t know where it’s possible to smoke":

Okay, let’s learn another valuable word in Russian. The word for “to buy” in Russian is very
similar to “to smoke”. It’s купить. The same word, but the р becomes a п. A mnemonic can
be that you can use a coupon if you buy something: coupon - купить. Repeat that купить:

How would you say “to buy alcohol":

If you don’t know a word, you can sometimes try “guessing it”. Just take the English word
and Russify it. This often doesn’t work, but it’s a fun thing to do. Russian speakers will
appreciate your creativity, they’ll often understand what you mean, and once in a while the
word you guessed will turn out to be correct as well.

So “to buy alcohol” is купить алкоголь. “Where is it possible” is где можно.

So how would you ask “where is it possible to buy alcohol?":

And how would you say “I know where it is possible to buy alcohol":

And how would you say “I don’t know where it is possible to buy alcohol":

Luckily, you know how to ask. How would you ask “do you know where it is possible to buy
alcohol?":

29
Do you remember that there were 2 things you can do to make a question like this more
polite? First you can add “excuse me”. How would you say “excuse me, do you know where
it is possible to buy alcohol?":

And if you want to be even more polite, you can ask “excuse me, don’t you know where it is
possible to buy alcohol?” in Russian:

Now, your friend wants to have a smoke, but you don’t know where it’s allowed to do so.
Можно can also mean “it is allowed”. So how would you say “I don’t know where it’s allowed
to smoke":

And how would you say “but I know where it’s possible to buy alcohol":

Now try adding those 2 sentences together: I don’t know where it’s allowed to smoke, but I
know where it’s possible to buy alcohol":

And if you turn it around. How would you say “I don’t know where it’s possible to buy
alcohol, but I know where it’s allowed to smoke":

Okay, let’s take a break from long sentences.

Like I said in the beginning, можно is a versatile word with lots of meanings, but they all
come down to something being possible or allowed. It can also mean “may I” or “can I”. For
example, if you are waiting for the security check at the airport, and the person in front of
you just went through, you can ask the customs officer “may I?” можно?

How would you ask “may I?":

30
…

Remember that you’re asking a question so raise the tone at the end. Now, the customs
officer can then reply, “you can” or “you may” by saying можно - as a statement.

How would he say “you can":

Now, sometimes the officer will say that you cannot. The opposite word of можно is
нельзя. It means “it’s not possible” or “it’s not allowed” or “you cannot” or “you may not”. So
it’s just the opposite of можно. Repeat нельзя:

Now, you want to ask the security officer if you can continue through the detection gate.
How would you ask “may I"?:

And how would the officer reply “no, you can’t":

Your friend then wants to light up a cigarette in the airport. How would you say “it’s not
allowed to smoke":

Then he asks “where can I buy alcohol here?” How would he ask “where can I buy alcohol
here?":

You see a little shop and enter, but the store clerk says “it’s not possible to buy alcohol
here”. How would he say “it’s not possible to buy alcohol here":

Now, a common mistake many people make is that when they want to say “it’s not
possible”, they say не можно. But this is incorrect. You cannot say не можно in Russian.

31
нельзя! You have to say нельзя if you want to say that something is not allowed, or not
possible.

Let’s practice a bit more. Imagine wanting to go to the supermarket because you need to
buy products, meaning food. In Russian if you buy продукты, you usually mean to buy
groceries. How would you ask “where is it possible to buy groceries?":

How would someone reply “I don’t know where it is possible to buy groceries.":

You can then ask “don’t you know where the supermarket is?":

And they reply “No, I don’t know where the supermarket is":

You then walk into a place that looks like they have food. How would you ask “is it possible
to buy groceries here?":

How would the waiter reply “No, this is a restaurant. It is not possible to buy groceries here”
ni Russian?

Okay, let’s take a break. Можно and нельзя are very useful words, but learning how and
when to use them can be a bit confusing. I recommend you continue to the next lesson,
even if you find you may not 100% understand every single thing. It’s much better to keep
some speed in the process. But if you find that a lesson is very difficult, or that you don’t
understand some grammatical concepts or words from previous lessons, it’s completely
okay to go back a couple of lessons and repeat them. We are now covering the basics of the
Russian language. You will encounter these things the most while speaking, reading,

32
watching series, or doing anything related to the Russian language. So it’s completely fine
to repeat some lessons.

33
Lesson 7

So far we’ve learned only 1 conjugated verb. A conjugated verb is for example “I know”, or
“you know”. In Russian these are я знаю and вы знаете. In this lesson I want to teach you
another useful verb in the first person - which means I - and then the verb.

“I want” in Russian is я хочу, Repeat that я хочу:

So how would you say “I want a coffee":

And how would you say “I don’t want a coffee":

Tea in Russian is чай. It’s not a direct cognate, but you might still recognize it from other
languages, or maybe just from a chai latte. How would you say “I want tea":

….

And how would you say “I don’t want tea, I want coffee":

Let’s make the phrase a bit more colorful and extensive. Let’s keep the phrase the same,
but add “no, thank you” to the beginning. How would you say “no, thank you”:

Now let’s combine the 2 sentences. How would you say “no, thank you. I don’t want tea. I
want coffee":

Another useful word in Russian is the word for “now”. The word for now in Russian is
сейчас. Repeat that” сейчас:

34
…

You can think of it as “I see the chase”. It’s happening right now in front of my eyes. I see
the chase сейчас. Repeat that again: сейчас;

How would you say “I want a coffee now":

And how would you say “I want a tea now":

Or how would you say “I don’t want a tea now":

And how would you say “I don’t want a tea now, but I want a coffee":

Just like in English, you can stack verbs. You can add verbs after each other. If in English you
want to say “I want to smoke”, you can do the same in Russian. How would you say “I want
to smoke”:

And how would you say “I want to buy groceries":

Let’s mix things up. How would you say “I don’t want to smoke. I want a coffee":

Or how would you say “I don’t want to buy groceries, I want a tea!":

35
And how would you say “I don’t want to buy alcohol, I want a coffee":

And how would you say “I don’t want coffee now, but I want alcohol":

You might notice that at certain points the prompts might become a bit much. We’re going
through new material quite fast. And putting words together into coherent sentences is
one of the most difficult aspects of learning Russian, and to be honest of learning any
language really. Because it’s cognitively challenging, it’s also one of the parts few people
actually practice. But it’s the most important part. So if you struggle creating these
sentences, that’s okay. You’re working on creating new neural pathways and this is
something that takes time and can be exhausting even. So if you feel like taking a break,
and coming back to a lesson later, that’s completely fine.

Another useful word in Russian is the word интересно. What do you think it literally
means? If you guessed something along the lines of “interesting”, you’re right. Now, repeat
this word интересно:

So if you were to say интересно, где туалет?, it literally means “interesting, where is the
toilet?”

But another better translation of интересно would be “I wonder”. So a better translation of

How would you say “I wonder where the supermarket is":

Or how would you say “I wonder where it’s possible to buy groceries":

36
While taking a walk in the center of Moscow, Ivan turns to you and wants to say “I wonder
where it’s possible to buy cigarettes. I want to smoke”. Cigarettes is an international word
and in Russian sounds like сигареты. So how would you say “I wonder where it’s possible
to buy cigarettes. I want to smoke":

How would you say “I wonder, what’s this":

And how would you say “I wonder who’s this":

Let’s create more sentences with интересно. You’re still in Moscow taking a walk. You see a
large building and want to ask if that’s a theater. If you want to say “I wonder whether that’s
a theater?”, you can just say “интересно, это театр?”. You don’t need the word for whether
here, it’s implied in the sentence. Don’t forget that all this time we’re saying интересно
here, it still means “interesting”, it’s just that “I wonder” is a better way to describe the
meaning in English of this word if you use it in this construction.

So how would you ask “I wonder whether this is a bank?":

Or how would you ask “I wonder whether it’s far?":

Or while looking at a picture your friend shows you: how would you ask“I wonder whether
it is brother?":

You can also combine this with other questions, like “I wonder whether it’s possible to buy
alcohol here?”. How would you say “I wonder whether it’s possible to buy alcohol here?":

37
Or how would you say “I wonder whether it’s not allowed to buy alcohol here?":

So you can just add интересно in front of every question, and make it a bit softer and less
direct. Где супермаркет is “where is the supermarket”, but интересно, где супермаркет?
is “I wonder where the supermarket is?”.

Let’s combine what we’ve learned in this lesson. how would you say “I want tea":

And how would you say “I want coffee now":

A cafe is кафе in Russian. So how would you say “I wonder where the cafe is. I want a coffee
now":

And how would you say “I wonder where the supermarket is, I want to buy groceries now":

A hamburger in Russian is гамбургер or short бургер. So how would you say “I wonder
where the restaurant is, I want a burger":

Alright, that was it for this lesson. If you feel that it was difficult, no shame in repeating a
lesson.

38
Lesson 8

Now we already know how to say”I know” я знаю and “I want” я хочу. In this lesson we are
going to add another very useful verb to this mix.

Especially in the beginning stages of Russian, you want to make sure you can explain to
your conversation partner that you understand them.

“I understand” in Russian is я понимаю. Repeat that: я понимаю:

This is another one of those words that just doesn’t look like its English equivalent at all.
Let’s say it again я понимаю. How would you say “I understand":

Let’s create some simple sentences with this word and the words you’ve already learned.

How would you say “I understand where the restaurant is":

And how would you say “I understand who this is":

Or how would you say “I understand what this is":

And what would “I understand that the bar is far":

Now, if you want to ask someone if they understand something you can say “you
understand”. “You understand” in Russian is вы понимаете. Repeat that: вы понимаете:

39
Do you see the similarities with я знаю and вы знаете here? Я знаю я понимаю - вы
знаете - вы понимаете. If you see a verb that ends in аю for the I я form, then the you
form will change the ю to ете.

●​ знаю - знаете.
●​ понимаю - понимаете.

How would you say “you understand":

And how would you ask “do you understand?":

Or how would you ask “do you understand what this is?":

How would you ask “do you understand where the restaurant is?":

Now, the word for “me” in Russian is меня. Repeat that меня:

Similar to the English “me”, right? So how would you ask “you understand me?":

Now, for English speakers we are so used to having a strict word order, that it can feel
weird that you can just put words generally in any place you want. вы меня понимаете
and вы понимаете меня are both correct ways to say “you understand me”.

Most of the time you can just use the regular English word order for the Russian sentences
- like we’ve been doing most of the time in these lessons. But in some sentences, the
Russian language tends to have favorites, and вы меня понимаете is one of them. This

40
may seem weird, as each variant is grammatically correct. But since you need to learn a
variant anyways, we might as well pick the conversational one, right?

So how would you say “you understand me":

And how would you make the statement “you don’t understand me":

And how would you ask “don’t you understand me?":

How would you ask “do you know me?":

And how would you ask “don’t you know me?":

Okay, now we know how to say “me” in Russian меня. Me меня is different from I я, even
though we’re talking about the same person here.

English does something similar. You have all sorts of pronouns like I, you, me, he, her, etc
can take on different forms depending on their place in the sentence.

Example here: I understand him, but he doesn’t understand me.

Both times we are talking about him and me, but sometimes we use I and he, and in other
cases we use him and me.

Russian works in a similar way, but does this more often. In the sentence “I understand
you”, the Russian word for “you” also changes. It’s not вы, but it changes to вас. Repeat that
вас:

So how would you say “I understand you":

41
…

Or how would you say “I know you":

And how would you say “I want you":

Or how would you say “I don’t understand you":

Let’s take a small break. You might’ve noticed that sometimes I’m selective in the things
you’re learning in each lesson. In most courses, the moment you learn a verb like “to
understand”, you right away learn how to say I understand, you understand, he
understands, we understand, they understand. I think that’s a detrimental way of learning
Russian. It’s much better to gradually introduce materials and practice creating sentences
with them right away one by one. That way you really build up the foundation of your
Russian skills in a gradual and sustainable method. What you learn here, you will be able to
actually use in conversations, because you’ve practiced it plenty of times. This way of
learning is actually faster than trying to cram in everything at once.

Okay, let’s get back to practicing sentences.

How would you ask “do you understand me?":

How would you ask “do you understand what I want?":

and how would someone reply “Yes, I understand you":

Let’s try a longer sentence. How would you say “I know that you don’t understand me":

42
…

And how would you say “you know that I don’t understand you":

And how would you turn this into a question and ask “do you know that I don’t understand
you?":

If you want to say “I understand you well” you can say “я вас хорошо понимаю”. Хорошо
means “good” and “well” at the same time.

So how would you say “I understand you well":

And how would you ask “do you understand me well?":

That was it for this lesson. I hope you understand me well :)

43
Lesson 9

In Russian the word for “everything” is всё. Repeat that всё:

if you want to say that “everything is good or fine” you say всё хорошо. Repeat that: всё
хорошо:

How would you say “everything is far":

The word for “okay” in Russian is нормально, as in okay/normal. So how would you say
“everything is okay":

And how would you say “I understand everything":

And while looking at a Russian menu, how would you say “I want everything":

Now, do you remember how to say the word for “me":?

If you want to say “by me” in the meaning of “with me, by me, at me”, you can say у меня.
Repeat that: у меня:

If in Russian you want to say “everything is fine with me” you say “by me everything is fine”.
у меня всё хорошо: repeat that у меня всё хорошо:

44
…

And how would you say “everything is okay with me":

Now, do you remember what the Russian word for “you” was as in “I understand you":

So if you want to say “with you”, you say у вас. Repeat that у вас:

Now, how would you say “everything is fine with you":

And how would you ask “is everything fine with you?":

Another way to ask if “everything’s good” is to just ask всё хорошо? You can use it in the
same situations where in English you’d ask “is everything fine?”.

So how would you ask “is everything normal/okay?":

And how would you reply “yes, everything is good with me":

Let’s make some more complicated sentences. How would you say “I know that everything
is fine with you":

And how would you tell Ivan “You know that everything is fine with me":

45
Alright, let’s take a little break. While giving you prompts, you may notice that sometimes
you don’t remember a specific word. That’s okay. We’re all human, and no one has perfect
word recall. I had and still have plenty of Russian words that I’ve seen tens of times and still
struggle to remember. If you don’t know how to say a specific prompt, just try to say as
much as you can, and then continue listening. After each prompt, you’ll hear the correct
answer, and you can find the word there. Just repeat it - preferable out loud, and try again
next prompts. Often the word you didn’t know will be needed in one of the next prompts,
and you get another chance. If it’s really bad in one lesson, just redo the lesson. Or go back
a couple of lessons, if you’d like to gradually build up again.

So one way to ask how someone is doing is to ask всё хорошо?. Another common way to
ask how someone is doing is a sentence you’ve probably heard before: как дела? Repeat
that: как дела?:

Как дела literally means “how are things?”. The Russian word как means how, and дела
means “things”. Imagine you’re going to a friend and he asks you как дела? How would you
say “everything is fine with me":

You’d then like to ask your friend if everything’s okay. How would you ask “is everything
okay with you?":

Your friend replies “yes, everything is normal”. How would he say “yes, everything is
normal":

Now, in Russian if you want to say “I have”, you don’t just say “I have”. Instead you say “by
me is” followed by the thing you have. SInce “is” can be omitted, if you want to say “I have
an idea”, you just say “у меня идея. Repeat that: у меня идея

46
Or if you just came to a party and like to say that you have alcohol, how would you say “I
have alcohol":

If you want to ask “do you have coffee?”, you just ask “with you coffee?”. How would you ask
“do you have coffee?":

And how would you ask “do you have tea?":

Or how might you ask “do you have a plan?":

And how would you say “I have a plan":

And how would you say “I understand that you have a plan”’?

Now imagine, you’re getting hungry and a bit cold while walking through Moscow. You tell
Ivan that you have a plan and like to have some soup. How would you say “I have a plan - I
want soup":

And how would you ask “do you know where a restaurant is?":

Now let’s combine this into one larger sentence “ I have a plan - I want soup. Do you know
where a restaurant is?":

47
You find the restaurant and have a nice bowl of borscht. You then continue your walk and
you’d like to have a drink. You’ve got an idea. So how would you say “I have an idea - I want
alcohol":

And how would you ask “do you know where it is possible to buy alcohol?":

How would these 2 sentences sound behind each other “I have an idea - I want alcohol. Do
you know where it’s possible to buy alcohol?":

48
Lesson 10

Imagine sitting at a table in Russia. There’s plenty of people around and you want to ask
Ivan to pass you the salt. Salt in Russian is соль. Repeat that соль:

If you want to ask him to give you the salt, you can simply ask “is it possible the salt or may I
the salt”. So you can just say можно соль? Repeat that: можно соль

If you want to make it more polite, you can add the word “please”. This is a weird word, but
since it’s so common you’ll hear it a lot and that will help you remember it well. The Russian
word for please is пожалуйста. Repeat that пожалуйста:

So how would you ask “may I the salt please?":

And if you’re sitting in a restaurant, how would you ask “may I the menu please?":

Now, while we’re sitting in the restaurant it’s good to learn some more words to express
what you want. The word for “to eat” in Russian is есть. Repeat that: есть:

So how would you say “I want to eat":

And how would you say “I don’t want to eat":

49
Now, imagine the waiter took your order but it’s taking a long time to bring the food. You’re
getting a bit angry and want to ask the waiter if he understands that you want to eat. How
would you ask “do you understand that I want to eat?":

Now, the Russian word for “to drink” is пить. Repeat that: пить:

How would you say “I want to drink":

And how would you say “I don’t want to drink":

Remember the word for “now” сейчас? How would you say “I don’t want to eat now. I want
to drink":

The word for “wine” is вино, which may seem familiar. Repeat that вино:

And how would you say “I want to drink. Do you have wine?":

Like we said in the beginning if you want to ask “may I have salt please” you say можно
соль пожалуйста. So how would you say ”may I have wine please":

Alright, let’s take a little break. One problem many Russian learners experience while
listening to native speech, is that they find it difficult to understand where one word ends,
and where the next word starts. This is common, and it’s actually an easy problem to solve.
It just takes time. A simple practice anyone can do would be to start watching Russian TV

50
series and movies in your free time. You can just watch with English subtitles, as the main
goal is get your brain and ears used to hearing Russian. I’ve added a list of series and
movies in the bonus section in the course membership area where you can find plenty of
interesting Russian movies and series to watch. Try watching a bit tonight, if you have time!

Imagine meeting Ivan and he’s asking you how you’re doing. How would he ask “everything
fine?":

And how would you reply “Yes, everything’s fine with me. But I want to eat":

How would you then ask him “do you know a restaurant where it’s possible to eat and
drink?":

How would Ivan reply “Yes, I have an idea where it’s possible to eat":

How would you say “I want to eat soup now":

Yes, soup is something you eat in Russian. The Russian word for dessert is десерт. So how
would you say “I don’t want to eat dessert now":

And if we combine these phrases, how would you say “I don’t want to eat dessert now. I
want to eat soup":

If you’re really hungry, you want to be able to make your statements stronger, right? The
word for really or very, is очень. Repeat that очень:

51
…

If you want to say “I really want to eat”, you do the same as in English, and just add “really”
in front of the verb. In Russian that sounds like я очень хочу есть. Repeat that: я очень
хочу есть

And how would you say “I really want to eat soup”:

And how would you then say “I really want to drink":

And how would you say “I really want to drink wine”:

And how would you say “I don’t really want to drink”:

Let’s make a longer sentence. How would you say “I don’t really want to drink, but I really
want to eat":

And how would you say “I don’t really want to eat, but I really want to drink":

You can also use очень in front of words such as хорошо or далеко. How would you say
“very good":

And how would you say “this is very good":

52
And how would you say “very good, the restaurant is not far. I really want to eat":

Alright, that was this lesson. If you want, I highly recommend you try watching some
Russian movies and series. It’s a fun thing to do and it will drastically help you better
understand the Russian language and culture.

53
Lesson 11

So far you’ve learned how to say I know - я знаю, I want - я хочу, I understand - я
понимаю. Today we will build further on these verbs. You might see that знаю and
понимаю both end in аю. If we want to turn it into the -you form, we remove аю and say
аете. знаю - знаете and понимаю - понимаете.

Repeat that: знаю - знаете

And repeat this: понимаю - понимаете

Now, the full infinitive verb “to know” is знать. You remove the аю and add ать to the
ending знаю - знать. Repeat that: знать

So how would you say “I want to know":

And how would you say “I want to know what this is":

The same thing works for the full infinitive verb “to understand”. If we take понимаю,
remove the аю and add ать we get понимать. понимаю - понимать. Repeat that
понимать:

So how would you say “I want to understand":

Or how would you say “I want to understand you":

54
…

Let’s practice a bit more. How would you say “I want to know where the cafe is":

And how would you say “I want to know who you are":

You might’ve noticed that the “are” in “you are” is also not translated. So “I want to know
who you are” becomes “I want to know who you”.

Now, how would you say “I want to understand who you are":

And how would you say “I want to know where it is possible to eat":

The word for “to think” in Russian is думать. This is an infinitive full verb that ends in ать.
That means that it follows the same pattern as знать знаю and понимать понимаю.

So how might you say “I think”:

So we remove the ать from думать, we get дум. Now we just add аю and we get думаю. So
“I think” in Russian is я думаю. Repeat that “я думаю:

How would you say “I think that everything is good":

And how would you say “I think that the restaurant is far":

55
Now if понимать becomes понимаете for the you-form, and знать becomes знаете, what
would happen to думать for the you-form? How might you then say “you think":

So we take the stem дум and add аете. And we get думаете. So “you think” in Russian is вы
думаете. Repeat that: вы думаете.

If you want to ask “what are you thinking” or “what do you think” in Russian, you just ask
что вы думаете. Repeat that: что вы думаете

Or how would you ask “do you think that I’m a businessman?":

And how would you say “I don’t think that is good":

Alright, let’s take a little break. You may have noticed that Russian words are stressed. Just
like in English one part of the word is stressed. You say ENglish, not enGLISH, and
PREsident not preSIdent or presiDENT. Russian is similar. And what is also similar is that
these stresses are pretty much random. In Russian you might have noticed that for
example знаете the а is stressed, but in думаете the у is stressed. Like in English, there can
only be 1 stressed vowel. Still, it can be frustrating to deal with these irregular stresses. But
I want you to know that this is something that will come with time. If you hear a word 10+
times, you usually will remember the correct stress pattern for most words. That’s why in
these prompts I make sure you hear and repeat words more often. So just realize that
stresses are something that’s tough for every Russian learner, and don’t beat yourself up
over it. Two easy ways to improve your knowledge of the stresses are watching Russian
series and doing the flashcards, like you can find in the bonuses.

56
Okay, let’s go back to more practice. Imagine meeting Ivan, but he doesn’t look good. The
word for “fever” in Russian is температура, as in temperature. How would you say “I think
that you have a fever":

Ivan might then ask you what you think about it. How would he ask “do you think it’s not
good?":

How would you reply “no, I’m a doctor, and I know that this is not good":

Just like in English, instead of saying “not good”, you can also say “bad”. The word for “bad”
is плохо. Repeat that плохо:

How would you say “this is bad":

And how would you say “I know that this is bad":

And how would you say to Ivan “No, I’m a doctor, and I know that this is bad":

You might want to ask Ivan if he knows where the pharmacy is. "Pharmacy" in Russian is
аптека, which sounds similar to the English apothecary. How would you ask “do you know
where the pharmacy is":

And how would Ivan reply “No, but I think that the pharmacy is not far":

57
…

Still, you can’t find the pharmacy and Ivan asks someone on the street where it is. How
would he asks “Excuse me, do you know where a pharmacy is? I have a fever":

However, it turns out Ivan asked the wrong person as the person smells of alcohol. He
recommends Ivan to drink. How would the drunk say “do you have a temperature? I think
that alcohol is good!":

You disagree. How would you say “No, I don’t think alcohol is good now":

You continue walking and see a pharmacy. How would you say “Here is a pharmacy, I think
everything is good":

Alright, those were some longer phrases. Let’s take it easy and repeat some of the things
we’ve learned this lesson:

How would you say “I want to know":

And how would you ask “do you understand what this is?":

And how would you say “I think that I know who this is”:

And how would you say “I know this is not good":

58
And how would you ask “do you think this is bad?":

Alright, that was it. See you next lesson. And don’t forget to try and watch some Russian
series today. That will help you a lot to “passively” improve your Russian skills.

59
Lesson 12

The Russian word for “to be” is быть. Now, you may wonder “weird, I thought Russian didn’t
have the is/am/are verbs”. And that is true! In the present tense you can always skip these
words and just say я презилент - I AM the president or кто вы - who ARE you or Иван
инженер - Ivan IS an engineer. But if you for example want to say “I want to be”, you have
to add the full infinitive быть. Я хочу быть. Repeat that: я хочу быть.

Now, do you remember the word for “how” as in как дела - how are things? If you’re
having a bad day and want to say “what do I do” or in Russian “how to be”, you can say как
быть. Repeat that: как быть:

Now, the full infinitive “to be” isn’t often used, so for now, just stow it away somewhere in
the back of your mind. Once it’s needed, I’ll remind you of it, so just forget about it now.

The I-form of быть is буду. Do you hear the у sound at the end? That indicates the I-form
conjugation. In Russian, буду is used to indicate the future tense. So буду means “I will”.

Repeat that буду:

How would you say for example “ I will eat":

Exactly, you just add the full verb after буду and now you gave the future tense. Now, how
would you say “I will not eat” or “I won’t eat":

Talking about food, if you want to order for example soup in the restaurant, you usually say
“I will soup”. How would you say “I will soup":

60
…

It’s implied here “I will have soup”, so I’ll be using that in the further prompts. So how would
you say “I will have borscht":

And how would you say “I won’t have borsch":

And how would you say “I’ll have soup, but I won’t have borsch":

The you-form of быть, is будете. Do you hear the you-for ете in this word? Repeat that
будете;

How would you say “you will have wine":

And how would you ask “will you have wine?":

Or how would you ask “will you eat?":

Okay, let’s take a little break. You might’ve noticed that sometimes I’m not explaining the
full thing. That’s done on purpose in order not to overload you with new information.
Often, just hearing something enough times will be enough to “internalize” that rule. That’s
also one of the reasons why I recommend watching Russian series. Now, not everyone may
have the time in the day to spend watching series in Russian. But what I’ve found worked
well for me was to switch some of my English media consumption to Russian. So for a while

61
I stopped watching English series and movies, and watched mainly Russian series and
movies. This way it didn’t cost me any extra time, but my Russian improved much faster.

Let’s try matching up some more verbs. How would you ask “will you think?":

And how would you say “I will think":

And how would you say “I will drink wine":

If a waiter asks you what you’ll have you can either say “я буду вино” or я буду пить вино.
In this situation they mean the same, though if you say я буду пить вино, you really put
the emphasis that you’re ordering a drink. If you want to order dessert and wine, you could
say “я буду десерт и вино”, but you can also say я буду есть десерт и пить вино.

How would you say for example “I won’t eat desert, but I will drink coffee":

And how would you simplify it to “I won’t have desert, but I will have coffee":

Let’s learn another useful question word. The word for “why” in Russian is почему. Repeat
that почему:

The word for “it’s not allowed” was нельзя. So how would you ask “why is it not allowed??

And how would you ask “why isn’t it allowed to smoke?":

62
Imagine sitting in a restaurant with Ivan, and he says that he doesn’t want dessert. How
would he say “I won’t have desert now":

And how would you ask him “why won’t you have dessert?":

How would Ivan reply “I won’t have dessert now, but I’ll have wine":

And how would Ivan ask you “and what will you have? Wine and dessert?":

You’re still quite hungry and thirsty, so you reply that you’ll have both. How would you say
“I’ll have wine and dessert!":

Alright, let’s play around a bit more with the question word почему. It’s an important word,
because you’ll likely want to ask a lot of questions why things are the way they are in the
Russian language, and in Russian speaking countries.

Do you remember how to say “you are here":

So how would you ask “why are you here":

Imagine you had agreed with Ivan to go to the Bolshoy theater at 6PM, but he’s not there.
You call him and ask why he’s not here. How would you ask “why are you not here":

63
Did you put the не in front of здесь? In Russian, just like in English, the не usually stands in
front of the word it’s negating.

Okay, how would you ask “why don’t you know":

And how would you ask “why don’t you know who I am":

Okay, how would you ask “ why don’t you understand me?":

Some of these sentences may seem a bit far off, but they are very valuable in learning how
to create sentences. The main goal is not to memorize these sentences, but rather to use
these prompted sentences to train the skill of assimilating and creating whole new
sentences yourself. Though who knows, maybe the phrase “why don’t you know who I
am?” почему вы не знаете кто я could come in handy one day haha.

64
Lesson 13

So far we’ve learned how to say “I” я and “you” вы in Russian. Now let’s learn how to say
“he” in Russian. “he” in Russian is он. Repeat that он:

How might you say “he’s an engineer":

Or how would you say “he’s not an artist”:

The word for “she” is very similar to the word for “he”. You just add an а to the end: она.
Now, you might notice that the о sound from он changes into an а sound - она. That’s
because the stress in она is on the last а letter. This piece of information that an
unstressed о changes into an а sound will be useful later on, but for now you can forget
about it. Let’s just repeat она:

In Russian, like in some other languages, names that end in a are usually women’s names.
Вероника, Маша, Елена, Александра, Светлана, Ирина, etc. So that might help you
remember that он is “he” and она is “she”.

How might you say “she’s a manager":

And how might you say “she’s not an assistant":

Now, how would you say “I know where she is":

65
And how would you say “I don’t know where she is":

Now, if you want to say “he knows or she knows”, you need to change the ending of the
verb знать “to know''. The easiest way to get the he/she form of “to know'' is to take the
you-form вы знаете. All you need to do is drop the last е so you get знает And now you
have the he/she form: он знает. Repeat that: он знает:

How would you say “he knows where she is":

And how would you say “she knows where he is":

Or how would you say “she knows everything":

Okay, we can do the same trick to turn the you-form of other verbs also into the
he/she-form of verbs. So just like how знаете becomes знает, понимаете, becomes он
понимает. Just remove the last е. Repeat after me он понимает:

So how would you say “he understands me":

Or how would you say “she understands you":

Or how would you say “she understands that the restaurant is far":

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Or how would you say “he understands that everything is good":

Now, what would you think is “he thinks” ? Just take вы думаете, remove the last е and you
get… он думает. Repeat that: он думает:

How would you then say “she thinks":

And how would you say “she thinks that everything is fine":

And how would you say “he thinks that he knows everything":

Okay, that was a lot he/she + verb questions. If at any point you don’t understand anything,
you can always leave a comment in the comments section of this lesson. I’d love to explain
things in a bit more detail there. In general, learning grammar is done best through a mix
of explanations, examples and repetition. While I do my best to explain things here in as
much clarity as I think you need, there simply isn’t enough time to explain every single thing
and give you hundreds of example phrases for each grammatical construct. And to be
honest, such a long-winding course would also be boring to a large subset of students.
When I was learning grammar, I learned most of it through audio courses, like you are
listening to now. But whenever I didn't understand something completely, I’d relisten to the
lessons. But I’d also look up different explanations from different people on the internet
and youtube. There are many different ways of explaining a specific grammatical point, and
the best way to make sure you really “get it” is to listen to different teachers giving their
take and examples on it.

Okay, let’s get back to the he/she form of words. Do you remember how to say “you will":

67
Now, remove the last е from будете, just like you turn вы понимаете into он понимает.
How might you say “he will":

How would you say “she will":

And how would you say “ he will eat":

And how would you then say “she will have soup":

Or how would you say “she won’t have soup":

Let’s try some more. How would you say “He won’t have desert, but he will have wine":

Or how would you say “he knows that he will have a burger":

The word for “to work” in Russian is работать. Repeat that работать:

This may look like a difficult word, but in reality the English word “robot” comes from the
Russian работать, because the only thing a robot does is work.

How would you say “I want to work":

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Okay, let’s see if we can find the I-form of “to work”. Работать ends in ать, so we can use
the same pattern as we do for verbs such as знать понимать and думать. Знать becomes
знаю, понимать becomes понимаю and думать becomes думаю. So the pattern is that
you remove the ать ending and add аю. Try this with работать. How might you say “I
work”:

And how would you say “I work now” or “I am working now":

And how would you say “I don’t work":

If you don’t work, that means you have plenty of time to learn Russian. If only it were that
easy haha. Let’s continue with the you-form. For “you know” you remove the ать from
знать and add аете to the зн that remains. So знать becomes знаете. Now, remove the
ать from работать. You get работ and add аете. So how might you say “you work”:

And how would you say “you are working":

And how would you ask “Are you working?":

Let’s see if you can make the he/she-form. For that you just remove the е from the
you-form. Знаете becomes знает. Or you can also take the full infinitive, remove ать and
add ает. Like знать becomes знает. Let’s try it for работать. Remove the ать you get
работ, now add ает, and you get работает. How would you say “he works":

And how would you say “she works":

69
…

And how would you say “he will work":

Let’s try making one last big sentence with everything we’ve learned from this lesson. “He
doesn’t work now, but he knows that he will work”. How would you say “he doesn’t work
now” in Russian?

And how would you say “but he knows that he will work":

And now we combine these sentences. How would you say “He doesn’t work now, but he
knows that he will work":

Congratulations, your knowledge of Russian is increasing every day.

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Lesson 14

In the last lesson we learned to say “he works” он работает, “she knows” она знает, “he
understands” он понимает and “she thinks” она думает, and “he will” он будет. This
he/she form that ends in a т can also be used to indicate other people or things that do an
action, so not just for he or she.

For example, if you want to say “Ivan is thinking” or “Ivan thinks”, you say Иван думает.
Repeat that: Иван думает:

And how would you say “Ivan is working":

And how would you say “She knows where Ivan works":

Let’s try a longer sentence. How would you say “I don’t think that she knows where Ivan
works":

Now, if you want to say that a company or public building, for example a bank is open, or in
other words working, you can also say банк работает. How would you say “the theater is
working":

And how would you ask “Is the theater working now?":

How would you say “he will be here":

71
The word for soon is скоро. Repeat that скоро:

So if the word for “soon” is скоро, how would you say “he will be here soon":

Now, the word for скоро is an adverb. That means that it describes an action. In the
previous sentence we were talking about him BEING here soon. So in these cases, you
usually put the adverb in front of the verb. он скоро будет здесь.

Another example would be “she understands well”. Even though you can put the words
wherever you want, usually people say она хорошо понимает. Though, like I said, it’s also
completely fine to say Он будет здесь скоро or она понимает хорошо.

It’s important to understand that I’m telling this not to burden you more with how to
construct your sentences. But rather to give you a sense of freedom. You can generally put
words wherever you want, and it will be correct, and people will understand you. But in the
explanations I will use the most commonly used way of putting the words together.

And you’ll notice that over time, you will start to pick up the common way of putting words
automatically. Especially since you will hear it often during these lessons and while
watching Russian series.

Okay, let’s go back.

How would you say “Ivan is not working now":

And how would you say “Ivan is not working now, but he will be working soon":

How would you say “I don’t know what I want":

72
And how would you say “I don’t know what I want, but I will know soon":

Another common verb that works exactly the way like понимать, знать,думать and
работать is the verb “to do” or “to make”: делать. Repeat that делать:

And if you don’t know what to do, you can say “what to do”. If “to do” is делать, how would
you say “what to do?":

And how would you ask “do you know what to do?":

Now, you know how to say “I think” я думаю. Думать turns into думаю “I think”. So if “to
do” or “to make” is делать, how might you say “I do":

So “I do” is делаю. The e in делаю can be a bit tough to pronounce, but as I said in an
earlier lesson, pronunciation isn’t important yet. Better to focus your attention at this stage
on WHAT you’re saying, rather than HOW you’re saying it. Besides, it will get better over
time. Especially if you repeat the words out loud directly after you hear the correct
pronunciation in these lessons.

Now, imagine having just woken up in your hotel room, and Ivan calls you and asks what
you’re doing. You’re making coffee. How would you say “I am making coffee":

And how would you say “I am making tea":

73
You might have noticed that the Russian verbs like делаю can both mean “I do” or “I am
doing”, just like работаю can mean “I work” or “I am working”. Он работает can mean “he
works” or “he is working”. Вы знаете can mean “you know” or “you are knowing”. And this is
like that for ALL Russian verbs in the present tense. This is great for us learning Russian, as
it means you don’t need to learn as many grammatical constructions to say pretty much
the same thing.

Now, let’s talk about “you do” or “you make” or also “you are doing” and “you are making”. It
follows the patterns as the other verbs that end in ать. So if “you know” is вы знаете from
the verb знать, how might you say “you do":

Just remove the ать and add аете. Делать becomes делаете. How would you say “You do":

And how would you say “you don’t know":

So how would you then say “you don’t know what you are doing":

Or while calling you in the morning how would Ivan have asked “what are you doing?":

Okay, let’s go to the he/she form. “he works” он работает, “she knows” она знает, “he
understands” он понимает and “she thinks” она думает. So here’s a challenge for делать.
How might you say “he does":

You remove the ать from the infinitive делать to get дел and add ает to get делает. Repeat
that он делает:

74
How might you say “Ivan is making a cocktail":

And how would you say “Ivan doesn’t know what he is doing":

Do you remember the word “how” как? How would you say “Ivan knows how to make a
cocktail":

And how would you say “He will soon make a cocktail":

And how would you say “I am making coffee, and he is making tea":

And how would you ask “What are you doing now?":

Alright, I hope you enjoy this lesson. It’s a lot of material, but it’s better to go a bit too fast
than a bit too slow. You can always redo a lesson if you feel like the pace is a bit too fast.

75
Lesson 15

The word for “we” in Russian is мы. It’s like вы, but then with an m in the beginning. Repeat
that мы:

If you want to say “we are students” you say in Russian “we students”. You can probably
guess the word for student: студент. Repeat that студент:

If you want to make a word plural in Russian, you add и or ы to the ending. So one
“student” becomes several студенты. So how would you say “we are students":

The word for hamburger was бургер. So how would you say “I want burgers":

Okay, if you want to say “we know”, you say мы знаем. So you take the infinitive, remove
the ать, and add аем. Знать becomes знаем. So how would you say “we know everything":

Or how would you say “we know where the restaurant is":

Or how would you say “we know how to make cocktails":

If “we know” is знаем, let’s try this with работать. How might you say “we work”?

So, работать becomes работаем. You remove the ать ending, and add the аем. Repeat мы
работаем:

76
…

How would you say “we don’t work":

And how would you say “we don’t work, we are students":

Do you remember how to say “he will":

So in order to create the word for “we will”, we again make sure to have the we- ем ending.
So “we will” is мы будем”. Быть is an irregular verb, and doesn’t end in ать, that’s why we
don’t have an а here. Repeat that мы будем:

So how would you say “we will work":

How would you say “we are not working now":

And how would you say “we are not working now, but we will work”

You’re sitting with Ivan in a cafe for breakfast, and you’d both like to have coffee. How
would you tell the waiter “we will have coffee":

And how would you say “but we will not eat now":

77
Let’s put it together. How would you say “we will have coffee, but we won’t eat now":

Time flies and it’s almost lunchtime, and you forgot about that workproject you still need to
work on with Ivan. Ivan offers to eat something now, so that you can work well later. How
would he say “we will eat a salad":

If you want to say “we will work well”, you say мы будем хорошо работать. Because it’s
about working well, so you add хорошо in front of работать. So how would you say “and
we will work well":

..,

And if you combine these sentences. how would you say “we will eat a salad, and we will
work well”

The word for “we understand” in Russian works the same as the other ать verbs. You can
either take the infinitive, remove the ать, and add аем. As in понимать - понимаем. Or
you can also take the he-form, remove the ает and add the аем. As in он понимает - мы
понимаем. I’m giving you different examples, because this helps you create the right
framework in your mind. So “we understand” is мы понимаем. Repeat that: мы понимаем:

Then the waiter comes with the bill, and it’s a lot more than you expected. How would Ivan
say “we don’t understand":

And how would you say “we don’t understand you":

78
If you said мы не понимаем вас, that’s also completely fine. I’m just using the more
commonly used constructions in my examples, so you learn these through repetition.

The word for today is сегодня. It’s another of those words that is frustrating to remember,
as it’s so different. But since it’s so common you will learn this word relatively quickly. So
today is “сегодня. Repeat that сегодня:

How would you say “we work today":

And how would you say “we are not working today":

How might you ask “what are we doing today?":

Oh, I just realized we hadn’t discussed “we do” yet. Well, you’ve already heard the example
and it’s мы делаем. Just like the other verbs we understand - мы понимаем, we know - мы
знаем - we think - мы думаем and we will - мы будем. There is always this ем ending for
the we-form of the verb.

So how would you say “we are making coffee":

And how would you say “we are not making coffee today, but we are making tea":

…​
And how would you say “we understand that we won’t work today":

Do you remember the Russian word for “why” почему? How would you say “why are we
working today?":

79
…

And how would you say “why are we working today? I don’t want to work”:

….

And how would you ask “why won’t we drink wine today?":

You might’ve noticed that there’s a lot of examples with drinking alcohol in these lessons.
That’s partially because Russians like to drink when there is a reason to do so. And being in
the company of a foreigner who is learning Russian is usually enough of a reason haha.
Russians like to play the game of “let’s try getting the foreigner drunk”, so it’s good to be
aware of this. Since you’re learning Russian, you likely will encounter this as well, so here
are a couple of my tips to survive this. First of all, it’s completely fine to say no. If you have a
valid excuse, such as an important day at work tomorrow, you’re on medicine, or you’re by
car, then this is usually enough. They’ll try to convince you, but if you just stay strong it’s
fine. You can also tell them you used to drink a lot, but now drink less - or quit altogether -
for health reasons. That usually also works. Now, drinking with Russians can be a lot of fun,
and it’s a good way to earn their respect. A good tip here is that usually if you take shots, it’s
accepted that you have to finish the first one in one go. But afterwards you can easily just
take halves, while the rest does full shots.

Another reason why I can recommend alcohol is because it just makes it so much easier to
practice speaking Russian. You get looser and this makes it easier to actually create
phrases from the words and grammar that you do now. Daily alcohol consumption is bad
for language learning, as it ruins your sleep and motivation. But having a couple of drinks
with native Russian speakers when the occasion is there will do wonders for showing you
what you’re capable of in terms of Russian speaking skills.

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Lesson 16

Sometimes you want to say that something is necessary. That something needs to be done.
The word for “it’s necessary” or “it’s needed” in Russian is надо. Repeat that: надо:

Imagine being super hungry and wanting to say “It’s necessary to eat”. How would you say
“It’s necessary to eat":

And how would you say “it’s necessary to buy groceries":

Let’s make it a bit longer. How would you say “I want to eat. It’s necessary to buy groceries":

If you want to emphasize that it’s I who needs, you can add a little word in front of надо. In
Russian you say “to me is needed” or “to me is necessary”. The word for “to me” or “for me”
is мне. Repeat that мне:

It’s similar to the “me” from меня as in у меня - I have or вы меня не понимаете - “you
don’t understand me”, but it ends with a е. Мне.

If you want to say “it’s necessary for me”, “to me is needed” or a simple translation “I need”,
you say мне надо. Repeat that мне надо:

How would you say “I need to buy groceries":

And how would you say “I want to eat. I need to buy groceries":

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…

“to me” can be used in many more instances. For example, do you remember the word for
“interesting”, or how we translated it “I wonder” in Russian интересно? If you want to
emphasize that it’s I who finds it interesting you can say “to me is interesting” мне
интересно. Repeat that мне интересно:

How would you ask “I wonder where the theater is?":

And how would you ask “I wonder what you are thinking?":

Just like you can emphasize “I wonder”, or “I need”, “to me is interesting” or “to me is
necessary”, you can also emphasize “you”. “to you is necessary” is “вам надо”. Вам means
“to you” or “for you”, and if you say “вам надо” you usually mean “you need”. Repeat that
вам надо:

How might you say “you need to buy a telephone":

Or how would you say “you need to buy alcohol":

The word for “to repair” is починить. Repeat that починить.

How would you say “it’s necessary to repair":

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And how would you say “it's necessary to repair the phone":

Imagine wanting to call Ivan but his phone is not working. You then walk to his apartment,
as it’s close and tell him “the phone isn’t working, you need to repair the phone”. How
would you say “the phone isn’t working":

And how would you then say “the phone isn’t working, you need to repair the phone":

How would Ivan reply “I don’t understand why the phone isn’t working":

And how would you say “I wonder why the phone isn’t working":

Now do you remember how to say “he will":

The verb part is будет. And how did you say “it’s necessary":

So let’s combine these 2 words надо and будет. How would you say “it will be necessary":

Now imagine your phone breaking down. How would you say “the phone isn’t working. It
will be necessary to repair the phone":

Or how would you say “It will be necessary to buy coffee":

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…

Okay, so far you might’ve noticed that we tend to “recycle” quite some words. That’s done
on purpose. I want you to focus on learning the structure of the Russian language. And if
we were to introduce lots of new words each lesson, you would get overwhelmed. It’s much
better to go a bit slower with the words, and focus more on understanding how Russian
works, and how to actually say sentences. Once you understand the general framework
and can speak, all you need to do is just learn more words, and you will be able to use
them right away. So I recommend for now to just focus on listening to these lessons as
your main “learn Russian” activity. 2 support activities you can do are doing the Anki
flashcards, or watching Russian series. The flashcards will help you drill down the main
concepts of the audio lessons, and the series will help you work on your intuition for the
Russian language.

So now we’ve learned “it is necessary” надо, and “it will be necessary” надо будет. But
we’ve also learned “to me is necessary - I need” мне надо.

So how might you say “to me it will be necessary”:

The less literal translation would be “I will need”. So how would you say “I will need to buy
groceries":

Do you remember how to say “to you is necessary?” вам надо. So how would you say “you
will need":

And how might you say “you will need to repair the TV":

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Now, imagine being at a party with Ivan. Ivan points at a certain guy, and says that it’s an
important guy with lots of connections in Moscow, and that it’s good to know him. How
would Ivan say to you “you will need to know who that is":

And how would he say “you will need to know where he works":

And how would you reply “yes, I wonder where he works”.

Or how would you say “Yes, I wonder who this is and where he works":

Just like you can say “I need” мне надо and “you need” вам надо, you can also say “we
need” - нам надо - “to us is necessary”. Repeat that нам надо:

How would you say “we need to work":

And how would you say “we need to work today":

Or how would you ask “why do we need to work today?":

Okay, that was it for this lesson. It was quite some new grammatical constructions, so if you
struggled at the end, that’s okay. I recommend you continue to the next lesson, as we will
repeat plenty of things we’ve learned in this lesson there. Otherwise, it’s completely fine to
relisten to this lesson one more time!

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Lesson 17

If you want to recommend something in Russian you can say я рекомендую. It literally
means "I recommend". Repeat that я рекомендую:

How would you say “I recommend the wine":

If you want to recommend something to someone, we can use the same мне вам нам
forms we learned last lesson. “I recommend you”, “I recommend to you” in Russian is я вам
рекомендую. Do you recognize the “to you” вам here? Repeat that: я вам рекомендую

How would you say “I recommend you the wine":

Or how would you say “I recommend you not to smoke":

Now, of course you’re new to Russia, so it’s more likely that other people will recommend
specific things. So you can also ask for recommendations. If you remember what happens
to знаю - знаете. How might you say “you recommend”:

The ю changes to ете, so you get рекомендуете. How would you ask “what do you
recommend?":

And how would you ask “what do you recommend for me?":

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And how would you ask “what do you recommend to drink?":

Of course you can also use the “to us” “for us” form нам here. Ivan and you just went to a
fancy Georgian restaurant, and Ivan is asking the waiter what he recommends for you two
to drink. How would he ask “what do you recommend for us to drink?":

The waiter thinks for a moment and then replies “I recommend you to drink cognac”. How
might he say “I recommend you to drink cognac":

The word for “advice” in Russian is совет. Or how it sounds in English, soviet. The Soviet
Union - советский союз was an advisory union. So “advice” is совет. If you want to say
“thank you for”, you say спасибо за. So how would you say “thank you for the advice":

The waiter smiles and says “you’re welcome”, which in Russian is the same as the word
“please” пожалуйста. How would the waiter say “yes, you’re welcome":

A couple of minutes pass and the waiter comes with 2 glasses of cognac. How would you
say “thank you for the cognac":

Alright, let’s take a little break and talk about something that impacts how well you learn
new words and grammar and how well you remember everything. One of the easiest ways
to improve your memory is to prioritize sleep. So basically, when you learn new things, your
short-term memory bucket gets filled up. And when you sleep, it gets emptied into your
long-term bucket. So if you don’t sleep enough, your brain doesn’t have enough time to
fully process the things you’ve learned the day before. This makes it more difficult to
remember new concepts the next day, compared to if you would’ve slept well. So it makes

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sense to ask yourself if there are specific things you can do to prioritize your sleep. This will
make a big difference in how quickly you are able to learn Russian.

Okay, so far we know how to say “I work” “you work” "he/she works” and “we work”. What’s
missing from this list? “They work!”. The word for “they” in Russian is они. Repeat that они:

It’s a combination of он/она and the plural. If you want to make something plural in
Russian, you just add a и sound. 1 студент, several студенты. So они is “they”. If a verb
ends in ать, such as знать, понимать работать думать, it’s quite simple to make the
“they” form of the verb. You just remove the ать at the end, and add ают. Here are some
examples:

●​ знать - знают
●​ понимать - понимают
●​ думать - думают
●​ работать - работают
●​ делать - делают

Another thing that helped me remember this is to just add a т to the I-form of a verb.

●​ я знаю - они знают

Okay, let’s practice. How would you say “they understand":

And how would you say “they understand me":

And how would you say “they understand why they work":

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…

And how would you say “they understand what they are doing":

But how would you say “they don’t understand what they are doing":

And how would you say “they think that they understand what they are doing":

And how would you say “they think that they know that they understand what they are
doing":

Okay, that’s getting weird quickly. Let’s make some more regular phrases with this form.

How would you say “I know where they are working":

Or how would you say “they are students, they are not working":

How would you ask “why don’t they understand me?":

And how would you say “they know me well":

And how would you combine these sentences? How would you say “why don’t they
understand me. They know me well":

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Now, if you want to say “they will”, in Russian, you just add a т to the “I will” буду form. они
будут. Repeat that они будут:

How would you say “they will do”:

And how would you ask “what will they do?":

Or how would you say “I want to know what they will do":

You can also use this form of the verb with other words in the 3rd person, as long as they
are plural - meaning more than 1. For example, if you’re sitting in the theater and want to
say that “the actors are working well” you say актёры хорошо работают. Repeat that:
актёры хорошо работают:

Or how would you say “the students are not working now, but they will work":

Or how would you say “the students don’t know what they are doing, but they are working
well":

Alright, that was it for this lesson. Try prioritizing your sleep tonight, and see how much
more refreshed and ready you feel for tomorrow’s lesson.

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Lesson 18

If you want to ask “when” in Russian, you use the word когда. Repeat that когда:

You can use this as a question. For example, how would you say “when will you be here?":

Or if you want to ask when the soup will come, you can ask “когда суп будет?” - when will
the soup be?.

How would you ask “when will the coffee be?":

Or how would you say “I wonder, when will he be here":

Just like in English, когда can also be used in other situations, when you usually say when.
“When I am working, I want to eat” or “I want to eat when I am working”.

How would you say “when I am working":

And how would you say “I want to eat when I am working":

If you want to say in Russian “he is ready”, you say он готов. Repeat that: он готов:

You can also use this for “Ivan is ready”. How would you say “Ivan is ready":

And how would you ask “When is Ivan ready?":

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…

And how would you then ask “When will Ivan be ready":

Okay, so Russian is a very logical language. It has many patterns that repeat itself. The word
for “he” is он. And the word for “she” is она. This works in a similar way for these short
adjectives, such as готов. See if you can spot the pattern:
●​ он готов
●​ она готова
●​ Иван готов
●​ Маша готова

Do you see the pattern? A man is готов and a woman is готова. Repeat that она готова:

How would you ask “is she ready?":

And how would you ask “when is she ready?":

..

And how would you ask “when will she be ready?":

Now, you may be wondering what you do with objects that are not obviously male or
female. How would you ask “when is the document ready?”. Is document masculine or
feminine. Should you use готов or готова for a document?

The answer is actually quite logical. If a noun ends in a consonant, then it’s masculine. A
consonant means бтмсчфвпрлджхзщшгнкцй - no need to remember this all, it will
become clear soon.

Документ ends in т, which is a consonant. So документ is masculine. So you say документ

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…

But how about feminine nouns? Well, an easy way I could remember this was by referring
to она and Russian female names such as маша татьяна and ирина. They all end with an а
sound and they’re females, so the rule is that nouns that end in an а or я sound are
feminine nouns. Some examples:

●​ виза
●​ водка
●​ идея

So how would you say “the visa is ready":

And how would you ask “is the visa ready?":

But how would you ask “is the plan ready?":

Плвн ends in a consonant, so you use готов. Now, I want to expand on this a bit more. We
don’t just have masculine and feminine, we also have plural. How would you say “they":

So if она is готова, what would the form of готов be for они? How might you say “they are
ready”:

So how would you ask “are they ready?":

And how would you say “the documents are ready":

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Or how would you ask Ivan “where are the documents?”:

..

And how would Ivan reply “they are not ready":

And how would Ivan followed up and say “but they will be ready soon":

Alright, would it surprise you when I tell you that we have masculine, feminine, plural
nouns, and one more type of noun? We also have neuter nouns. This is the 4th and last
category, and luckily they are just as predictable as the other ones.

Neuter nouns always end in о or е. We haven’t had many of them yet, but an example is
вино. Another one would be метро. The word for sun in Russian is also neuter and actually
looks a bit like the English word for sun: сольнце. Repeat that сольнце:

If you want to say “the wine is ready”, you say “вино готово”. So it sounds exactly like виза
готова, even though вино is neuter and виза is feminine. But in writing it’s actually вино
готово and виза готова. Like I’ve said before, an unstressed о is pronounced as an а. This
is something that you don’t need to pay attention to now during these lessons as we focus
on speaking now. But once you start reading this will come in handy. We also cover this in
the alphabet bonus, so you can go there if you haven’t yet checked it.

So how would you ask “is the sun ready?":

Okay, let’s take a little break from asking questions. So we’ve learned so far that every
Russian noun can be divided into 4 categories. Masculine, feminine, neuter and plural. Or
maybe it’s better to say 3 categories, and plural. Because you can take any masculine,
feminine or neuter noun and turn it into plural.

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Masculine endings always end in a consonant, such as т д м к ф д г etc. Some examples are
документ, суп, банк.

Feminine nouns always end in а or я, such as виза водка or идея

Neuter nouns always end in о or е, such as вино, метро or сольнце.

Plural nouns usually end in ы or и, such as документы, студенты, продукты.

Now, you may think “how am I going to learn and remember all this?” and that’s a
completely normal reaction. I also experienced that when I was learning Russian, but I’ve
found that since each noun can be found in one of these 4 groups, you’ll see them so often
that they become second nature quickly. Especially with the prompting practice that we do
here in these lessons, you’ll quickly start remembering and recognizing the patterns we just
spoke about. Speaking about that, shall we do a couple of more prompts to help you
better work out these masculine, feminine, neuter and plural patterns?

How would you say “we are ready":

And how would you say “we are not ready":

And how would you say “the visa is not ready now":

But how would you say “the passport is ready":

.,.

And how would you say “Ivan is not ready now, but he will be ready soon":

And how would you say “the wine will be ready soon":

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Okay, since this is such an integral part of learning Russian, you will get plenty of more
examples for this in the future!

96
Lesson 19

In the last lesson we had the phrase “The documents are not ready now, but they will be
soon”. How would you say “The documents are not ready now, but they will be ready soon":

Now, if you want to say for example “the passport is not ready now, but it will be soon”, we
come across something slightly new. If “it” in a phrase refers to a masculine noun, such as
паспорт, in Russian you say “он”. So the phrase “the passport is not ready now, but it will
be soon” in Russian is паспорт сейчас не готов, но он скоро будет готов. This is similar to
how you refer to the documents, you then say они готовы.

The same thing works for feminine nouns, such as виза. If you refer to a visa, you say она
готова. So how would you say “the visa is not ready now, but it will be ready soon":

The noun word for “work” in Russian is работа. You probably recognized this from the verb
“to work” - работать. How would you say “the work is not ready, but it soon will be ready":

So how would you say “I have work today":

Okay, another useful word in Russian is the word for “yet” ещё. Repeat that ещё:

One meaning of this word is “yet”, as in “I am not ready yet”. You usually place ещё before
the verb or adjective, and also before the negation. Sounds complicated, but in the phrase
“I am not ready yet”, you paraphrase in Russian “I yet not ready” How would you say “I am
not ready yet":

97
And how would you say “the work is not ready yet, but it soon will be ready":

Another useful short adjective is the word for “busy” or “occupied”: занят. Repeat that
занят:

If you are going to the bathroom for example, and you try to open the stall door, but it’s
locked. Someone from inside may say "туалет занят” - the toilet is busy or occupied.

But you can also use занят to indicate that you’re busy. How would you say “I am busy” in
Russian if you’re a man?

And how would you say “I am busy” in Russian if you’re a woman?

Now, let’s add the word for “yet” to a phrase like this. Я ещё занят becomes “I am yet
busy”. A better translation would of course be “I am still busy”, and this is another way to
translate ещё - still.

How would you say “the toilet is still occupied":

Just like готов becomes готова and готовы, занят also becomes занята and заняты. How
would you say “the students are still busy":

And how would you say “the students are still busy, but I don’t know what they are doing":

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Now, the word for вы can also be used in the plural. Just like the English you, can mean that
you’re talking to 1 person, or to several people. This also means that whenever you use an
adjective, you should use the plural version, even if you’re talking to a man or woman.

So how would you ask Ivan “are you busy?":

And if he says no, how would you then reply “It is good that you are not busy":

How would Ivan then ask “why is it good that I am not busy?":

How would you reply “work is not ready yet. We will work today":

Do you remember the word for “very” in Russian: очень. How would you ask “are you very
busy today?":

And how would Ivan reply “no, I’m not very busy today":

And how would you say ”the computer is still not working.":

And how would you say ”the computer is still not working. You have to repair the
computer":

Like you just saw, you can also use ещё for verbs. How would you say “I am still working":

99
And how would you say “I want to drink wine, but I am still working":

Or how would you say “I still don’t know where the restaurant is":

You remember the word for “today” сегодня. The word for “tomorrow” is easier: завтра.
Repeat that завтра:

How would you say “I am not working tomorrow":

You might’ve noticed that tomorrow is in the future, but we still use the present tense
работаю here. Just like in English this is okay. “I am working tomorrow” is correct in English,
and in Russian as well. But you can also say “I will work tomorrow”. How would you say “I
will work tomorrow":

In general, you can just use both options. Don’t pay too much attention to it, but if you
wonder what may be right, just ask yourself if you would use “will” in English, and that
tends to be correct in Russian as well.

How would you say “tomorrow I want soup":

And how would you say “today I want to drink tea, but tomorrow I want to drink coffee":

The Russian word for project is unexpectedly проект. Look at the last letter, and check if
this a masculine, feminine, neuter or plural noun. Let’s do a test. How would you say “the
project is ready”:

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And how would you say “the project will be ready tomorrow":

And how would you tell your manager “I’m sorry, the project is not ready today, but it will
be ready tomorrow":

Let’s try adding some more words, and put everything from this lesson together. How
would you say “I’m sorry, I’m still very busy today, and the project will not be ready today.
But it will be ready tomorrow":

Okay, that might’ve been a bit much to remember in one go. Let’s divide it. How would you
say “I’m sorry, I am still very busy today” as a man?

And how would you say “and the project will not be ready today”:

And how would you say “but it will be ready tomorrow":

So how would say “I’m sorry, I’m still very busy today, and the project will not be ready
today. But it will be ready tomorrow":

Alright, that was it for this lesson. I hope you are готов for the next one!

101
Lesson 20

Okay, we have seen the patterns of он готов - она готова - мы готовы. Would you be
surprised to hear that these patterns come back everywhere in the entire Russian
language?

Let me give you another example. The word for “my” or “mine” in Russian is мой. Repeat
that: мой

This looks awfully similar to the English “my” right? How would you say “my computer":

And how would you say “my computer isn’t working":

Or how would you ask “where is my passport?":

Or how would you say “my manager doesn’t know what I am doing":

Okay, that’s enough for мой. By now we’ve only used мой for words ending in consonants
мой компьютер, мой паспорт, мой менеджер. That’s because мой is the masculine
variant of my.

Knowing the tendency of feminine nouns to have an а or я ending, how would мой change
for a feminine word, such as работа. How might you say “my work”:

Did you guess it correctly? моя работа. How would you say “my work is ready":

102
Or how would you ask “where is my vodka? I want to drink":

By now you’re a bit more familiar with the Russian patterns. What would you think the
plural form of my is? If “they are ready” is они готовы, how would мой change? How might
you say “my students”:

So мой becomes мои. How would you say “my fruits":

And how would you say “where are my fruits? i want to eat":

How would you say “My documents are not ready yet":

And how would you say “I am not working today. My documents are not ready yet":

So we’ve had мой моя мои. There’s one form left. This is the neuter form. Neuter words
always end in о or е. Вино for example. How would мой change? It becomes моё.

So how would you say “my wine":

Do you remember how to ask someone to pass you the salt if you’re sitting at a table?
можно соль пожалуйста - literally “is it possible the salt please”. So how would you ask
someone to pass you your glass of wine that’s on the other side of the table? How would
you say “is it possible my wine please":

103
The word for cup in Russian is стакан. Repeat that: стакан:

Did you pay attention to the ending of стакан? How would you say “my cup":

And how would you ask “can I have my glass please?":

Now, imagine still sitting at the table, and Ivan made a special homemade Russian fish
soup. Everyone loves it but you find it horrible. How would you say “I don’t want to eat my
soup":

Ivan doesn’t approve and says you just have to have a couple of sips and you'll love it. You
take a couple of sips, but it’s still bad. You try to get out by saying that you think your soup
isn’t ready yet. How would you say “Ivan, this is bad. My soup isn’t ready yet”

Now Ivan wants to say that your soup is definitely ready. So he says ваш суп готов! Repeat
that: ваш суп готов:

So the word for “your” or “yours” is ваш. This is for masculine nouns that end in a
consonant or й sound. How would you ask “is your brother an artist?":

And how would you reply “no, my brother is a businessman":

So if мой becomes моя for feminine nouns, how would ваш change? How might you say
“your work”:

104
…

So “your” or “yours” for feminine nouns is ваша. How would you say “your sister":

And how would you ask “where is your sister?":

And how would Ivan reply “my sister is there":

You can probably guess where this is going. How might you say “your documents":

Just like мой becomes мои, ваш becomes ваши for plural nouns. The word for chips as in
potato chips in Russian is чипсы. How would you say “my chips":

How would you ask “do you know where my chips are":

And how would you ask “do you know where my chips are? I want to eat":

Of course we still have the neuter nouns that end in о or е. If мой becomes моё, how
would ваш change? How might you say “your wine”:

Now, this is a bit tricky, as it becomes ваше, and not вашо. Sometimes in Russian some
letter combinations just don’t sound to nicely, like вашо. Try saying вашо ten times quickly,
and most people automatically already start saying something like ваше. In the Russian
language, something like this happens occasionally to words. Now, I’m not sure if in this

105
exact example it used to be that вашо changed to ваше, but it’s a nice concept to have in
your mind. Over time you’ll come across some at first sight exceptions in the Russian
language, and this “unpleasant to pronounce'' principle can be used to explain why some
letter combinations tend to have an unexpected pronunciation. You don’t need to
remember this, but I’ll bring it up again in the future whenever it’s relevant.

So how would you say “your wine":

And how would you say “I want to drink your wine":

Okay, we’ve had a lot of possessive personal pronouns today. You don’t need to remember
this definition “possessive personal pronouns” by the way. I didn’t know much of these
terms until I started explaining Russian to other people. But let's do a quick recap.

●​ мой - ваш
●​ моя - ваша
●​ моё - ваше
●​ мои - ваши

Okay, so how would you say “this is not your passport, it’s my passport":

And how would you say “I know where my work is”:

And how would you say ”but I don’t know where your work is":

And how would you combine these 2 sentences “I know where my work is but I don’t know
where your work is":

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And how would you say “I need to buy my groceries”

And how would you say “you need to buy your groceries":

And how would you then say “I need to buy my groceries, and you need to buy your
groceries":

Okay, that was it. Again don’t worry too much about whether you remember everything
from this lesson. Most words will be repeated anyways in the following lessons. And you
can always repeat a lesson if you feel that’s necessary.

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Lesson 21

How would you say “I know":

And how would you say “I will know":

So we just discussed the present tense and the future tense. But what about the past
tense? How do we say “I knew": Well, this follows a similar pattern to the short adjectives
we spoke about in the previous lessons. Let me explain.

For a man, “I knew” in Russian is я знал. Repeat that я знал:

So what we have done here is take the full verb знать, remove the ть and add an л. How
would you say “I knew you":

We can do the same thing for all other verbs. If we have “to work” работать, how might you
say “I worked":

So you change работать into работал. How would you say “I worked here":

Or how would you say “I did not work here":

This works for all the verbs, you can just remove the ть ending, and add an л.

Now here comes the similarity to short adjectives and possessive pronouns: if you want to
say as a woman “I knew”, then you change знал to знала. Repeat that: я знала:

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…

Do you see a pattern here? Just like готов becomes готова, and мой becomes моя, знал
becomes знала. You just add an a sound to the ending, like with готов and моя.

So how would you say as a woman “I knew you":

And how would you say as a woman “I worked here":

Now, let’s take another verb to repair починить. How would you say as a man “I repaired":

See how we did that. We took починить, and turned it into починил. Remove the ть part,
and add an л.

How would you say as a man “I repaired the phone":

And how might you ask “she repaired the computer?”

Oh, I didn’t tell you yet, the he/she forms use the same verb in the past. You just change it
depending on whether the noun is masculine or feminine. So how would you say “Ivan
repaired the telephone":

Or how would you ask “when did she repair the phone?":

Let’s try it with another verb: купить. Remove the ть and add an л. How might you say “he
bought” in Russian?

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…

And how would you say “Masha bought groceries”:

The word for “yesterday” is вчера. Repeat that вчера:

How would you say “my brother bought wine yesterday”:

And how would you say “Masha worked yesterday”:

Okay, we’ve now discussed the past tense for masculine and feminine nouns. What do you
think happens when we take a plural noun, such as мы, вы, они, or студенты?

Exactly, we just take for example знал, and add an и. It becomes знали. So “they knew”
becomes они знали. Repeat that они знали:

And how would you say “we knew”:

Or how would you say “we bought”:

And how would you say “you bought”:

The word for banana is банан. So how would you say “you bought a banana yesterday”:

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Okay, let’s try making a longer sentence. How would you say “I thought that I bought a
banana”:

And how would Ivan say “I didn’t know that you bought a banana yesterday”:

Or how would you say “I didn’t know that you knew”:

Or how would you say “my brother repaired the computer yesterday, when he was
working”:

How would you say “I thought that it’s allowed to smoke here”:

That was a lot of things about the past tense. It was a lot of information, but I hope that you
see that the past tense in Russian is much easier than in many other languages. In English
you have “I thought”, “I did think” “I was thinking”, “I had thought”, I have thought”, and in
Russian you just take the verb, remove the last ть and add an л. Then you just check the
noun or person that’s doing the action, and you change the ending.

●​ Masculine nouns that end in a consonant, you just keep the л ending: он знал, Иван
работал, инженер починил
●​ Feminine nouns that end in а or я, you add an extra аn а the л: она знала, Маша
работала, актриса купила
●​ Neuter nouns that end in о or е, you add an extra о to the л: оно знало, солнце
работало, вино думало (these examples are a bit weird, as we haven’t discussed
neuter nouns much)
●​ Plural nouns that end in и or ы, you add an extra и to the л: они знали, студенты
работали, мы купили.

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Lesson 22

Do you remember the word for “to be”? The full verb “to be” is быть. And we can also turn
this word into the past tense. We do the same as for other verbs: remove the ть and add
an л.

So how might you say “I was”:

So быть becomes был for masculine nouns. And how would you say “she was”:

Or how would you say “we were”:

Now, how would you then say “I knew that you were there”:

I’m using the masculine version here because I’m a man, but if you’re a woman listening to
the recording, feel free to use the feminine была or готова, whenever I’m prompting “I” in a
sentence.

Now, how would you say “we were here, but we were not there”:

Or how would you say “where have you been?”:

Or how would you say “I’m sorry, I didn’t know where you were”:

If you are going to use an adjective like готов or занят, you can also just say “мы были
готовы” or я был готов. So how would you say “she was ready”:

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…

And how would you say “the documents were ready”:

Or how would you say “he was busy, but we were not busy”:

Okay, let’s go back a little bit. Do you remember how to say “I have” in Russian? You literally
say “with me is” and then the thing you have. So how would you say “I have an idea”:

You can also use this construction in the past tense “I had an idea”. The present tense “with
me IS an idea” changes to the past “with me WAS an idea”. У меня была идея. Repeat that
У меня была идея:

So what you do here is you take the noun that you have, check if it’s a masculine, feminine,
neuter or plural noun. And then add был, была было or были to the sentence.

Let’s practice. How would you say “I had a passport”:

And how would you say “I had documents”:

And how would you say “Did you have a computer?”:

Or how would you ask ”Did you have a visa?”:

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Do you remember how to say “everything is fine with me?” у меня всё хорошо. You can
also change this into the past tense. Now, всё is a neuter noun. It ends in a neuter ending
ё. If you want to say “everything was” in Russian, you say всё было. Repeat that всё было:

You write this as было, but you pronounce this as была. So the о sounds a bit like an а, but
only if it's unstressed. This is something that can be seen with more words such as the
word for beer пиво. You write it with an о at the end, but pronounce it as пива, as the
stress is on the first и. For now you don’t really need to pay attention to this, especially
since this is an audio lesson. But it’s good to already be aware of this.

Speaking about pronunciation, if you haven’t yet learned the Russian alphabet, you can go
to the bonus lessons and go through my alphabet bonus lesson. It will help you understand
all the letters, and how to pronounce them. We use words that we’ve already learned in
these lessons, which will make it much easier to learn the alphabet,as you already know
how the words sound. If you already know the alphabet, going through the video will help
you improve your pronunciation of each specific letter.

Back to the past tense. So “everything was” is всё было. And how would you say
“everything was fine”:

So how would you then say “everything was fine with me”:

And how would you ask “was everything fine with you?”:

Do you remember the word for “bad” плохо? How would you say “everything was bad”:

And how would you say “everything was good with you, but everything was bad with me”:

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…

How would you say “I had a problem”:

And how would you say “everything was bad. I had a problem”:

Or how would you say “everything was bad, I didn’t know what to do”:

If you want to say in Russian “they thought that everything was bad”, you can say они
думали что всё было плохо. Repeat that: они думали что всё было плохо

So how would you say “she thought that everything was bad”:

Now, if in English you’d want to say “she thought that everything would be bad”, in Russian
you say this as “she thought that everything will be bad”. So how would you say “she
thought that everything would be bad”:

Let’s try another one. If you want to say “she knew that everything would be good”, you say
“she knew that everything will be good” in Russian. So how would you say say “she knew
that everything would be good”:

Or how would you say “she didn’t know that everything would be good”:

115
Now, you can also add verbs to this construction. How would you say “he knew that he
would work today’:

Or how would you say “they knew that they would drink wine today”:

Or how would you say “they knew that they would not drink today”:

Alright, that’s it for this lesson. Be sure to check the bonus lesson with the alphabet and
pronunciation somewhere today or tomorrow.

116
Lesson 23

In the last lesson we learned how to say “everything was” всё было. How would you say
“everything was good”:

And do you remember how to say “It is necessary” надо будет. How would you say “it is
necessary to repair the computer”:

Now, if you want to say “it was necessary”, you can combine these 2 phrases. You can say
“надо было”. Repeat that “надо было”:

The word for “house” in Russian is дом. Repeat that дом:

So how would you say “it was necessary to repair the house”:

And how would you say “it was necessary to buy groceries”:

Or how would you say “it was necessary to know what this is”:

But you can also use this construction to say “it was necessary for you”. How would you say
“it was necessary for you”:

How would you say “it was necessary for you to work today’:

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…

Just like the construction надо было, you can also use this construction for other words,
such as можно было, интересно было нельзя было and more. How would you say “it was
allowed to smoke here”:

Or how would you say “it was interesting to me” or “I was wondering”:

And how would you say “I was wondering where it was possible to buy alcohol”:

Now, imagine not having seen Ivan for 2 days and seeing him again. How would you ask
him “Ivan, I was wondering where you were yesterday”:

And how would ivan reply “I drank wine yesterday”:

How would you then say “I didn’t know that it was possible to drink wine yesterday!”

How would Ivan then say “That’s bad. But I had a problem yesterday”:

How would you ask “did you have a problem?”:

How would Ivan say “Yes, I drank wine but I didn’t eat.”:

118
How would you then ask “is everything okay with you?”:

And how would Ivan reply: “Yesterday everything was good with me, but today everything is
very bad!”

Okay, let’s take a break. I hope you enjoyed the little conversation we just created. It’s a bit
silly, but conversations get better over time as you learn more words. Now, something
that’s not silly are Russian TV series. And maybe you’ve already started watching some of
them that you can find in the bonus sheets. Watching Russian series is a great way to
practice “relaxed attention”, which is the opposite of “focused attention”, what we are doing
here in the lessons. While doing these lessons you might experience strain from the mental
effort it takes to answer the prompts. That’s okay - even good - but it’s not something you
can keep up for long periods of time. “relaxed attention” while watching series, on the other
hand, should feel relaxed. It should be something you can do for hours, for example binge
watching a couple of episodes on a Sunday night. The goal of the series is to comfortably
spend time listening to correctly spoken Russian, so it’s completely fine to turn on English
subtitles. The main thing is that you give your brain and ears time to listen and get used to
the Russian language. So next time you’re watching series, be sure to relax!

Okay, let’s learn another useful word. The word for “already” is уже. Repeat that: уже

How would you say “I’m already ready”:

Or how would you say “I’m already working”:

Now, how would you ask “is your work already finished?”:

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Do you remember that if you’d like to say “I already had a tea”, in Russian you’d say literally
“with me already was tea”. How would you say “with me already was a tea”:

Or how would you say “I already drank tea”:

Alright, the last couple of lessons we had a lot of new past tense grammar. Let’s practice
them some more before we continue to the next lesson.

How would you say “I knew where you were”:

And how would you say “I didn’t know where you were”:

Or how would you say “I didn’t know that the documents were already ready”:

How would you say “he was very busy yesterday”:

The word for “yet” was ещё. So how would you say “he was very busy yesterday, but the
project isn’t ready yet”:

Or how would you say “excuse me, what did you do yesterday?”:

And how would you reply “I drank alcohol yesterday, but everything is fine with me now”:

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How would you say “I had a problem, my visa wasn’t ready yet”:

How would you say “the students didn’t know where they would work”:

Or how would you say “She knew that everything would be fine”:

The word for “house” in Russian was дом. So how would you say “you needed to repair
your house” or “it was necessary for you to repair your house”:

Or how would you say “it was interesting to me why it was not allowed to buy alcohol”:

How would you say “I thought that the documents were ready”:

Or how would you say “I didn’t think the documents were ready”:

Alright, that was enough for this lesson. If you’re not watching Russian series with “relaxed
attention”yet, be sure to try and watch an episode tonight.

121
Lesson 24

We know the word for “to eat”, right? That’s есть. Now, the word есть has another
meaning: “there is”.

So how would you for example ask “is there vodka?”:

Or how would you ask “is there tea?”:

Or how would you say “I want a restaurant, where there is wine”:

Or how would you say “I know a restaurant, where there is borsch”:

So a couple of lessons ago we learned how to say “I have”. How would you say “I have an
idea”:

Or how would you say “I have the flu”:

Now, if you want to emphasize that you have something, you can add есть. So if you want
to emphasize that you have a house for example, you can say у меня есть дом, this literally
means “with me there is a house”. Repeat that у меня есть дом:

Now, again, it’s important to realize that есть here does not mean “to eat”. It means “there
is”. So if you say у меня есть дом, the literal translation is “with me there is a house”.

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This may be a bit confusing, but usually it’s clear when есть means “to eat”, and when есть
means “there is”. If you see the construction у меня есть у вас есть у нас есть, then you
are dealing with “there is”.

Let’s practice it more. The word for “ticket” is билет. Repeat that: билет:

You’re talking to Ivan, and he doesn’t know that you have a ticket for a concert tonight. You
want to tell him you HAVE a ticket, so how would you say “I have a ticket” or “with me there
is a ticket”:

Ivan doesn’t believe you. How would he ask “do you have a ticket?” or “with you there is a
ticket?”:

So, whenever you use у меня есть or у вас есть, you usually emphasize the fact that you
have something. Or that you are the owner of it.

How would you say “I have wine”:

And how would you ask “Do you have wine?”:

Now, imagine going through customs and the customs officer asks you about your
passport. How would he ask “with you is there a passport?”, in the meaning of “do you have
a passport?”:

And how would you reply “Yes, I have a passport”:

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Now, you may be wondering when to use у меня есть идея or у меня идея. In virtually all
cases, both ways of saying this are grammatically correct. There are nuances, but most of
them are for more advanced learners. And native speakers will understand what you mean
however you say it. If you use есть, you usually mean that you possess something.

So in a restaurant, how would you ask “do you have borsch?”:

So in this case, you want to emphasize whether they have it or not. So you use есть.

If you want to say “we have”, you say у нас. So how would the waiter reply “yes, we have
borscht”:

How would you ask Ivan “do you have vodka?”:

And how would Ivan reply “yes, we have vodka”:

How would you ask “do you have wine?”:

How would the waiter reply “yes, we have wine”:

Now, the Russian word for “time” is время. Repeat that время:

How would you say “I have time”:

And how would you ask “do you have time?”:

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…

Or how would you ask “do you have time to work?”:

Or how would you say “I have time, but I do not want to work”:

How would you say “we have time”:

And how would you say “we have time, but we do not know what to do”:

And how would you say “we had time”:

So how would you say “we had time, but we did not know what to do”:

That was the past tense. Let’s try the future tense. How would you say “we will have time”:

And how would you say “we will have time, but we will not know what to do“:

How would you ask “do you have time to buy groceries today?”:

The word for tomorrow was завтра. How would you say “we will have time to buy groceries
tomorrow”

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…

Okay, that was it for this lesson. There will be more practice in the coming lessons!

126
Lesson 25

Do you remember the word for “everything”? How would you say “everything is good”:

And do you remember the word for “time” время? Now, you can actually combine these
two words все and время to say “all the time”. So how would you say “all the time”:

So how would you say “I want to eat all the time”:

Russian word order is flexible, so you can put the words however you like. But a
combination like всё время should be kept together. So you can say я всё время хочу
есть, but also я хочу есть всё время or всё время я хочу есть. You can even say есть я
хочу всё время!

Now, the word order doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence. But it does change what
you emphasize. Whatever word you put first is emphasized. So if you want to emphasize
that you ALL THE TIME want to eat, and not just occasionally, you can say всё время я хочу
есть. But if you want to emphasize that you want to EAT all the time, and not drink for
example, you can say есть я хочу всё время.

This isn’t really something you’ll need to pay conscious effort to. It’s rather an extra playful
thing you can do in the Russian language. So once you’ve mastered a phrase or
construction, then you can start playing around with it to change the emphasis.

So how would you say “he works all the time”:

And how would you say “all the time, he’s working”:

..

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And how would you say “they think all the time”:

And how would you say “all the time, they are thinking”:

Russian is a “lego” language. With that I mean that you can add and modify words by
adding new parts. For example, do you remember that we learned how to say “thank you
for” something. Спасибо за. So the preposition за is a word that means for. спасибо за
кофе. And you also know the word for “to be” быть.

In Russian you can often combine verbs with prepositions. If we combine за with быть, we
get the word забыть. And this verb means “to forget”. Repeat that забыть:

How would you say ‘I want to forget”:

And how would you say “I don’t want to forget”:

Or how would you say “I don’t want to forget who you are”:

Let’s practice some past tense. How might you say “I forgot who you are”:

And how would you say “He forgot where the restaurant is”:

Or how would you ask “did you forget?”:

128
And how would you ask “did you forget that you have work today?”:

And how would you say “the students forgot that the project was already ready”:

The word for “key” is ключ. Repeat that: ключ:

How would you ask Ivan “Ivan, did you forget the key?”:

And how would Ivan say “I did not forget the key today”:

Then Ivan says “вот ключ”. Вот is a fun little word that means “here is”. You usually say this
while showing something to someone. For example, how would you say “here is my house”:

Just like Ivan said while showing you the key. How would he say “here is my key”:

And how would you reply “I thought that you forgot your key”:

And how would Ivan reply “No, I didn’t forget. Here it is.”

This was a tricky one. Do you remember that if you refer to a noun with “it”, you use он она
or оно, depending on the masculine, feminine or neuter gender of the noun. ключ is
masculine, so you say “вот он”. Now, let’s practice this with “keys”. If you want to turn one
ключ into several ключи, you add an и to the ending.

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How would you ask ivan “did you forget your keys?”:

And how would he say “no, here are they”:

Important to note here is that вот can also mean “here are”, it all depends on whether you
show one or more things.

The Russian word for “friend” is друг. Repeat that друг:

How would you say “my friend forgot the key”:

And how would you say “my friend all the time thinks that he forgot the key”:

How would you say “I do not know where my friend is”:

But Ivan sees him just right around the corner. How would Ivan reply “I know. Here he is”:

Alright, let’s practice creating another verb. How would you say “everything is normal with
me”:

Let’s take the у and combine it with знать. What do we get? узнать. Repeat that узнать:

The word узнать means “to find out”. So how would you say “I want to find out”:

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…

And how would you say “my friend found out”:

Or how would you say “Ivan found out where my friend is”:

How would you say “I needed to work today”:

And how would you say “they found out that I needed to work today”:

or how would you say “I want to find out what this is”:

Alright, that was it for today. I want to give you one last tip that will make it easier to stay
motivated learning Russian. It’s the idea that “10 minutes a day 6 times per week is better
than 1 time a week 60 minutes”. So what this means is that it’s much better for your
studying habits and efficiency of learning to spend a little bit of time most days learning
Russian vs once a week sitting down for an entire afternoon. Everyone can find time most
days to listen to a 15 minute audio lesson, so it quickly becomes a habit. And once it has
become a habit it becomes very easy to do, and you’ll be making progress on autopilot.

131
Lesson 26

The word for “to hurry” is спешить. Repeat that спешить:

How would you say “I want to hurry”:

How would you say “I don’t want to hurry”:

And the past tense. How would you say “they were hurrying”:

Or how would you say “Ivan was hurrying all the time”:

Now, so far we’ve learned mainly verbs that end in ать: знать думать понимать работать
делать and of course узнать.

But спешить ends in ить. This is the second category of verbs in the Russian language. If
you want to say “I hurry” or “I am hurrying”, you change спешить to я спешу. Repeat that я
спешу:

So how would you say “I am hurrying”:

Or how would you say “I’m not hurrying”:

So you just take away the ить part and add ю. Спешить becomes спешу.

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So how would you say “I am hurrying all the time”:

So, the while the conjugation is a bit different than for the ать verbs, the main ю ending for
я спешу is the same as for я знаю я понимаю я делаю etc.

Now, if you want to say “you are hurrying”, you say вы спешите. repeat that вы спешите:

That looks similar to the вы знаете, right? Вы спешите and вы знаете end in те.

So how would you ask “are you hurrying?”:

And how would you ask “why are you hurrying all the time?”:

And how would you say “I thought that you are in a hurry”:

So you create the вы спешите by taking the full verb спешить, removing the last ить and
adding ите. That’s almost the same as you do for ать verbs. Except we only add ите, where
for the ать verbs we add ете. So спешить becomes вы спешите.

Now, if you want to say “he’s hurrying” or “he hurries”, you say он спешит. Repeat that он
спешит.

You take the full verb спешить, remove the ить and add ит. It almost sounds exactly the
same, except for that he hurries он спешит, it’s really a hard т. And for the full verb
спешить, it’s a soft ending. This is something that will get easier over time, don’t worry
about it now.

So how would you say “he’s hurrying”:

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…

And how would you say “she is hurrying all the time”:

And how would you ask “why is he hurrying?”:

Or how would you say “they don’t know why he is hurrying”:

I’m now going to continue with the we-form. If this is a bit much to remember, just focus on
repeating and listening to the prompts. In the second half of this lesson we will go over all
these forms again, and you’ll quickly notice the framework behind all these conjugations.

All right, let’s try a guess. How might you say “we hurry”:

So, just like with all the verbs we’ve learned so far, the мы conjugation ends in an м. Мы
знаем, мы делаем and мы спешим. The м ending in a verb always indicates that it’s we
who are doing something. So for мы we take the full verb спешить, remove the ить and
add им. That’s it.

So how would you say “we hurry”:

And how would you say “we hurry all the time”:

And how would you ask “why are we hurrying?”:

Or how would you say “we don’t know why we are hurrying”:

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…

Okay, so we’ve had я спешу, вы спешите, он она спешит and мы спешим. We’re just
missing the they form. This is where things change a bit from what you would expect. “they
hurry” is они спешат. Repeat that они спешат:

Or how would you say “they hurry all the time”:

Or how would you ask “why are they hurrying?”:

And how would you reply “I don’t know why they are hurrying”:

So ить verbs turn into ат or ят whenever you have the they-form они спешат.

Now, let’s practice everything you’ve learned from this lesson. Pay close attention to the
correct answers in order to drill down the correct answers.

How would you say “I’m hurrying”:

And how would you say “you are hurrying”:

How would you say “he is hurrying”:

And how would you say “we are hurrying”:

135
Or how would you say “they are hurrying”:

Now, how would you say “I don’t know why I am hurrying”:

Or how would you say “you don’t know why you are hurrying”:

And how would you say “he doesn’t know why he’s hurrying”:

Or how would you say “we don’t know why we are hurrying”:

And how would you say “they don’t know why they are hurrying”:

Let’s try some more random sentences. How would you ask “why are you hurrying all the
time?”:

Or how would you say “I don’t understand why they are hurrying”:

Or how would you ask “why are you hurrying? I thought that you were ready”:

And how would you say “yesterday they did not work, and today they are hurrying”:

136
Or how would you say “they are hurrying, but we are not hurrying”:

How would you ask “who is hurrying?”:

And how would you reply “Ivan isn’t ready yet, and he’s hurrying now”:

Okay, that was it for this lesson. We’ll continue next lesson with more examples and verbs,
so if you haven’t gotten it down yet, you will understand it in the coming lessons. Не надо
спешить!

137
Lesson 27

The word for “to see” in Russian is видеть. Kind of sounds like video, something you see,
right? Repeat that видеть:

So how would you say “I want to see”:

And how would you say “I want to see you”:

You can also stack verbs with видеть. For example, how would you say “I am hurrying to
see you”:

Now, видеть is a second category verb just like спешить. Second category verbs end either
in ить or еть.

Now, you may expect that “I see” in Russian is видю, but that’s not the case unfortunately.
It’s я вижу. Repeat that я вижу:

Now, this may look irregular and in a way it is haha. But do you remember that Russian
sometimes changes the rules a bit to allow for easier pronunciation? If you were to say
видю 10 times quickly after each other, you kind of say вижу after a couple times anyway.
So вижу - “I see” is irregular, but not illogical.

So how would you say “I see you”:

And how would you say “I see the monument”:

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…

Or how would you say “I don’t see you”:

Or how would you ask “why don’t I see you?”

Now, вижу comes from видеть. So you may be wondering if the rest of the you see, he
sees, she sees, we see, they see are also irregular. And I’ve got good news for you. They are
completely regular. So we can use the same patterns we learned for спешить for those
conjugations. How would you say “you are hurrying”:

And now try using your intuition, just answer the first thing that comes to mind. How might
you say “you see”:

“you see” or “you are seeing” in Russian is вы видите. You remove the еть, and add ите,
just like you do with спешите.

Now, how would you say “you see me”:

And how would you ask “do you see me?”:

And how would you say “I see you, and you see me”:

Or how would you say “I see the restaurant, and you see the bar”:

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Let’s do another intuition question. If “he’s hurrying” is он спешит, how might you say “he
sees”:

So you take the full verb видеть, remove the еть, and add ит. Он видит она видит.

How would you say “he sees you”:

Or how would you ask “does she see me”:

How would you say “Masha sees the teather”:

And how would you say “Ivan sees the wine”:

Are you ready for another intuition question? If “we hurry” is мы спешим, how might you
say “we see”:

“we see” is мы видим. you remove еть from видеть and add им - мы видим.

How would you say “we see you”:

And how would you ask “what do we see?”:

Or how would you say “we don’t see you”:

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Or how would you say “we don’t understand why we don’t see you”:

Okay, let’s cover the “they see”. If “they hurry” is они спешат, how might you say “they see”:

So “they see” is видят. You remove the еть and add ят to the ending они видят.

How would you say “they see me”:

And how would you ask “do they see me?”:

Or how would you say, “they don’t see you”:

How would you say “they think that they see you”:

Alright, this probably went easier than learning how to conjugate спешить in the last
lesson. But it’s probably still good to do some more practice.

How would you say “I think that I see you”:

Or how would you say “we think that we see you”:

And how would you say “they think that they don’t see you”:

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Or how would you ask “do you think that you see me?”:

Do you remember how to say “we have” у нас? Well, if you want to say “us” in “do you see
us?” you also use нас for us. So how would you ask “do you see us?”:

Or how would you ask “why don’t you see us?”:

Or how would you say “interesting, I don’t understand why you don’t see us”:

And how would you ask “what are we seeing now?”:

Okay, that was the verb “to see” видеть. A second category verb. We’ll come across plenty
more of those in the future, and you can recognize them by their ить or еть endings. What
I’ve found to help a lot after sessions like this with much new grammar, is to take a break.
Your brain needs time to puzzle all the pieces together, and you need to give it some time
for that. You can also relisten to this audio lesson again, and maybe read the transcript at
the same time.

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Lesson 28

The word for “nothing” in Russian is ничего. Repeat that: ничего:

So how would you say “it is nothing”:

If in Russian you want to say “I understand nothing”, you say я ничего не понимаю. So you
literally say “I nothing not understand”. So Russian uses a double negative.

Repeat that я ничего не понимаю:

Now, “I nothing not understand” is a bit of a weird English translation. So it would be better
to translate this as “I don’t understand anything”.

How would you say “I don’t see anything”:

And how would you say “I don’t know anything”:

Or how would you ask “why don’t you understand anything?”:

Now, imagine being over at Ivan’s place and he hasn’t done anything all day. How would
you ask him “Ivan, why aren’t you doing anything?”:

How would Ivan respond “I’m not doing anything? I worked today”:

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And how would you say “I didn’t know that you were working today”:

And how would Ivan then ask “and what were you doing today?”:

How would you reply “I worked, but I didn’t do anything”:

How would Ivan ask “interesting, why didn’t you do anything?”:

And how would you reply “I don’t know why I didn’t do anything today”:

Alright, that was an interesting conversation. But I hope it showed you how Russian has
double negations. So whenever you want to use the word for ничего with a verb, be sure
to add the negative не there as well. This will take some conscious effort in the beginning,
but since it’s such a common construction, you’ll get used to it in no time. And the more
correct Russian you hear, the quicker this progress will go. Another fun way to practice
your Russian is by listening to Russian music. Whatever genre you like to listen to in your
native language, you can surely find it in Russian as well. I recommend that you just go
online and search for “Russian rap” “russian pop” or “russian rock” or any other genre. The
coolest thing with listening to music is that it’s kind of like a puzzle. You’ll be trying to
recognize phrases, and the feeling once you recognize a sentence in Russian is really
amazing.

Okay, let’s go back. Do you remember the word for “to hurry” спешить and “to see”
видеть? You can also use these in the past tense.

The good thing with the Russian past tense is that it’s super regular. Just like you take any
other verb, you just remove the ть, and add an л ла ло or ли. So “he saw” or “he was
seeing” becomes он видел. And “they were hurrying” becomes они спешили.

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Let’s practice some sentences.

How would you say “why were you hurrying?”:

And how would you ask “why were they hurrying?”:

Or how would you say “I saw that you were hurrying”:

Or how would you ask “did you see that I was hurrying?”:

Or how would you say “they didn’t see anything”:

And how would you say “they saw everything”:

How would you say “they knew that I was hurrying”:

Or how would you say “they knew that I was not hurrying”:

Or how would you say “they saw my house”:

And how would you say “they didn’t see my house”:

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And how would you say “I didn’t know that you saw my house”:

Or how would you say “I forgot that you saw my house”:

And how would you say “they were hurrying all the time yesterday”:

And then how would you say “but today they are not hurrying”:

So let’s combine this. How would you say “they were hurrying all the time yesterday, but
today they are not hurrying”:

And just like the past tense, you can also use these verbs in the future tense. And just like
the other verbs, you can just use a form of быть я буду вы будете он будет мы будем or
они будут. Let’s do some more practice with this.

How would you say “I will see you tomorrow”:

Or how would you say “you will see me tomorrow”:

And how would you say “i have work tomorrow, I will be hurrying”:

Or how would you say “I won’t do anything tomorrow”:

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And how would you say “I won’t hurry tomorrow”:

Do you remember that the word for “or” in Russian is или? Now, how would you ask “is this
your brother or your sister?”:

Or how would you ask “coffee or tea?”:

And how would you ask “do we have time or is it necessary to hurry”:

Alright, that was a lesson with a lot of prompts. If you find it difficult, you can always redo
the lesson. Or take a look at the flashcard decks for more practice.

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Lesson 29

The Russian word for “to speak” is говорить. Repeat that: говорить:

So how would you say “I want to speak”:

And how would you ask “is it possible to speak?”:

And how would someone answer “No, it’s not allowed to speak”:

Now, just like with all the other verbs, you can easily turn this into the past tense. Let’s try
it. How might you say “he spoke” or “he was speaking”:

So you just take the infinitive говорить, remove the last ть, and add л. And how would you
say “we spoke”:

Or how would you say “I spoke all the time”:

Now, if you want to say “to speak Russian”, you say говорить по-русски. Repeat that
“говорить по-русски”:

So how would you say “I want to speak Russian”:

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Or how would you ask “is it possible to speak Russian?”:

And how would you reply “yes, it’s possible to speak Russian”:

Now, if you want to say “I speak”, you can just take the full verb говорить, remove the
ending ить, and add ю. Just like спешить becomes спешу. So how might you say “I speak”:

“I speak “ is я говорю. Говорить becomes говорю.

So how would you say “I speak Russian”:

And how would you say “I speak Russian all the time”:

Now, how would you say “I don’t speak Russian”:

And how would you say “I don’t speak Russian yet”:

Or how would you say “yesterday I did not speak Russian”:

And how would you say “but today I already speak Russian”:

Let’s combine the sentences. How would you say “yesterday I did not speak Russian, but
today I speak Russian”:

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…

“you speak” is also completely regular. “You hurry” is вы спешите from the infinitive
спешить. “to speak” is говорить. So how might you say “you speak”:

So “you speak” is вы говорите. Knowing this, how would you say “you speak Russian”:

And how would you then ask “do you speak Russian?”:

Or how would you say “i didn’t know that you speak Russian”:

And how would you say ‘You speak Russian, and I understand you”:

Now, this по-русски construction can be changed into other languages. “English” for
example is английски. So “to speak English” is говорить по-английски.

So how would you ask “is it possible to speak English?”:

You can also ask if someone speaks English. How would you ask “do you speak English?”:

Or how would you ask “do you speak English and Russian?”:

And how would you say “I speak English, but I want to speak Russian”:

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Talking about speaking Russian. You may or may not know any native Russian speakers in
real life. Now that you already know quite an impressive amount of Russian, it could be fun
to try to speak a little bit. If you know native speakers, you can just see if they’d like to hang
out. But if you don’t know any native Russian speakers, you can search online if there’s
maybe a Russian supermarket, restaurant or bar somewhere in your city. This can be a very
casual way of trying out some small talk in Russian. Especially since the people there also
likely speak your native language, there isn’t really any pressure. Besides, going to a
Russian restaurant or supermarket allows you to try some interesting Russian dishes!

Okay, so I speak is я говорю and “you speak” is вы говорите. How might you say “he
speaks”:

So you take the infinitive говорить, the last т sounds very soft. And you remove the ить
and add the ит. A very hard т. Он говорит. So how might you say “she speaks Russian”:

And how would you say “Ivan speaks Russian and English”:

And how would you say “Ivan speaks Russian well”:

Now the word for “bad” was плохо. You can also use this word as an adverb, like “to speak
English badly” would be плохо говорить по-английски. So how would you say “Ivan
speaks English badly”:

And how would you say “Ivan speaks Russian well, but he speaks English badly”:

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Okay, now let’s try “we speak”. Following the м pattern for “we” that we’ve learned before,
like мы спешим мы видим, how might you say “we speak”:

So “we speak” is мы говорим. So how would you say “we speak Russian”:

Or how would someone say “we don’t speak English”:

Ow how would you say “they didn’t know that we speak Russian”:

Talking about “they”. If “they hurry” is они спешат - coming from the infinitive спешить,
how might you say “they speak”:

So говорить becomes они говорят. How would you then say “they speak Russian”:

And how would you say “we didn’t know that they speak Russian”:

Or how would you ask “do they speak Russian or English?”:

Alright, that was it for this lesson. If you find yourself with nothing to do today or tomorrow,
why not check if there’s a Russian supermarket, bar or restaurant near you. It would be a
great opportunity to practice speaking по-русски and to try some special Russian food.

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Lesson 30

The word for “to say” or “to tell” in Russian is сказать. Repeat that сказать:

So how would you ask “what to say?”:

And how would you say “I don’t know what to say”:

Or how would you say “I want to tell you”:

Or how would you say “I don’t want to tell you anything”:

And how would you say “I want to tell you that your passport is ready”:

Now, this word сказать is also very useful if you want to ask someone “how to say a specific
word in Russian”. You then just say for example “how to say city in Russian”.

Now, how would you say “how to say”:

And how would you ask “how to say in Russian?”:

Yes, so if you want to ask what the word for city is in Russian, you would ask как сказать
city по-русски, and if the other person speaks English, they’ll tell you that it means город.

Let’s play around with the past tense of “to tell” сказать, how might you say “I said”:

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…

So сказать becomes сказал. And how would you say “Masha said”:

And how would you say “Masha told me”:

Or how would you say “Masha didn’t tell me anything”:

Or how would you say “Masha told me that she is not working today”:

How would you say “I told you”

And how would you say “I didn’t tell you anything”:

Or how would you ask “why didn’t you tell me anything?”:

And how would you say “I told you that I am busy”:

And how would you ask “didn’t I tell you that I am busy?”:

Alright, let’s take a little break. By now you might’ve noticed that we sometimes have a lot
of prompts after each other. This is done on purpose to give you more speaking practice.
But it can also be overwhelming. Sometimes you might get the desire to try to remember

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everything. But this is not necessary. A language is a spoken thing, and all you need to do is
listen and try to create sentences. If you calmly pay attention to creating sentences, you are
learning new words and grammar. So just focus on saying the sentence that you just heard
in each prompt. And if you don’t know the sentence, or some words, I’ll tell you directly
after the prompt anyways. You can always repeat the lesson for more practice.

Let’s continue with сказать.

Imagine having a coffee with Ivan. How would you ask him “Ivan, do you know where
Masha is?”:

How would Ivan reply “Masha told me that she is busy today”:

And how would you say “Interesting, she told me that she’s not working today”:

How would Ivan say “I don’t understand why she told you that she’s not working today”:

And how would he then say “she told me that a project wasn’t ready yet”:

And how would you say “she told me that she would not be doing anything today”:

How would Ivan say “we don’t know what Masha is doing now”:

Those were some difficult sentences with quite some negations. Let’s just practice a bit
more, but then build up the sentences slower.

How would you say “I don’t understand why”:

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…

And how would you say “she told you that she’s not working today”:

So how would you say “I don’t understand why she told you that she’s not working today”:

And how would you say “she told me”:

And how would you say “she will not be doing anything today”:

So how would you say “she told me that she would not be doing anything today”:

Did you remember that the English “you told me that she would” becomes the Russian “you
told me that she will” она мне сказала что она будет.

Okay, let’s learn another nice short adjective. The word for “glad” or “happy” is рад. Repeat
that рад:

So how would you as a man say “I am glad”:

And how would you say as a woman “I am glad”:

And how would you say “Ivan is glad to see me”:

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And how would you say “we are happy to see you”:

Or how would you say “we are not happy to see you”:

And how would you say “Masha is happy to work today”:

Or how would you say “Masha was happy”:

And how would you say “Masha will be glad”:

Or how would you say “Ivan will be happy to see you”:

Alright, that was it for lesson 30. I hope you’ve learned a lot in the past 30 lessons, and if
you have any questions feel free to send me an email at ari@[Link].

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