Categories: "Grammar"
Кормить/накормить
The verb pair кормить/накормить means to feed or to nourish. It is a shifting stress verb with a perfectly predictable л that appears in the я form:
Imperfective | Perfective | |
Infinitive | кормить | накормить |
Past | кормил кормила кормило кормили |
накормил накормила накормило накормили |
Present | кормлю кормишь кормит кормим кормите кормят |
No such thing as perfective present in Russian. |
Future |
буду кормить будешь кормить будет кормить будем кормить будете кормить будут кормить |
накормлю накормишь накормит накормим накормите накормят |
Imperative | корми(те) | накорми(те) |
First off, you can use this verb to discuss feeding farm animals:
Я кормлю скот два раза в день. | I feed the cattle twice a day |
Накорми кур и потом принеси воду из реки. | Feed the chickens and then bring water from the river. |
— Я целое лето кормил и скот и кур и свиней. — Ой, какая скука! — Да нет, я просто люблю животных. Такая работа мне в радость. |
“All summer long I feed the cows and the chickens and the pigs.” “Oh, that is so boring!” “Oh, no, I just love animals. That kind of work is just a joy for me.” |
You can also use it for feeding people:
Местные жители кормили новых поселенцев всю зиму. | The local inhabitants fed the newcomers all winter. |
Родить детей — это большая ответственность. Их ведь надо кормить и одевать, а деньги на улице не валяются. | Having children is a great responsibility. After all, you have to feed and clothe them, and money doesn't grow on trees. |
— Анна ещё кормит ребёнка грудью. Говорит, что это очень полезно для здоровья ребёнка. — В этом, конечно, она совершенно права. |
“Anna is still breast-feeding her child. She says that it is really good for the child's health.” “She's absolutely right about that, of course.” |
Он вообще хороший отец. Он сам кормит ребёнка с ложки и даже готовит чаще, чем жена. | He's a pretty good dad. He feeds the child with a spoon and even cooks more than his wife. |
In the US in the past there have been various food scandals, including that ridiculous time under Reagan when ketchup was defined as a vegetable for school lunch purposes. Russia, alas, is also not without its school food scandals. Right now there is company called Конкорд in Russia that has roused the ire of Moscow's parents by providing miserly food portions for public schools. They are even accused of providing the kids with fewer calories than prisoners used to get in the gulags. If you'd like to see some pictures of the food and look over a blog that deals with the issue, just click here.
Учить/выучить
Russian has several verbs that can be translated as ‘study.’ Today let's start by looking at учить/выучить:
Imperfective | Perfective | |
Infinitive | учить | выучить |
Past | учил учила учило учили |
выучил выучила выучило выучили |
Present | учу учишь учит учим учите учат |
No such thing as perfective present in Russian. |
Future |
буду учить будешь учить будет учить будем учить будете учить будут учить |
выучу выучишь выучит выучим выучите выучат |
Imperative | учи(те) | выучи(те) |
You can use this verb to discuss what subjects you studied in grade school or high school. In this sense you usually use it in the imperfective.
В школе я учил немецкий язык. Господи, какой он сложный! | In school I studied German. Lord, it is so complicated! |
— Ты в школе учила физику? — Конечно, учила. |
“Did you study physics in school?” “Of course, I did.” |
If you are studying/memorizing a set of facts, then you can use both the imperfective and perfective:
— Что ты делаешь? — Я учу испанские слова. |
“What are you doing?” “I'm learning/memorizing my Spanish vocabulary.” |
Я вчера выучил список столиц республик бывшего Советского Союза. | Yesterday I memorized a list of the capitals of the republics of the former Soviet Union. |
Я сегодня должна выучить наизусть квадратное уравнение. | Today I have to learn the quadratic equation by heart. |
— Я вчера выучил перечень семнадцати ядов, которые нельзя обнаружить в человеческом организме. — Что за глупость, не бывает необнаруживаемого яда. — Правда? Чёрт побери, надо изменить свои планы. |
“Yesterday I memorized a list of seventeen poisons that can't be detected in the human body.” “That's ridiculous. There is no such thing as an undetectable poison.” “Really? Damn, I'll have to change my plans.” |
Шесть
The most common Russian word for six is шесть, which declines like this:
Nom | шесть |
Acc | |
Gen | шести |
Pre | |
Dat | |
Ins | шестью |
When шесть occurs in oblique cases (oblique means a case other than nominative or accusative), it works pretty well like we would expect from a theoretical point of view; that is, it declines as we would expect and the noun it quantifies shows up in the same case in the plural:
Gen | Мы в центре гуляли около шести часов. | We walked around downtown for about six hours. |
Pre | Мы поговорили о шести новых книгах. | We talked about six new books. |
Dat | Я звонил шести новым студентам. | I phoned six new students. |
Ins | Над шестью американскими беглецами кружился вертолёт. | A helicopter circled over the six American fugitives. |
Now here's the weird part... If шесть is part of a nominative case number phrase or an accusative case number phrase, then the noun it quantifies shows up in the genitive plural:
На сцене пели шесть красивых украинок. | Six beautiful Ukrainian women were singing on the stage. |
Я купил шесть немецких машин. | I bought six German cars. |
That may seem quite complex. Just be glad your not studying Polish: its number system is even more freakish... and fascinating.
Море
The word море means sea. It's one of the few nouns in Russian that ends in -е and has a soft consonant before it. Many two-syllable neuter nouns in Russian have a stress shift in the plural. In this case, the noun is stem-stressed in the singular, and end-stressed in the plural. It declines like this:
Sg | Pl | |
Nom | море | моря |
Acc | ||
Gen | моря | морей |
Pre | море | морях |
Dat | морю | морям |
Ins | морем | морями |
The seas closest to Russia are:
Балтийское море | The Baltic Sea |
Каспийское море | The Caspian Sea |
Азовское море | The Azov Sea |
Чёрное море | The Black Sea |
Японское море | The Sea of Japan |
Notice that the «море» part in Russian is not capitalized.
Russians love to go to the sea of vacation, especially to a sea that is warm and has palm trees. Back in the Soviet period, one of their favorite places was Ялта, a city on the Black Sea that had, relative to Moscow, a warm climate. (By Arizona standards the place is refreshingly cool, but of course this blog is not entitled “Arizona Word of the Day,” so the Moscow viewpoint must predominate.) Море is a на word. In otherwords, when you talk about going to the sea or being at the seashore, you must use the preposition на, not в.
Я люблю Чёрное море. | I love the Black Sea. |
Ты когда-нибудь был на Каспийском море? | Have you ever been at/on the Caspian Sea? |
В выходные мы съездили на Аральское море. Страшно видеть, как оно умирает. | Last weekend we went to the Aral Sea. It's scary to see it die like that. |
Огромное нефтяное пятно движется к Балтийскому морю. (source) | A huge oil spill is moving toward the Baltic Sea. |
In Modern American English we mostly talk about going “to the beach” in these contexts, so “sea” will often not appear in such translations.
— Что ты делал на выходных? — Я ездил на море. |
“What did you do on the weekend?” “I went to the beach.” |
— Что ты хочешь делать на выходные? — Давай поедем на море. |
“What do you want to do for the weekend?” “Let's go to the beach.” |
Возбуждать/возбудить
I'm in Kazan with a group of students. Many of them are in host families. Americans are very communicative, so before the program began, one of our students sent a message to her host father to say that she was excited and looking forward to meeting them. She wrote:
Я очень возбуждена и спешу встретиться с вами.
Now that's pretty damn amusing. The word she chose for ‘excited’ means excited when the appetite is excited by exercise or a solar cell is excited to stimulate the emission of electrons by photons. But when applied to humans it can mean ‘sexually excited.’ The word she chose to for ‘to look forward to’ also means ‘to be in a hurry.’ So in effect the good-hearted girl had written:
I am very aroused and rushing to meet you.
Our resident director clarified the situation to the host father...
The verb ‘to stimulate; excite; arouse’ in Russian is возбуждать/возбудить. It conjugates like this:
Imperfective | Perfective | |
Infinitive | возбуждать | возбудить |
Past | возбуждал возбуждала возбуждало возбуждали |
возбудил возбудила возбудило возбудили |
Present | возбуждаю возбуждаешь возбуждает возбуждаем возбуждаете возбуждают |
No such thing as perfective present in Russian. |
Future |
буду возбуждать будешь возбуждать будет возбуждать будем возбуждать будете возбуждать будут возбуждать |
возбужу возбудишь возбудит возбудим возбудите возбудят |
Imperative | возбуждай(те) | возбуди(те) |
This word can be used when one's appetite or thirst or curiosity or surprise are aroused:
Спорт возбуждает аппетит. | Sports stimulate the appetite. |
Жара возбуждает жажду. | Hot weather arouses thirst. |
Это замечание возбудило моё удивление. | That comment surprised me. (Lit., That comment stimulated my surprise. |
Этот вопрос возбудил моё любопытство. | The questions aroused my curiousity. |
I suppose I must give at least one sexual example:
Клубника возбуждает сексуальные желания. Так и есть! Сама проверила! (source) | Strawberries stimulate sexual desires. It's true! I verified it myself! |