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Заниматься/заняться (часть первая)

by Don  

One of the most flexible verbs in the Russian language is заниматься/заняться. In it's most generic sense, one can translate it as “to be occupied [with something].” Today we will discuss it in the sense of “to study.” It conjugates like this:

Imperfective Perfective
Infinitive заниматься заняться
Past занимался
занималась
занималось
занимались
занялся
занялась
занялось
занялись
Present занимаюсь
занимаешься
занимается
занимаемся
занимаетесь
занимаются
No such thing as
perfective present
in Russian.
Future буду заниматься
будешь заниматься
будет заниматься
будем заниматься
будете заниматься
будут заниматься
займусь
займёшься
займётся
займёмся
займётесь
займутся
Imperative занимайся
занимайтесь

In the sense of “to study” the verb is used for advanced studies:

— Ты работаешь или учишься?
— Учусь в университете.
— А чем ты занимаешься?
— Занимаюсь химией.
“Are you working or do you go to school?”
“I'm going to the university.”
“And what are you studying?”
“I'm studying chemistry.”
— Чем ты занимался в университетe?
— Я занимался татарским языком.
— Правда? Это язык с достоинством. А русский и английский языки — это яызки мирового угнетения.
— А Французский?
— Французский — язык бывших угнетателей.
— А китайский?
— Китайский - язык будущих угнетателей.
— А эскимоский?
— Знаешь, через пять тысяч лет я думаю, что даже эскимосы будут нас угнетать.
— У тебя... уникальный взгляд.
“What was your major?”
“I studied Tatar.”
“Really? Now that's a noble language. Whereas Russian and English are the languages of worldwide oppression.”
“What about French?”
“French is the language of people who used to be oppressors.”
“And Chinese?”
“Chinese is the language of future oppressors.”
“And what about Eskimo?”
“You know, five thousand years from now I think that even the Eskimos will be oppressing us.”
“You have really... unique opinions.”

The perfective of the verb can mean “to start studying”:

Когда моя мама вышла на пенсию, она занялась испанским языком. My mother started studying Spanish when she retired.
— Через два года я займусь уйгурским языком.
— Правда? Почему?
— Я хочу предотвратить их превращение в следующую расу мирового угнетения.
— Тебе нужна девушка, чтобы отвлечь тебя от этих идиотских идей.
“Two years from now I'm going to start studying Uighur.”
“Really? Why?”
“I want to prevent them from becoming the next race of world oppression.”
“You need a girlfriend to distract you from these idiotic ideas.”

Лекция

by Don  

The Russian word for lecture is:

SgPl
Nomлекциялекции
Accлекцию
Genлекциилекций
Preлекциях
Datлекциям
Insлекциейлекциями

Лекция is a на word; that is, you must use the preposition на with it if you are attending a lecture or going to a lecture:

Я вчера была на очень интересной лекции. Yesterday I was at a very interesting lecture.
Я вчера ходила на очень интересную лекцию. Yesterday I went to a very interesting lecture.

If you go to a place using на, you come back from it using с + genitive:

— Откуда ты идёшь?
— С очень интересной лекции.
“Where are you coming from?”
“From a really interesting lecture.”

There is a BIG difference between Russian and American lectures. If you attend a lecture in Russia, the lecturer often just sits there in front of the listeners and reads his notes. In the US that would be a recipe or failure. In the US a good lecturer must stand up, and either lecture entirely without notes or with just occasional references to his notes. In the US the lecturer must be emotionally engaging, or else he won't be given an honorarium again to speak. In Russia, no.

Now to American readers those comments immediately condemn the Russian system. That's because they are lazy-ass Americans. Generally the Russian system has produced better educated people than the American system over the last sixty years (though I think the Russian system is now decaying). The truth is this: if you are addicted to entertainment, you will probably be less productive in terms of scientific production than the people from less ‘friendly’ systems. So get off your tush and go do your homework!

Shady_arc responds:

As one of those studied in Moscow State University, I actively object your impression of Russian lectures. It is just that there is a lot of bad lecturers who, well, do what they can for the laughable increase in payment they get (I heard, no more than $1000 for a semester of weekly/twice a week course of lectures). A failure is still a failure, US or Russia, though in my 6 years I have never seen a sitting lecturer, not even once. Russian students, even the most promising ones, don't think twice before skipping a class or two (or half of them). Bad lecturers just make things easier for you: you simply sleep at home instead of sleeping at his lecture. And hope the lecturer isn't too pround of himself to get even with you on exam. Good students know very well that they WILL get away with skipping most of the classes they find bad: a rare professor will treat a student badly for missing classes if that student is obviously above the level of 90% of the others and knows the subject.

The tests and exams are (were?) usually held twice a year, at the end of the semester, so for decades the students had become used to living a joyful life from September through December and from February till May. This is changing now, as institutes and professors try to introduce more often, smaller tests over the course of the semester, and also control attendance. However, 5 years ago when I was in late years, still many did not attend regularly. I'd say... of all ~180 people that were in our stream (half of the students of our year: they share rougly the same lectures on common disciplines) about 40-80 were found on good lectures. For bad lectures it may fall to as low as 10-25 - basically, just a senior student (more often girl than not :) ) of each group.

There are always several good lecturers who make even quantum theory quite engaging and understandable. Also, there were many professional, though a bit boring lecturers. Still, they covered their subject, so you didn't even need the textbook much if you had carefully noted their, er, performance. Worst of all, there were indeed lecturers who are in this, probably, just for an increase to their salary. Students don't choose their teachers, so it is a matter of luck.

Personally, I did encounter a lecturer who knew what he did, yet made his subject pretty confusing. I did encounter a lecturer who was the authour of the book we used in out studies, and his lectures were so much more boring and primitive than his textbook: he even used slides instead of writing on the blackboard on his own. I attended classes of a teacher who, given the opinions I heard, was pretty good in the past; but, hell, by the time being he was so old he could barely speak intelligibly. That was the only time I was really ashamed for my university.

Note also, that in Russia (don't know how it is in US) the important general courses come in two parts, lectures by lecturers (~180 students in a large auditorium... theoretically) and classes (seminars) for small groups covering more practical skills, like discussing philosophy in more detail or soving some matrix equations. A group is 15-25 students. As a rule, these two types of classes are taught by different people, unless you are lucky/unlucky enough to be in the group whose classes are conducted by the same person who gives lectures. This also gives a different perspective, as, well... think of mathematics: solving equations is different from proving why they are solved this way, but still, the material for theoretical lectures and classes partially intersects. You may get bad lectures but good classes or vice versa. And when you prepare for the exam, you'll most probably need textbooks, anyway.

Don responds: Shady, thanks for your most excellent response to my blog entry. I'm adding your commentary to the main entry of the blog article instead of to the comment section so that others can see it promptly.

I have to agree with you, partially at least. My only study time in Russia proper was in 1986 at МГУ, and indeed the lecturers there were both competent and interesting. Of them I have no complaint.

On the other hand, the first class I had in Russian literature that was actually taught in Russian (as opposed to English language lectures on Russian literature) was taught by a Russian in the US, and he used precisely that methodology I have described. He sat in class, read his notes, and had us copy them down in our notebooks. I'm sure that the other students despised that approach. Myself, I took the lecture for what it was and in fact memorized the notes word for word, which made the instructor quite happy with my final exam of the first semester. By current US standards the class was an abomination in terms of methodology. In terms of my personal learning, I still remember his definition of литературный язык, still appreciate Krylov's fables and Lomonosov's poem on the use of glass.

Nowadays the greatest pedagogical abomination in the United States has got to be the misuse of PowerPoint. For a student-side discussion of this see Carolyn Works's blog entry (mirror)

Год (часть седьмая)

by Don  

You may remember from yesterday that the case forms of год are:

SgPl
Nomгодгоды, года
Acc
Genгода, годугодов, лет
Preгоде, годугодах
Datгодугодам
Insгодомгодами

Today we need to discuss the genitive singular forms. The modern version of the genitive singular is года, but there is an older form that arose as a consequence of the u-stem genitives which nowadays only appears in stock phrases. So you will occasionally find phrases like:

Phrase Meaning
год от году gradually, from year to year
без году неделя hardly any time at all

For instance:

Год от году я прогрессирую довольно значительно. (adapted from this source) I am making serious progress from year to year.
На бирже работаю — без году неделя. (adapted from this source) I have been working at the stock exchange for hardly any time at all.

There is a tendency in language to make the things that are irregular more regular. Thus the older plural ‘brethren’ in English has been mostly replaced by ‘brothers.’ Similarly nowadays it is much more common in Russian to say «год от года» than «год от году». It is still more common to find «без году неделя» than «без года неделя», but that ratio will most likely eventually change in favor of года.

Language changes. For instance, as I was growing up, I never heard anyone say “You want to come with?” for “Do you want to come with us?” I remember the first time I heard it. I thought “No native speaker of English could possibly ever say that!” I was wrong. All sorts of US native speakers say it nowadays, and nowadays it almost doesn't sound strange to me. This should teach us a lesson. No native speaker ever knows the entirety of his language. And if we find that Russian speakers occasionally give us contradictory language about their native language, this is also normal. In such situations, you need to ask multiple native speakers about your language issue, and then draw a rule of thumb from their responses.

Год (часть шестая)

by Don  

The case forms of год are:

SgPl
Nomгодгоды, года
Acc
Genгода, годугодов, лет
Preгоде, годугодах
Datгодугодам
Insгодомгодами

Note the two nominative plural forms. Dictionaries list both, but truth to tell you almost never see the года version for the plural.

Note the two forms for the genitive plural. The form лет is used after numbers and а few other words like много, мало, сколько and несколько. Годов is used everywhere else:

Я прожил несколько лет в Таганроге. I spent a few years in Taganrog.
Американские машины тех годов считаются эталоном красоты и роскоши. (adapted from this source) American cars of those years are considered the gold standard of beauty and luxury.

Note the two forms of the prepositional case. The form in -у is used to say "in such and such a year", and the -е form is used as the prepositional case form in other contexts:

В том году мы жили в Баку. That year we lived in Baku.
Мы говорили о годе дракона. We talked about the year of the dragon.

We will address the alternative genitive forms tomorrow.

Вымя

by Don  

Every once in a while you just want to know an obscure word in a foreign language just to show off to your friends, so today's word is вымя, which means udder. It is one of only ten nouns in modern Russian that end in -мя but are neuter. It declines like this:

SgPl
Nomвымявымена
Acc
Genвыменивымён
Preвыменах
Datвыменам
Insвыменемвыменами

The udder is the part of the a cow (or goat or sheep) that houses the mammary glands and teats with which they feed their young:

— Сколько сосков на вымени у коровы?
— Четыре.
“How many teats are on a cow's udder?”
“Four.”
Позови ветеринара. У козы заразилось вымя. Call the vet. The goat's udder is infected.
Вымя имеет хорошие вкусовые качества, хотя и не обладает высокой пищевой ценностью. (adapted from this source) The udder has good flavor qualities, although it doesn't have high nutritive value.
Есть ли вымя у быков? (source) Do bulls have an udder?

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