Давайте учиться говорить сексуально...

Monday, December 31, 2007

Lesson: Introductions: "Who is this?" and "This is a professor"

OK before we get into actual sentences (you should pat yourself on the back for making it this far by the way!), I need to tell you something...

In Russian they do not use the verb "to be" so you can just forget about it for now. They do have a verb for "to be" which is "быть" but it is not used in most cases.

Just so that you can grasp this idea a little better, let's say that you are telling me that your Dad is an Astronaut. You would say "My Dad Astronaut" and leave it at that. Or if you were going to the store it would be "I going to store".

So if you are asking me "Who is this?" you would actually just say "Who this?" or "Кто это?" (kto eto). Turning those words around and saying "Это кто" means "This who?" and is also acceptable.

Now that you have asked me who a person is I would answer simply "Это артистка" meaning "This artist" instead of "This is an artist". Or maybe I would say "Это баскетболистка", "Это профессор", "Это писатель" or "Это актёр".

In sentences where you are using a noun as the subject and the predicate, a dash is used to replace the verb to be. If you were trying to say "Anna is a ballerina", you would say "Anna - ballerina".

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