Lesson: Introducing people

We are going to take a closer look at introducing friends and family members. For this, you will need to know the following pronouns:

• мой/моя - my
• твой/твоя - your (familiar)
• его - his
• её - her
• наш/наша - our (masc./fem.)
• ваш/ваша - your (formal masc./fem. OR plural)
• их - their

Thanks to your daily habit of studying your vocabulary, you already know how to say the words for a number of your relatives, but just how do you introduce them to your friends?

For example, your sister comes to visit and you want to introduce her to a number of strapping young Russian boys from your school. Well to start off, you would say "Это моя сестра Дхенны (we'll use my sisters name in this example)." Now that they know her name you can introduce the boys one by one! "Дженны, Это Марк, Шан, Влад..."

So let's say you are showing friends over sea's a picture of your family. You want to tell them who each person is. They would ask you "Кто это?" and as you point to each person you would say "Это мой папа, моя бабушка, мой брат, моя мама, и моя дочь. А вот это я (And here this me)!" Notice that the pronoun changes depending on who you are speaking about. Since your Dad is a male you would use "мой".

Now you are looking at someone else's family photo and you suspect the goofy looking guy with the glasses is their brother. You ask "Это твой брат?" As it turns out it is actually a picture of their aunt so they reply "Нет, это моя тётя!"

Let's pretend you are out with a friend and see your crush with his new girlfriend. She is so ugly you can't believe he is with her and not you. You turn to your friend and say "Ну что ты! Это его подруга?!"

Or say you are at a company dinner and your boss and his wife come up to say hello. You have never met her so you say "Здравствйте. Это ваша дочь?"

You bring your boyfriend home to meet you father for the first time and say to him "Папа, это мой друг Джон. Он очень симпатичный, да?

Lesson: Verbs

Probably the worst part about learning a new language is learning verbs. We are going to learn two today, and then later, I am going to go over how to make learning them about ten times easier. For now pay attention to the endings as they change depending on which pronoun you are using.

Here are the the pronouns we will be using in this lesson:

• Я (ya) - I
• ты (tea) - you (familiar)
• он (own) - he
• она (ona) - she
• мы (me) - us
• вы (vee)- you (formal or plural)
• они (onie) - they

понимать (po-nu-mat) - to understand

• я понимаю - I understand
• ты понимаешь - you understand
• он понимаешь - he understands
• она понимаешь - she understands
• мы понимаем - we understand
• вы понимаете - you understand
• они понимают - they understand

говорить (gov-or-root) - to speak (in)

• Я говорю - I speak
• ты говоришь - you speak
• он говорит - he speaks
• она говорит - she speaks
• мы говорим - we speak
• вы говорите - you speak
• они говорят - they speak

Now suppose you want to actually use these verbs in a sentence. Well you already know how to say a few nationalities. To say that someone speaks "in" Russian for example, you would say "Она говорит по-русски" by adding "по-" to a nationality with the ending "ки".

This works equally for the verb "to understand". If you wanted to say that you understand "in" Russian, you would say "Я понимаю по-русски."

If you want to ask someone if they speak "in" English, the same formula applies, only you would add intonation. "Ты говоришь по-английски?"

Personal Pronouns

• Меня - Me
• Тебя - You (singular, familiar)
• Его - Him
• Её - Her
• Вас - You (formal, plural)
• Нас - Us
• Их -Them