A Spoonful Of Russian - Learn Russian Online From Russian Tutor

Friends and family members greet each other with a simple "Привет".for those who want to 'Copy'+'Paste' :- Привет, Эмили.- Привет, мам.Use "Здравствуйте" with people you barely know, with much older folks (unless they are your relatives) or with government officials.- Здравствуйте, мисс Наталия.- Здравствуй, Эмили.Remember, "Practice makes perfect".Your e-mails with questions and comments are welcome.If you are brave enough, you can e-mail me an audio file with your greeting in Russian. I'll play it on the next show.

Today I fill a request of one of my Podcast listeners/ YouTube subscribers by reciting a short poem written by one of Russia's greatest talents - Anna Akhmatova. Лотова Жена - Анна Ахматова (Lot's Wife - Anna Akhmatova). To view the text: http://youtu.be/2fEWD9bqAWk

The video that goes with this episode can be found on my YouTube channel: Episode 031Toasting is a huge thing in Russia. Has been for ages. A full glass must be drunk to the bottom after every toast, because “a toast without wine is like a wedding without a bride!” A traditional Russian drinking party usually includes a sequence of several standard toasts.You can refresh them by watching my Most Common Russian Drinking Toasts/Phrases video. The most common first toast is...To our meeting!За встречу![za FSTRYE-tchoo] … sort of an ice-breaker toast:) Another good opener toast is…To our health!Будем здоровы![BOO-dem zda-RO-vy]The toasts that follow largely depend on the occasion that brought the people together. At a birthday party, the first toast (with wishes of health, success and a long life) is usually to the birthday guy or lady. The second toast is to their parents as a sign of honor.At a wedding, the first toast is “To the health of the newlyweds.” After that, the guests shout "Горько!"(Gorko!) often and

Ever wanted to pronounce the days of the week in Russian like a native? Piece of cake!

The video that goes with this episode can be found on my YouTube channel: Episode 030Asking questions in Russian can be quite a daunting and intimidating task, especially if you try to follow the proper grammar rules of declention, gender agrement, etc. What if you are a beginner? Should you not even try? Of course not.By knowing basic Russian interrogatives, you'll be able to express your questions, even without an extensive vocabulary or grammar knowledge. Lots of times you don’t even need to form a complete sentence to ask a question. All you need is to know the ‘question word’ and your pointer finger:)Learn some Russian today!

Today’s spoonful is going to consist of a useful Russian phrase and a poem in Russian. Don’t worry if you don’t understand the poem. The reason for reading out loud is so that you can get more familiar with the Russian sounds. As you’ve probably noticed I started this podcast with the expression Добрый день translated as ‘Good afternoon’. There is also Доброе утро (‘Good morning’) and Добрый вечер (‘Good evening’). So when is the appropriate time of the day to use these expressions? Most Russians use the following time frames for them. For example, use Доброе утро from 6am till noon. Use Добрый день from noon till 6pm...and Добрый вечер is used anytime past 6pm and before bedtime. Now here’s your chance to practice saying Доброе утро, Добрый день, and Добрый вечер in Russian. First I say the phrase, then you’ll hear a sound - that will be your prompt to repeat the phrase after me. Then I repeat the phrase one last time, so you can check your pronunciation. Давайте начнем. Let’s begin.Доброе утро Добрый день Д

Emily made a little сюрприз for you:

• ❑ Opening WordНу, здравствуйте, мои дорогие слушатели = Well, hello, my dear listeners! Как вы поживаете? = 'How are you?''Как вы поживаете' is basically the same as 'Как дела'. The difference is in the use. I'd never say 'Как дела' to a person I just met, or to someone who's a lot older than I am. 'Как дела' is reserved for close friends, family and children. The use of 'Как поживаете' in turn is more appropriate when addressing people much older than you, groups of people, someone you don't know very well, or simply to show respect. So, как вы поживаете? У меня всё хорошо. (I am doing fine). Are you ready for another spoonful of Russian today?• ❑ Lesson#14 - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!It would be more than appropriate to teach you a few Christmas and New Year-related phrases. Many of you probably know that Russians have always been big on celebrating the New Year's rather than Christmas. After the 1917 Revolution, Christmas was banned throughout Russia, along with other religious celebratio

Hi, everyone. Добрый день. This is just a short note to let you know I haven't forgotten about my listeners and "A Spoonful of Russian' podcast will be coming back! I also wanted to share with you an interview I recently gave to a BBC reporter and producer April Peavey. It aired today, January 4th, 2006. It was a pleasure and honor to work with April.The interview is a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.

Topic - Birthday Greetings• ❑1 introДобрый день, друзья! (Hello, friends!)Как дела? (How are you?)Надеюсь, что у вас все хорошо. (Hope you are doing well.)Thank you for keeping up with this podcast even though I do not produce them as often as I'd like to. I am excited to get e-mails and comments on the spoonfulofrussian.com site. Your enthusiasm is contageous! For those who asked about the condition of our house, we just sold our restored home and are planning on moving to Charlotte, North Carolina, right after our trip to Russia in August. I can hardly wait!• ❑2 Happy Birthday!It's lesson 12 (двенадцатый урок). Tomorrow we'll be celebrating my youngest daughter's 6th birthday. I taught my daughters to say a few birthday greetings in Russian. Let me share them with you.So, How do you say 'Happy Birthday' in Russian? Эмили: "I know." It's "С Днем Рождения".That's right, Emily. "С Днем Рождения" means 'Happy Birthday' . So, what are you going to say to your sister tomorrow?Эмили: 'С Днем Рождения,

Здравствуйте и добро пожаловать … Hello and welcome to the very first 'Questions and Answers' edition of A Spoonful of Russian Podcast. Coming to you from a small home studio in beautiful Charlotte, North Carolina.Instead of trying to find time to get back to each and everyone of you individually through email, I decided to start accumulating the questions and answering them in a podcast. I am thinking of getting one out once a month maybe. I am getting questions sporadically. Sometimes several a day, sometimes nothing for days in a row. My hope is to have a large pool of questions to pull from. That way you can count on regular Q&A sessions.Ways to get your questions over to me:- contact form on my site: speakrussian.blogspot.com- Leave a quick voicemail calling: 209-980-7877 (209-980-RUSS)- email: spoonfulofrussian@gmail.com- twitter: @russianspoonful (with hashtag #askNataliaW )- YouTube: youtube.com/spoonfulofrussianI am aware that many of you prefer to listen to podcasts rather than go to my YouTube

You'll be surprised how many words you would be able to recognize without studying any Russian. The words I am talking about are cognates - words borrowed from a foreign language that share a common pronunciation and meaning.The Russian version of an English word may look intimidating to you at first, but as you become familiar with the Russian characters you'll learn to recognize a cognate when you see it.1. теннис2. доллар3. баскетбол4. доктор5. Нью-Йорк6. Калифорния7. бейсбол8. университет9. адрес10. офис11. футбол12. телефон13. бар14. ресторан15. такси16. мафия--------------------------------------------------------The song from the show is "Katyusha" recorded in 1938."Катюша"Расцветали яблони и грушиПоплыли туманы над рекойВыходила на берег КатюшаНа высокий берег на крутойВыходила песню заводилаПро степного сизого орлаПро того которого любилаПро того чьи письма береглаОй ты песня песенка девичьяТы лети за ясным солнцем вследИ бойцу на дальнем пограничьеОт Катюши передай приветПусть он вспомнит девушку пр

Ученье свет, а неученье тьма(Knowledge is light, ignorance is darkness)Век живи - век учись(Live and learn)And the last one is quoted around our house quite often:)Повторенье - мать ученья(Repetition is the Mother of learning)I thought I would start talking about the Russian sound system. Since I want to be true to the podcast's format and keep it short'n'sweet and to the point ... It will take us several lessons. Some of the items used for pronunciation practice will be isolated syllables or words whose meaning is of no immediate relevance, while others will be complete sentences that you will be able to add to your Russian phrase book and practice it as often as you'd like. You should not concern yourself with the grammatical forms of the sentences used at this point. You should simply learn them in the form given to you, striving to imitate your teacher as closely as possible. You must always keep in mind the importance of the spoken models presented.  While descriptions, transcriptions, and diag

Today we'll talk about nouns and genders. Keep in mind that we are going to look only at singular nouns in nominative case (more on the 6 noun cases later).As you know, a noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, event or idea. All Russian nouns are divided into 3 genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. It's important to know the gender of a noun, since it needs to agree with other parts of speech. Let me give you an example: красивая девушка (a pretty girl) is correct, while красивый девушка is not. Ending -ый of the adjective красивый denotes masculine gender.Learning gender rules is not an easy process. Many times you will be able to determine the gender of a noun simply by using your biology knowledge. Ex.: мальчик (masculine), девочка (feminine), etc. But most of the time noun gender is random and unchangeable. Gender rules MUST be memorized. However, the secret is simple: the ending of a noun determines its gender. After learning a few rules you'll be able to instantly recognize whether noun

How do you say 'Goodbye' in Russian? This show teaches you a couple of ways to do that. As you listen, the images below will help you visually.- Пока, Эмили.- Пока, мам.- До свидания, Эмили.- До свидания, папа.Sorry for the quality of the show's audio. Was out of town, and recording was made on my notebook. I am hoping that I'll have all my usual gear unharmed (by hurricane Katrina) when I go back to New Orleans, La. on Monday.

How do you feel about food? Я люблю поесть! (I love to eat!) most people will say. Whether you love it or hate it, we deal with food and talk about food every single day. That reminds me, I have to throw together PLOV (rice-based national dish of Uzbekistan) for tonight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plov) ....be right back.(Natalia making noise in her kitchen)First, let me give you a list of some popular food items in Russian:Хлеб - breadСоль - saltСахар - sugarЯйца - eggsИкра - caviarМасло - butterМолоко - milkКефир - kefir (a sour-tasting drink made from cow's milk fermented with certain bacteria.)Сок - juiceОвощи - vegetablesФрукты - fruitСыр - cheeseМясо - meatРыба - fishКолбаса - sausageШоколад - chocolateТорт - cakeВода - waterПиво - beerШампанское - champaignВодка - vodkaЧай - teaКофе - coffeeJust to name a few. Now, some dishes in Russian:Салат - saladПлов - plov (Uzbek-style Rice Pilaf)Суп - soupГорячее - main courseБеф-строганов - Beef StroganoffСолянка - Russian Spicy Meat SoupБо

Sounds like cognates are the single greatest friend to folks learning Russian. However, as with most good things there are pitfalls. And these pitfalls are called 'false cognates'. A 'false cognate' is a word that shares a similar pronunciation between two languages, but means one thing in one language and something else in the other. You'd sound pretty silly if a Russian asked you what you were doing ('Что вы делаете?') and you'd answer 'Я читаю магазин' (which means 'I am reading a store')....'False Cognates" examples.The dialogue at the beginning of the show:

Добрый день, друзья! Как дела? Хорошо? Отлично. (Hello, friends! How are you? Doing well? Great!)It's December now, and I am a bit late with my coming back to the 'Spoonful of Russian'. I was hoping to get it started again in November, but....like they say in Russia: "Люди предполагают, а Бог располагает!" Which literally means "People make plans, but everything is in God's hands'. To quickly bring you up to date we are in our new house in Charlotte, NC and lovin' it! Still lots of things to do around the house to make our home --> thus lack of time for making podcasts:( For all the listeners who were asking about our trip to my hometown in Russia - the trip did not materialize for a couple of reasons. The Russian embassy told me I had some problems with my Russian passport at the last minute when I had the tickets in my hands! Then the airline company refused to refund us after we told them we were not going to Russia. But enough of that. Let's get to our lesson.-------А теперь давайте окунемся в сегод

(Due to lack of interest in the enhanced version of the podcast I am going to stick with the audio only version. Below is the Valentine's Day enhanced show converted into .mp3 file)Привет! Hey there, all you Russian language addicts and all those who have just subscribed. Welcome! (Добро пожаловать!)It’s Lesson#11 - Love is in the Air. It's been a while since I cranked up my Microphone and my Mac to produce a podcast. My house renovations are still going on, and we are still living with my in-laws. Even though my current environment is not ideal for writing and producing podcasts, I felt that I needed to get back out there for several reasons. I'm still getting lots of e-mails on a daily basis from listeners who express their desire for more of 'A Spoonful of Russian'. Another reason is we are working on getting things ready for our trip to my hometown in Russia this summer, and my daughters are in serious need of freshenning up their Russian:) There are other reasons as well. But personally, I just miss it

Let's say you want to fly out of JFK to Scheremetyevo airport in Moscow, then take the train to Vladivostok, stopping to drive through the countryside both by car and by horseback. Or maybe you enjoy boat cruises and would love to go down the Volga river! In trying to put all of this into words, you realize that you need to use some new expressions. Here are some examples:Exercise 7.11. Туристы летают в Мексико-Сити из Нью-Йорка _________________________ .Tourists travel from New York to Mexico City (by plane).2. Люди ездят на работу _______________________ в Атланте.People go to work in Atlanta (by bus).3. Поездка в Европу _____________________ 3 месяца.The journey to Europe (by boat) is 3 months long.4. Мы ходим _____________________ к бабушке.We walk (by foot) to Grandma's house.5. Я поеду к врачу ____________________ завтра.I will drive (by car) to the doctor's office tomorrow.6. Они катались со спуска горы ____________________ .They went down the side of the mountain by (on skis).Exercise 7.21. Дорога и