Уро́к 2
2.5 Грамма́тика – Говори́ть (to speak)
Грамма́тика
Let’s look again and more closely at the verb говори́ть – ‘to speak’. You saw me conjugate it along with the verb жить – ‘to live’.
This is a very important verb for this unit. Like учи́ться, it is a second conjugation verb, which means that the vowel и will occur in all persons (as opposed to the e/ё vowel in the first conjugation verbs, like рабо́тать and жить). The first person singular “я” form ends in ю, and the 3rd person plural “они” form ends in я:
| говори́ть – to speak |
|
|---|---|
| Я говор-ю́. ‘I speak.’ |
Мы говор-и́м. ‘We speak.’ |
| Ты говор-и́шь. ‘You speak.’ |
Вы говор-и́те. ‘You all speak.’ |
| Он / она говор-и́т ‘He / She speaks.’ |
Они говор-я́т ‘They speak.’ |
To say that a person speaks a particular language, we there is a specific adverbial form with по-, as shown in the following examples, which translates as ‘in the style of’. Посмотри́те видео. Watch. I give a whole lot of examples and you can hear how it all sounds:
Например:
Я говорю́ по-англи́йски. ‘I speak English.’
Ты говори́шь по-ру́сски? ‘Do you speak Russian?’
Мой муж говори́т по-че́шски. ‘My husband speaks Czech.’
Мы не говори́м по-кита́йски. ‘We don’t speak Chinese.’
*NOTE: to say ‘DON’T do something > use ‘не’ + the verb in Russian!
Вы говори́те по-неме́цки? ‘Do you (all) speak German?’
Ее родители говоря́т по-коре́йски. ‘Her parents speak Korean.’
В Канаде говоря́т по-англи́йски и по-францу́зски.
‘In Canada (people) speak English and French.’
-or-
‘English and French are spoken in Canada.’
The Russian literally means something, like ‘speak in the style of English / Russian / Czech / Chinese / German / Korean. Most of these adverbs used to describe languages are cognates, and they should be fairly easy to learn. The ones you are responsible for for this unit are listed in your Словарь for this unit, but you can always choose to learn more!
