Уро́к 4
4.6 Настоя́щая речь – Don’t “Do” it in Russian!
Настоя́щая речь
Russian doesn’t “DO” it like English ‘does’.
Notice in the examples below that in Russian there are NO ‘helping’ verbs, like ‘is’, ‘was’, ‘has been’, etc. There is, likewise, no ‘do’ in questions or in statements of negation. Russian is very straightforward when it comes to verbs. You never need ‘helping’ verbs of any kind. You JUST need to learn the verb forms themselves. Consider the Russian and the English translations below. Don’t USE DO (in Russian)!!! I say this because you will want to.
- Вы говори́те по-ру́сски?
‘Do you speak Russian?’ - Да, говорю́.
‘Yes, I do.’ - Я никогда́ не была́ в Кана́де.
‘I have never been in (to) Canada.’ - Вы рабо́тали в э́том рестора́не?
‘Did you work in this restaurant?’ - Нет, я не рабо́тал в э́том, а в том.
‘No, I didn’t work in this one, but in that one.’ - Что вы де́лали?
What were you doing? (-or- What didyou do?) - Я ничего́ не де́лала.
I wasn’t doing anything (-or- I didn’t do anything.)
