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Russian for English speakers 1951

Russian
Русский

Musical "Count Orlov"
Unexpected love

When rain knocking at your window
She will come even if you're not waiting her
She will pardon you benevolently for your disbelief
  ("for unbelief /pardoning -ed/ /large-soul -ly/")
From the shroud of an empty day
She'll enter and sit by the fire
She'll say anything to you, but you don't need words

She'll sing me a forgotten (music air) motive
Like dusting off my soul
  ("As if dust from soul /will shake-off/")
And without asking for permission she'll sit near
She'll start simple witchery
Without promising anything
But you don't need any promises anymore

Russian
Русский

82 - восемьдесят два

eighty two

83 - восемьдесят три

eighty three

Двадцать восьмой (28-й) урок

Twenty eighth lesson

УРОК НОМЕР ДВАДЦАТЬ ВОСЕМЬ (№28)

Lesson number twenty eight (#28)

AK-NOTES
Russian language offers unprecedented level of flexibility. To learn Russian, you must literally expand your way of thinking. First of all - you must stretch your pre-existing sentences templates to accommodate new roles of the nouns in a sentence (expressed by so-called "cases of the word"), these extended roles being greatly simplified in most of the other languages.

This system corresponds to three personal pronouns and three places in a "generic" sentence. By "generic" I mean standard English sentence that uses fixed words order.

As you can see, this construction is pretty much rigid and can't be easily extended, not if you follow English grammar rules. As I said, Russian offers much more freedom when constructing sentences and allows you to express relations between single words and words groups, using so-called "case system". In Russian, there are 6 cases and 3 genders of nouns (plus plural that has its own case endings). As you can understand, such amount of flexibility must be compensated by strict rules of usage.

Nominative case
Role 1 - As a Subject of a sentence.
Я ем - I eat
Ты куришь - you smoke

Role 2 - To name things (that's why it's called "именительный падеж"  - "the case that names things")
Это - масло. А это - мыло.
"This - oil. And this - soap." -> It's oil/butter, and this is a/some soap.

Accusative case
Role 1 - To accuse something (well, it's called "винительный" - "accusative"...)
Я обвиняю того мальчика - I accuse that boy.
Я обвиняю мальчика - "I accuse boy" - is correct, but hardy ever used.

Role 2 - To express some idea that requires Direct Object
Я ем мороженое - I eat an ice-cream

Role 3 - To name a/some 3-rd object / to give an assignment
Дай мне спичку - Give me a match
Выкури папиросу! - Smoke a cigarette!

Genitive case
In English, this case expresses direct possession of some object by somebody, so we'll start with this Role 1,
Сигарета мальчика - boy's cigarette - a cigarette of a/this boy

Role 2, expressing parent-son relations (родительный падеж -  "case of parenting" or "case of giving birth")
Сын своего отца - His father's son
Дочь своей матери - Her mother's daughter

Role 3, to render "some amount of"
Съесть немного масла - To eat some butter
Коробка папирос - "Cigarettes' box" -> A box of cigarettes

Prepositional case - Предложный падеж - 'A case that's with a preposition)

See examples.
I'll just add that this case can be also used to express motion, like in
Я еду на "копейке", meaning "I ride aboard the Moscvitch car, this car being the first model of".
Lit. I ride on a "cent".

To single-out this case, you need to convert the word in question into plural.
For example, "школе" can be Dative and Prepositional, like in
Я даю моей школе - I give to my school
and
Я сижу в школе - I sit in (my) school

So you check it using
моим школам - to my schools (dative)
в школах - in my schools (prepositional)

Instrumental case - Творительный падеж

Role 1 - "Creational case"
Говорить языком, творить руками - to talk by the tongue, to create by the hands

Role 2 - "Instrumental case"
Говорить языком, ехать поездом - to talk with a tongue, to ride by train

Role 3 - Expressing co-creator or mode of action
Творить с радостью - to create with joy
Ехать со скоростью, ехать с товарищем - "to ride with speed" (to ride fast), to ride with a comrade

Role 4 - Expressing Agent of action
Оштрафован полицейским - Fined by a policeman

It's important to know (among many other things) how to break a word into syllables, in order to pronounce it correctly.
In "имели", it's "и-ме-ли", so we have here "ли", and in this situation two letters totally merge, and to separate them would be an (awful) error. Practice to pronounce "ли" as one sound.

CORE WORDS AND HOW TO DECLINE THEM
Well, we've seen 5 cases, and you must be pretty confused by now, trying to assimilate this "web mashup". Wait till we get to the Dative.
You'll never be able to speak normal Russian if you can't look through it all to the core words that must be assimilated into you rather then learned.
Here are two tips of how to get to the general idea of these core words.

"Pure Russian" Arabic-style word ( (1) without last vowel are "masculine" and (2) with a last "а" are feminine) form their plurals by changing voweling in the root.
1) дом - house (masc.) gives дома [дАмаа] - houses, turning this word into "feminine'
2) вода - water (fem.) gives воды [вооды] - waters

As I noted before, Dative and Prepositional cases can be easily confused in singular (but rarely in plural). Thus, it's became common to use Dative endings where Prepositional case's should be.
на береге, на берегу - at the bank, on the shore
в шкафу, в/на шкафе... - in/at the wardrobe...

Accusative.
— Masculine: no change, except for мальчик :
я вижу мальчика, I see a boy (masculine nouns of living creatures form their accusative like their genitive).

Feminine: я вижу спичку, папиросу, школу, копейку.
So the feminine accusative ends in у.

Neuter: no change.

Genitive.
— Masculine : обеда, of the dinner; языка, of  the language; города, of the town; мальчика, of the boy.
Ending in а.

Feminine : спички, of the match; папиросы, of the cigarette; школы, of the school; копейки, of the kopeck.
Ending in и or ы, according to the consonant before.

Neuter : масла, of the oil; мыла, of the soap; произношения, of the pronunciation; упражнения, of the exercise.
Ending in а or ия.

3. To have, when meaning to possess, can be said иметь (я имею, вы имеете, он имеет;
past : я имел (eem'eL), вы имели (eem'elee), as L softens before a « soft» vowel, i.e. : и,  е, я or ь).

Иметь refers to the possession of concrete objects :
вы имеете красивый стол, or у вас есть красивый стол, you have (possess) a fine table.
But: у вас есть время, rather than: вы имеете время, , you have the time.

The change in the stressing is puzzling and will become familiar only by practice.
E.g., we see : вода, the water (nomin.), воды, of the water (genitive), воды, the waters (plural nomin.);
and likewise : рука, the hand, руки, of the hand, руки, the hands.
But on the other hand : трубка, the pipe, трубки, of the pipe, and трубки, the pipes;
буря, the storm, бури, of the storm, бури, the storms.

And also: она была, она поняла,
but: она знала, она читала.
Let us be comforted by thinking that the Russians themselves can be mistaken.
Let us note, however, that the ending -oii generally bears the stress :
просто, simply; простой, simple.
Дорого, dear (adverb); дорогой, dear (adj.).
Дорога, the road, is a different word.

After на and в, some masculine nouns have a prepositional case in у (stressed) instead of е.
E.g. : в лесу, in the forest; в шкафу, in the wardrobe; в саду, in the garden; на берегу, on the bank; на заводу на заводе, in the factory; на полу, on the floor; на углу, in at the corner; на мосту (sometimes на мосте), on the bridge.

Naturally if there is an idea of motion, these nouns remain in the accusative (same as nominative) :

Идти в угол: go to the corner.
Дом стоит на углу: the house stands at the corner
Я иду на завод: / go to the factory.

Я работаю на заводу на заводе (на фабрике) : I work in/at the plant/factory.