rus' a comprehensive course in russian

This comprehensive foundation textbook is expressly designed for students embarkingon a Russian language programme.. She is co-author oftwo Russian language textbooks, Basic Russian, A G

This comprehensive foundation textbook is expressly designed for students embarking

on a Russian language programme Accompanied by cassettes,it develops the four keylanguage skills ± reading,writing,speaking and listening ± and provides all the materialrequired to reach intermediate level either at high school or during the ®rst year ofuniversity Highly interactive and activity-based,the course puts students ®rmly at thecentre of the learning process,developing their autonomy as learners

Thorough grounding in the grammar and structures of contemporary Russian Wide-ranging tasks and exercises for both classroom use and self study

Informative texts selected to foster cultural awareness

Topics including family life,education,history,geography,work and leisure

Clear,attractive layout with lively illustrations to reinforce learning

Extensive reference features including section on basic concepts of grammar

Teachers' guidelines to enhance practical application in the classroom

On-line answerkey at http://uk.cambridge.org/resources/0521645557

sarah smyth is a lecturer in Russian at Trinity College,Dublin She is co-author oftwo Russian language textbooks, Basic Russian, A Grammar and Workbook (1999) andIntermediate Russian, A Grammar and Workbook (2001)

elena crosbie is lecturer in Russian at Heriot-Watt University She is an experiencedinterpreter and is on the editorial board of the Russian journal Rusistica Her

publications include papers on language teaching

published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge The Pitt Building,Trumpington Street,Cambridge,United Kingdom

cambridge university press

The Edinburgh Building,Cambridge CB2 2RU,UK

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http://www.cambridge.org

# Sarah Smyth and Elena Crosbie,2002

This book is in copyright Subject to statutory exception and

to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,

no reproduction of any part may take place without

the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2002

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press,Cambridge

Typeface Times 10/13pt System 3b2 [ce]

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data

Smyth,Sarah.

RUS': a comprehensive course in Russian / Sarah Smyth,Elena V Crosbie.

p cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0 521 64206 X (hardback) ISBN 0 521 64555 7 (paperback)

ISBN 0 521 01074 8 (cassette set)

1 Russian language ± Textbooks for foreign speakers ± English.

I Crosbie,Elena V II Title.

PG2129.E5 S65 2001

491.782'421 ± dc21

ISBN 0 521 64206 X hardback

ISBN 0 521 64555 7 paperback

ISBN 0 521 01074 8 cassette set

ISBN 0 521 52955 7 audio CD set

Illustrations: Vitaly Palkus

Preface: to the students vii

Outline of the course xii

Key to symbols used in the course xvii

Part I Course materials

11.0 How to develop speaking skills 552

12.0 How to develop reading skills 553

13.0 How to develop productive skills on the basis of texts 556

The course

The authors hope that you will enjoy studying Russian and using this textbook It is theresult of many years' work and has been piloted in three educational centres over the lastten years It has thus passed through many students' hands,many of whom have gone

on to become professional Russianists

The course is primarily intended for use in a classroom situation Indeed,one of itsmain aspirations is to provide learners with the motive and opportunity to explore anduse Russian as a tool for communication This is not to suggest that classroom workalone will make you pro®cient; experience has shown that the students who make thebest progress normally spend an hour in private study for every contact hour with ateacher Classroom tasks and activities provide you with the opportunity to interact withother learners and your teacher in and about the language; private study,be it reading,organising your notes,organising your vocabulary,doing exercises to reinforce

grammatical concepts or working with the tapes,allows you to consolidate what youhave learnt in class,to take stock of your progress and to monitor your learning

Remember that learning a language is not easy Textbooks that suggest you can do so

in three months are only misleading the gullible public A language re¯ects a culture,itshistory and its way of viewing the world Avail of any opportunity that arises to practiseyour Russian and to acquaint yourself with Russian life,past and present You will ®ndthe experience broadens your horizons,develops your curiosity and makes you look atthe world and how we talk about it with a more open mind

Language awareness

The `Language awareness' section is intended to help you situate your growing

knowledge and understanding of Russian in the context of knowledge you already haveabout the functioning of other languages (and English in particular)

The language awareness component of the course is intended as an optional extra forthose who feel they need it and ®nd it helpful If you are used to learning languages in aformal classroom context,you may not need it at all If,on the other hand,you ®ndincreasingly that the jargon used to refer to language is a useful short-hand and that youwould like to become more familiar with it,then you will probably ®nd it useful Themain thing is not to be daunted byit

The sequencing of concepts in this section closely parallels the sequencing of languageexponents in the units In this way discussion of the key concepts may be integrated intoclassroom interaction if you so wish

In this section reference is made to other languages (Latin,French,German and

vii

Spanish) with which you may be familiar The aim of including these languages is toenable you to draw on knowledge you already have,not to teach you about otherlanguages and how they function The exercises focus principally on English (and in laterunits,Russian) Where exercises address other languages,you should restrict yourselves

to those you know

Grammar summary

The `Grammar summary' is intended as a reference tool Beware of becoming dependent

on it It provides tables and texts outlining the grammatical patterns of Russian It is notintended as a descriptive grammar and is not a substitute for classroom discussion andhypothesising about how Russian functions If you have questions or come acrossproblem areas,the best person to ask is your teacher The main use of the grammarsection is to check something Its purpose is not to teach,but to remind

Summary of functions

This is a table which lists the language functions introduced in the course A function,inthe linguistic sense of the word,refers to the use to which we put language in socialinteraction The functions are listed in the order in which they are introduced in thecourse We recommend that you keep a record of what you can do in Russian by tickingthe relevant box as and when you feel you are comfortable with a given function

Vocabulary checklist

The book also includes pages which list the main topics covered in the course It is animportant part of learning to keep monitoring what you do and do not know Thesepages are intended as a tool to help you monitor your learning of vocabulary

Though everyone has his or her own system for recording and learning vocabulary,one suggestion is to keep a vocabulary ®le with a page dedicated to each of the topicsand sub-topics listed The chart will help you assess how many words you have recordedand feel you have learnt

In your vocabulary notes it is advisable to differentiate between key and peripheralwords on a given topic Possibly key words could be stored on one side of the page andperipheral words on the other How you decide which words are key,and which

peripheral,will in part depend on your interests,in part on your reasons for learningRussian and in part on common sense

It is also important to take note of common constructions used with particular words.One way of doing this is to illustrate each entry with examples of a word's use: a phrase

or sentence from a dictionary or from the text where you came across a word Withregard to verbs,make sure you note what case they govern Furthermore,Russian tends

to use adjectives more than we do in English,so make note of common adjective andnoun combinations

Since Russian is a word-building language,it is also helpful to group together wordswhich are derived from the same root Many of these words will refer to the same topic:for instance the word set exbnm, exbnmcz, extybr, exbntkm, extdysq,which are all

viii

Preface: to the students

derived from the root ex-,all relate to studying/teaching Using a highlighter,commonroots can easily be identi®ed Recognising word-building patterns considerably reducesthe load on your memory.

This might seem like an awful lot of work It is But it pays off in the long run If youare systematic about recording and learning vocabulary right from the start,you will

®nd it becomes part of your routine Determine to work on a small number of wordsevery day You will be pleasantly surprised at how much easier it gets with time

This section also lists tasks relating to each of the vocabulary topics which you should

be able to do Indeed,it is not simply enough to know a word: it is important to be able

to use it in speech and writing Again there are boxes for you to tick off as a way ofmonitoring your progress

Most importantly enjoy your work and do not get downhearted Work steadily andregularly,do not be afraid to play with the language When you crack your ®rst joke inRussian,it will all have been worthwhile

ix

We would like to express our gratitude to all the people who have encouraged us,advised us and supported us in the production of this course First and foremost wewould like to thank our families: a special debt of recognition is due to David andStanford without whose forbearance and practical help this course could never have seenthe light of day Thanks in particular to David for his technical advice and assistance

We acknowledge our gratitude to the University departments which fostered the

production of the course and allowed us to pilot it extensively during the last ten years:Edinburgh University,where the course was originally conceived,Trinity College andHeriot-Watt Universities to where the authors subsequently moved We would like tothank all the students and colleagues whose feedback has been essential in the shapingand reshaping of the course In particular we would like to thank members of staff in allthe Russian departments which have been directly involved in the production of thecourse: Mary Kate Halpin,John Murray,Una Nã Dhubhghaill and Connie Dowling inTCD,Jim Halliday in Heriot-Watt and Elena Cook,formerly of Edinburgh University,who contributed many ideas for activities and exercises at various stages of the

development of the course We are grateful to all the specialists in teaching Russian as aforeign language who have given us the bene®t of their experience,especially ElenaMikhailovna Maksimenko,Liudmila Borisovna Seregina,Irina Abdalyan,DmitriTsiskarashvili,Nikolai and Anna Kochurov We would like to thank Olga Manakovafor contributing to the key to the exercises Thanks are due to colleagues from theGerman,French and Spanish departments for providing invaluable assistance with the

`Language awareness' section,in particular Sheila Watts,Claire Laudet and SusanaBayo We owe a debt of gratitude to Sean Devitt,Eimear Farren and Dee McGarry fortheir comments on the `Teachers' guidelines' Many thanks are also due to all those whosupplied the photographs for this textbook: Vladimir Kallistov,Connie Dowling,JohnMurray,Vladimir Shugurov,Emily Finer,Anatoliy Tchikine,Aleksandr OlegovichSholokhovskiy and Aleksandr Asta®ev A particular thanks to Vitaly Palkus for hislively and imaginative line-drawings Thanks to Elena Baburina,Manushak Hovsepyan,Dmitri Tsiskarashvili and Vladimir Shugurov for their reading of the recorded materialand to John Murray for producing the recording sessions Thanks also to John Grimes,the sound engineer in the CEL Studios,Radio Centre,RTE for his contribution to theproduction of the tapes Thank you to Natalya Uvarova for her careful copyediting.Thanks are also due to all the Russian publishers whose texts are included in this course:every possible attempt was made to contact them and seek permission to reproduceextracts Many have ceased to exist,others failed to respond We have assumed thatsilence is consent And last but not least many thanks to Rate Brett,Pauline Graham,Camilla Erskine,Jacqueline French,Jenny Landor and Caroline Murray of CambridgeUniversity Press,for their support,perseverance and commitment to the project

x

We accept sole responsibility for the mistakes,infelicities of style and imperfections that

no doubt remain in spite of the best efforts of all colleagues and advisors involved in thisproject

xi

Part I: Course materials

In this unit you will learn about:

You will also learn how to:



I N T R O D U C T O R Y U N I T

A Recognising Russian letters

C Notes on individual letters

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  -$.

 

 
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D

D Recognising spoken words Listening

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& K & K & & K & K &A

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7*!AJ

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F Writing Russian letters

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I

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#... 37

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In this unit you will learn how to: