"Что" and "чтобы" - what are they for?

Hi, I'm here again. :) At first I planned to devote this post to the next grammar case (as you remember, we have six of them), but I changed my mind when I got an interesting question from one of the students of Russian. The question was, what is the difference between "что" and "чтобы" in complex sentences. It's actually not that obvious, really. But what is particularly valuable, this question gives rise to other questions. So, let's begin.

The conjunction "что" is basically used in two types of situations. In the first case it's translated by 'what': "Я знаю, что Анна читает" is 'I know what (which book) Anna's reading'. The trick is, that this conjunction can also mean 'that': 'I know that Anna's reading (not jogging and not watching TV)' is also "Я знаю, что Анна читает". How do we manage to understand what our partners mean? Entirely from their intonation (I'll cover it in one of my posts later on, don't worry). 

The conjunction "чтобы" can also be used in quite different situations. For example, in the context like "Я приехал в Париж, чтобы увидеть Мону Лизу" ('I came to Paris to see Mona Lisa') or "Анна дала мне книгу, чтобы я её прочитал" ('Anna gave me a book to read') to give the reason for an action. Here there is one trick: if the subject of two parts of the sentence is the same, we normally use the infinitive in the second one (after "чтобы") without mentioning the subject, otherwise we need the Past Tense form of a verb and the subject (see the examples). There is another case when you need this conjunction, namely, when you' like to say that some action is necessary to achieve the result. For this we use expressions like "Нужно много работать, чтобы достичь успеха" (or "Чтобы достичь успеха, нужно много работать"), so in the ''first' part (one we describe the result in) we use words like нужно, необходимо etc. + an infinitive, and in the second part just an infinitive. Please notice that we don't mention the subject in the first part, nor in the second one, since we're talking somehow of all the possible subjects. However, if you'd like to state that it's true only for one subject, you can use the subject in the dative as usual in the constructions like "кому нужно что (что делать/сделать)": "Тебе нужно много заниматься, чтобы сдать экзамен" (so you have to work hard, and I probably not :)).

This conjunction "чтобы" is also used in the phrases like "Моя жена сказала, чтобы я купил хлеба". In this case it can be also translated with 'to', but the meaning is different ('My wife told me to buy some bread', so she wanted me to buy it). Of course, you can just an infinitive in this context: "Моя жена сказала мне купить хлеба". However, this infinitive construction is a bit more demanding with regard to grammar cases. For example, we say "она сказала мне (dative) принести воды", but "она попросила меня (accusative) принести меня". We'll be talking about this in some days, though up to that point you can just use the construction with "чтобы", which is much simpler: you just use after "чтобы" a noun or a pronoun in the nominative case. :) However, you need to remember that not all the verbs can be used adequately with both infinitive and "чтобы". So the verb просить/попросить (and in some cases сказать, требовать/потребовать) can be use with either, while, for example, the verb помочь/помогать is never used with "чтобы", it requires an infinitive.

Hope, I didn't confuse you too much. :) If you have any questions or corrections, please let me know. See you next time, and let's switch then to our main topic: Russian grammar cases.                                                                                                                                                                                             

Contact me!

If you'd like to ask me a question, correct me or just say hello, you can always leave a comment here or mail to: elena.rus.online@gmail.com. I'll be glad to here from you!

P.S. The picture portrays a Russian Empire postman. The inscription would be "Привет из Харькова!" in modern Russian.

How to say 'On the 1st floor' in Russian?

Last time we were talking about the prepositional case. One of the cases when we need it - when talking about the floor we live on. Do you remember? "Я живу на втором этаже. На первом этаже находится магазин". If you're going to Russia, you might find useful the fact that unlike people in many countries, we start counting floors from the ground (see the picture); so it's like in the USA (to the best of my knowledge, please correct me if I'm mistaken). So be careful! Я живу на четвертом этаже. На каком этаже вы живете? :)

Happy Easter!

A Happy Easter to all who celebrate Easter today!

P.S. This picture is from Wikimedia; I'll be celebrating Easter, which is Пасха in Russian, in five weeks :))

The Prepositional Case: Part 2

Nice to see you again! Let's proceed with the topic we started with last time. Today we will be talking about the prepositions that require this grammar case, the first one of which is the preposition "o".

Notionally, this preposition is connected with one of the main 'meanings' of the prepositional case - the topic, or an object, of something. That's why we use it (here it means 'about') with verbs like думать, размышлять, мечтать, помнить, вспоминать, говорить, рассказывать, объявлять, сообщать, писать, читать, спрашивать, петь, [у]слышать, узнать (as well as the corresponding nouns like мечта, воспоминание, разговор, рассказ, объявление, сообщение, письмо, вопрос, песня). We also use it with nouns which mean the object of one of those actions, like книга ("Я читаю/пишу книгу о Великой Отечественной войне"; by the way, the part of the World War II the USSR took part in is usually referred to as "Великая Отечественная война" in Russian literature and press) or мысль. There is at least one verb (and the corresponding noun) which you likely need and which has absolutely different meaning, though it's also used with the preposition "o" and the prepositional case ("Я забочусь о своём ребёнке, а Настя заботится о своих родителях".)

Another 'meaning' of the prepositional case, which is the location of something, can be expressed by either "в" or "на".  Dictionaries often give the following translation for them: "в" - in, "на" - "on". It's exact in obvious cases: "на коробке" is 'on the box', "в коробке" is 'in the box'. There are, however, some tricks here. The thing is, these prepositions are used not only in the cases when you'll use 'in' and 'on' speaking English. They're also used for 'at' in the meaning of location where someone or something is (was) or does (did) something (for example, 'at the university' will be translated as "в университете"). Here there is the exception alright. The exception is, if you're talking about a person you're at, you need a preposition "y" with the genitive (we'll be talking about this in several days). Here I'll just give you an example: 'at the doctor's' is "у доктора (у врача)".

So, let's get back to the prepositions "в" and "на". If we're talking about city objects, we normally use "в" with nouns meaning buildings (в доме, в школе, в университете etc.). The exceptions here are почта, завод, предприятие, фабрика, телевидение. We also say "на работе", that's the way you can remember the latter sequence. :) There is another funny thing: we say "в доме" for 'in the house', but "дома" for "[at] home".

The preposition "в" is also used (with some exceptions, though) with continents, lands (remember: на Украине), regions, cities and towns, districts etc. It's also used in the following combinations:

1) В пустыне, в джунглях, в поле, в лесу, в саду (but "на лугу");

2) В школе, в колледже, в университете, в классе (but "на факультете", "на пятом курсе");

3) В книге, в статье, в тетради, в блокноте (but "на странице").

You'll (likely) need the preposition "на" talking about planets, floors, islands, events ("на концерте", "на спектакле", but "в кино" - here we're talking about the cinema theater, also "на лекции", "на занятии", "на рыбалке", but "в экспедиции", that's the exception) as well as in the case of an image ("на картине", "на фотографии", "на снимке", "на рисунке", "на портрете"). A couple of  worlds from the IT world also requires "на": "работать на компьютере", "фотографии размещены на сайте/веб-странице", "на экране/мониторе".

Another funny story is water objects: rivers, lakes etc. So, we say "мы отдыхали на реке", but "в реке много рыбы". So, when we're talking about something that is directly in the water of it, we use "в". In other cases - "на". The same logic works also with vehicles: we say "я еду на машине", "я часто летаю на самолете", but "в автобусе я встретил Ольгу". So, if the main idea is that something happened inside the vehicle, we use "в", otherwise (normally, when someone is going by the vehicle) - "на".

Looks like it's all I wanted to tell you about the prepositional case (if I remember something else, I'll write about it, don't worry). До скорой встречи!

The Prepositional Case: Part 1

So, today we're talking about the prepositional case. The number of situations where this case may be used is limited, as you can guess from its name: we always use nouns in this case with prepositions. The most important are three of them: "o", "в" and "на" (though it's also used with the prepositions "при" and "по" - with the latter when it means "after').

As we were talking before, when you need a noun in one of the oblique cases, you have to change its ending. Which ending do we need in this case? 

First, we need to find out what is the gender and the number of the noun we use. Second, we need to take into account what the singular noun ends by in the nominative case. 

Most of words have the ending -e in the singular form of the prepositional case. They are: masculine nouns, which end by a hard or a soft consonant (except for ones ending by -ий); feminine nouns which end by -a and -я (except for ones ending by -ия); neuter nouns which end by -o, -e (except for ones ending by -иe). Masculine nouns which end by -ий, feminine ones which end by -ия and neuter ones which end by -ие in the nominative will have the ending -ии in the prepositional case. Feminine nouns ending by a soft consonant (i.e. the ones which have "ь" in the end) will have the ending -и in the prepositional case. 

The rule describing the plural nouns is actually much simpler. Here you need to consider just two cases. If the last consonant in a word (in the singular form, the nominative case) is hard, then you will have the ending -ах, if it's soft, then -ях (please, remember: consonants followed by "ь" or "и" are always soft).

There are, however, several exceptions (it wouldn't be Russian, if there were none :)). The following nouns have the ending -у in the prepositional case when they follow the prepositions "в", "на" (be careful: in the combination with the preposition "o" they still end by "e"): в шкафу, в лесу, в углу, в саду, в носу, в году, в порту, в аэропорту, в снегу, в дыму, в раю, на полу, на мосту, на берегу, на носу, на боку, на краю, на дому (in the phrase "работать на дому") and some other ones. If you'd like to check if a word has this form (it's called 'locative'), you may use Wiktionary: just find a word you're going to use and look if there is a form after the prepositional case form in the case table (it's marked with Russian "М.", which stands for "местный падеж", the locative).

You may also ask, in which cases we use these prepositions (the prepositions "в" and "на" are especially confusing, for it may seem hard to distinguish between the situations when you need the former one and the situations when you need the latter one). We we'll be talking about this next time. See you! 

How to learn them?

...Yes, they are six. Is it many? Yes, pretty many. Two more than in German, for example, and many more than in English. So it is not a surprise that one of the most common questions students of Russian ask is the following one: "How to tackle them?" In this post  (as well as some following ones labelled as 'learning tips') I would like to share some tips which you may find useful. Some of them my students found to be such, and some came from my own language learning experience. Have fun!

1) Read and listen to native speakers as many as you can. Here I must notice, there are different kinds of reading. Let's skip scanning and skimming, they're of little help if our aim is to learn grammar cases (we will talk about these two kinds later on). The most helpful here is intensive reading. When reading intensively, you focus on grammar forms (and sometimes vocabulary). It's the slowest type of reading and it may be not such exciting as extensive reading, which will be talking about in the next paragraph. However, it might be fun, too. Just remember: to read a many-page tome intensively may be not such a good idea - you're likely to get bored. Instead, try to read intensively short messages, like ads or news headlines. Where to get them? If you're living in Russia, you're likely to find a lot of information of this kind just wandering around the city - you will see a lot of advertisement posters, promo flyers etc. Alternatively, you may go to a cafe or a small restaurant - in addition to the menu (which may be a good source of grammar information itself) you can find free papers there. What to do if not? I may suggest you to use Russian search engine Yandex: you may find news headlines, TV program etc. just on the first page of the site! So use everything you see to learn: if you see a new verb-noun, a preposition-noun or a noun-noun combination, pay your attention to which cases are used. Try to learn some phrases - ones which you like or find useful - by heart (you may want to write it down, it'll help a lot), and then... just use it!

Extensive reading, which I promised to devote a couple of lines to, is reading for general understanding of the text and, in the end, for pleasure. If you're an advanced student, you may read Russian papers or books just for pleasure. Here, however, you may use the same technique: whenever you see a construction which draws your attention (perhaps, you like what it means and want to remember it, and perhaps you've never seen this word combination before), take a minute to it, it won't be a waste of time.

A couple of words about listening.  The same method works here: just try to listen to native speakers as much as you can (you may see movies, for example), and try to remember the grammar cases used in this or that context. Write something down. It may seem complicated for beginners, but the more you listen, the better you understand. There is no other way to learn to understand, but this one is a great one - just find movies (at first, you may read subtitles, as you see, if you have a DVD) and music you like. 

2) Learn the questions. It can save you a great deal of time if you learn the questions to the nouns in each case. Not only you'll be using them naturally, but you will also learn the constructions we have talked about more easily. For example, in the coffee shop menu you can see  "Кофе со сливками" (sometimes we use "со" instead of "c", for example, when the following word begins with "c" + another consonant). Instead of learning something like "a noun in the nominative case + the preposition "c" + a noun in the instrumental case" you can just learn "что с чем", so you will know which form is used after the preposition "c" (so you will be able to say, for example, "чай с сахаром"). Later you can always remember the case. The funny thing is, Russian people use the cases naturally (as all the native speakers of whatever language do with their grammar features), so we don't remember the case table. However, in some complicated cases when we don't know exactly which case we need, we always ask the questions. Here they are:

Cases	Questions to animate nouns*	Questions to inanimate nouns*
Nominative	Кто?	Что?
Genitive	Кого?	Чего?
Dative	Кому?	Чему?
Accusative	Кого?	Что?
Instrumental case	Кем?	Чем?
Prepositional case	Ком?	Чём?

*animate nouns normally refer to people, animals or other creatures, while inanimate one refer to ideas, places, things.

3) '3R-rule': read, remember, repeat. This is what I call '3Rs'. After you read a thing you'd like to learn (for example, a construction including a noun in one of the oblique cases), you need to remember it. If you write it down and repeat in immediately, you will remember it for some time. For example, in a cafe you can order "что-то с чем-то", for example, кофе со сливками, суп с шампиньонами, сэндвич с сыром. Later you can ask your friend to make you some tea with sugar (чай с сахаром). So try to use it whenever you can. Some teachers suggest you repeat the word or construction you want to learn at least three times: immediately after you read or heard it, the day after this, and one week after. If you managed to do this, you're likely to remember it forever. If not... well, you still have it written down, so just refresh your knowledge! Personally I suggest you use it as many time as you can. After some time you'll be able so see, how much times you need to learn it.

The only difficulty here is, if you're a beginner please try to use the words in more or less the same context as you read or heard them. As you learn, you will find out in which contexts this or that word may be used.

So, that's it for today. Looks like, we finished the 'preparation stage', so now we can move on to learn each case in particular, keeping in mind these learning tips. See you next time!