Svetlana Flemming - Colloquial Russian - The Next Step in Language Learning

N.B. \´to u'e´ pereboŕ – that is too much; setevo´j kanaĺ – cable channel 1 Who are Vladimir Pozner, Mikhail Leont’ev, Oleg Dobrodeev?

2 Who is in favour of increasing the number of channels and who is against?

3 How many national channels does Russia have? What are they?

Sredstva massovoj informacii (smi)

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Language points ♦

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Conjunctions

4

Care must be taken in Russian not to confuse conjunctions with 5

6

prepositions. Unhelpfully, in English prepositions and conjunctions 7

are often identical:

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Pośle za´vtraka my powli´ gulq´t;.

9

After breakfast we went for a walk.

10

1

Pośle togo´ kak my poza´vtrakali, my powli´ gulq´t;.

2

After we had breakfast we went for a walk.

3

In the first example, the preposition pośle governs the noun za´vtraka 4

and in the second the conjunction pośle togo´ kak introduces an 5

adverbial clause of time.

6

There are other similar pairs of prepositions and conjunctions: 7

8

Preposition

Conjunction

Meaning

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s + genitive

s tex por kak

since

1

do + genitive

do togo´ kak

before

2

peŕed + instrumental

peŕed tem kak

before

3

pre´'de hem

before

4

5

6

Exercise 10

7

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Insert pośle or pośle togo´ kak, as appropriate.

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30

1 . . . konceŕta my powli´ v restorań. 2 . . . onaókońhila kuŕs, 1

ona´ peree´xala za graniću. 3 . . . my poluhiĺi no´vosti, my 2

pozvoniĺi emu´. 4 . . . obe´da powe¨l do'd;.

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4

5

Causal conjunctions

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The conjunction blagodarq´ tomu´, hto is used to mean ‘thanks to, 7

owing to’ (positive reasons):

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9

Blagodarq´ tomu´, hto uluhwiĺos; \konomi´heskoe

40

polo'eńie, bezrabo´tica upaĺa.

1

Thanks to the fact that the economic situation has improved 421111

unemployment has fallen.

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The mass media

Contrast the preposition blagodarq´ + dative ‘thanks to’: Blagodarqúluhweńi[ \konomi´heskogo polo'eńiq

bezrabo´tica upaĺa.

Thanks to the improvement in the economic situation

unemployment has fallen.

Iz-za togo´, hto means ‘owing to, because of, on account of the fact that’ in respect of negative circumstances:

Iz-za togo´, hto \konomi´heskoe polo'eńie v strane´

uxu´dwilos;, mno´go predpriq´tij zakry

ĺos;.

Because the economic situtation in the country has worsened many businesses have closed.

Contrast the preposition iz-za + genitive ‘because of, on account of’

– often also relating to unfavourable circumstances:

Iz-za uxudweńiq \konomi´heskogo polo'eńiq mno´go

predpriq´tij zakry

ĺos;.

Because of the worsening of the economic situation many

businesses have closed.

Note an example in the text of the use of iz-za:

Iz-za vmewa´tel;stva vlaste´j v dela´ televi´deniq,

nekotoŕye vedu´]ie pokińuli kanaĺ NTV.

Because of the interference of the authorities in television, several presenters abandoned NTV.

This could have been expressed as:

Iz-za togo´, hto vlaśti vme´wivalis; v dela´.

Because the authorities interfered.

Exercise 11

A Complete the sentences using either blagodarq´ (+ dat) or iz-za (+ gen) and put the words in brackets into the appropriate case.

1 V nastoq´]ee vre´mq Rossi´q ne mo´'et soder'a´t; tak mno´go kanaĺov (tq'e¨loe \konomi´heskoe polo'eńie)v strane´.