500 Mini-Dialogues for Beginners
Artsun Akopyan
© Artsun Akopyan, 2020
ISBN 978-5-4498-7879-3
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
Introduction
Are you trying to learn Russian? The illustrated book “Spoken Russian Conversation Practice: 500 Mini-Dialogues for Beginners” allows you to greatly expand your active vocabulary. It consists of 500 short dialogues on everyday topics interconnected by meaning and contains about 1,800 commonly used Russian words, word forms and word combinations. A list containing the new words along with their transcription and translation into English follows each dialogue. To reinforce learning, revision tasks are offered after each topic.
This tutorial is intended for beginning and intermediate learners of Russian.
Teachers of Russian can use this manual to create game situations so students can practice language constructions in a more emotional and effective way.
About the Author
Artsun Akopyan is a writer and freelance translator based in Russia. He worked at a high school teaching Russian and at a university teaching English. His publications include books for English language learners, short stories and articles, translations of fiction and nonfiction books from English into Russian.
Conventions Used in This Tutorial
The dialogues are numbered from 1 to 500. Each dialogue in English is followed by its Russian translation.
New Russian words in dialogues are highlighted in bold and translated into English below the Russian version.
Base forms of Russian words are included in brackets: света́ет (света́ть) – it is getting light.
The accent is marked by the sign ́ over the stressed vowel. The accent mark is not used in the Revision sections. If you want to look up a Russian word in an online dictionary, use the base form without the accent mark (e.g., светать).
In English, dialogues are surrounded by quotation marks:
“ABC”.
In Russian, every new line of a dialogue starts with a dash:
– ABC.
Waking Up (Пробужде́ние)
1
“It’s getting light already! Good morning!”
“Morning!”
– Уже́ света́ет! До́брое у́тро!
– До́брое!
уже́ – already
света́ет (base form: светать) – it’s getting light
до́брое (base form: до́брый) – good, kind
у́тро – morning
2
“Is he asleep?”
“Yes. Wake him up!”
– Он спит?
– Да. Буди́ его́!
он – he
спит (спать) – sleeps, is sleeping
да – yes
буди́ (буди́ть) – wake (someone)
его́ (он) – him
3
“Is she sleeping?”
“Yeah. Wake her up!”
– Она́ спит?
– Да. Буди́ её!
она́ – she
её – her
4
“Sh! Shush!”
“Why are you shushing me?”
– Тс! Ти́ше!
– Почему́ ты ши́каешь на меня́?
тс – sh
ти́ше (ти́хо) – shush
почему́ – why
ты – you (singular)
ши́каешь (ши́кать) – (you are) shushing
на – on, in, at
меня́ (я) – me
ши́каешь на меня́ – shushing me
5
“Do not wake her up.”
“I won’t.”
– Не буди́ её.
– Не бу́ду.
не – not
бу́ду (быть) – (I) will
не бу́ду – (I) will not
6
“Wake up, sleepyhead!”
“I’m awake.”
– Просни́сь, со́ня!
– Я просну́лся.
просни́сь (просну́ться) – wake up
со́ня – sleepyhead
я – I
просну́лся – have woken up, am awake
7
“Have you been awake for a long time?”
“No. I’ve just woken up.”
– Давно́