Interview with Yulia Amlinskaya – Russian teacher

In this interview Yulia Amlinskaya answers my questions on the Russian language!

Yulia Amlinskaya is an experienced and enthusiastic Russian teacher. She is originally from Moscow but now lives in Spain. She is the founder of the International Online Russian Language School “Russificate” and she offers online lessons.

If you have any further questions, please leave a comment and Yulia and I will get back to you. 🙂

What are the most common mistakes Russian learners make and how to avoid them?

There are many common mistakes Russian learners make. It always depends on the grammatical and lexical structure of their native languages and on the particularities of their pronunciation.

The most common grammar mistake for almost all Russian learners is the incorrect usage of the perfective and imperfective grammar aspects. The problem here is that the grammar aspects don’t exist in many languages, so the rules of their usage have to be memorised.

For instance, my students find it difficult to understand the difference between the verbs in these sentences:

Кто взял книгу? – Who took the book? (the book is not there; perfective)

Кто брал книгу? – Who took the book? (the book is there, but I know that somebody took it; imperfective)

Actually, the above scenario works only for some verbs, but these verbs are quite common. If the action is already done and you can see the result, the perfective case should be used, but if the action was “cancelled” (i.e. somebody brought the book back), the imperfective aspect should be used.

The most common vocabulary mistake is trying to translate sentences word by word from one’s native language. It is always quite amusing when somebody translates idiomatic expressions and collocations directly from their own language to Russian. Russian learners have to understand that all languages have a different structure, therefore literal translation is impossible.

Some of my English-speaking students translate the collocation “It takes a lot of time” literally into Russian, so they say “Это берёт много времени”, while the correct version is “Это занимает много времени”.

Another quite common mistake is to translate grammar structures literally. For example,

Я видел его переходить улицу (I saw him cross the street). The correct version is: “Я видел, как он переходил улицу“.

Also, some students say как дело instead of как дела. And I have never found out the reason of making this odd mistake!

In terms of pronunciation, a lot of students have difficulty pronouncing the sound “Ы”. Some pronounce is as an “И”, some as an “У”, some as the word “oui” in French. 🙂 In fact, it’s a little tricky to pronounce. A good hint I always suggest to my students is to try to pronounce “И” when smiling.

For some of my students it is also difficult to pronounce the sounds “ж“ and “щ“. I try to help them comparing these sounds with the sounds they can hear in their everyday life. For example, “ж-ж-ж-ж-ж“ is the sound of a beatle and “щ”, of sausages sizzling on a frying pan. 🙂

Explain to me the difference between хоть, хотя, хотя бы, and однако.

(Question by Tom McCormick-Cox)

Here are some examples with explanations:

Дай мне хоть сто рублей. – Give me at least 100 rubles. (Here the meaning of “хоть” is “at least”.)

Он хоть маленький, но очень сильный. – Although he is small, he is very strong. (“Хоть” is the colloquial synonym of “хотя”.)

Хоть сегодня, хоть завтра, а работу закончить нужно. – Either today or tomorrow, the job needs to be done. (Хоть…хоть is a synonym of “или…или”. Here the emphasis is on the necessity of finishing the work.)

Взять хоть меня – разве я не работал? – Take for example myself… as if I didn’t work! Synonym of “for example”;

Хоть бы дождь пошёл. – I wish it rained.

Хотя он и не пришёл, всё равно было весело. – Although he didn’t come, it was fun. (“Хотя” means “although” here.)

Дай мне хотя бы три рубля. – Give me at least three rubles. (synonym of “хоть” in the meaning of “at least”, but less colloquial.)

Однако, он не знал, чем это закончится. – However, he didn’t know how this would end.