[0:00] You try reading Dstoyki, but you end up
[0:02] a mindbroken fool. Many such cases.
[0:04] Today we're covering everything you need
[0:06] to know about Russians, so you never
[0:07] feel out of place again. Cerillic is a
[0:10] bit of a misnomer because St. Sirill
[0:12] didn't invent it. His actual
[0:13] contribution is glagalytic, which is an
[0:15] entirely original alphabet, albeit it
[0:17] was too difficult to write and copy
[0:18] quickly. The solution was brought about
[0:20] by his students in the Preslav Literary
[0:22] School. They took Greek, they added a
[0:24] bunch of letters to represent the sounds
[0:25] it was missing, and they named it after
[0:27] St. Sirill. But this still looks
[0:28] different from modern cerillic. How do
[0:30] we get that? Mm- Peter the Great. The
[0:32] man was completely unstoppable and
[0:34] practically the greatest reformer any
[0:35] country had ever seen. He changed civil
[0:37] administration, religious law, and
[0:39] society as a whole to the point where
[0:40] he'd come cut your beard off personally
[0:41] or force you to pay up. He would
[0:43] initiate and oversee a reform that would
[0:45] give the nation its own civic script. If
[0:47] it was redundant, it was done away with.
[0:49] The decree was only a formality because
[0:50] these letters weren't really used much
[0:52] at that point anyway. Finally, in the
[0:54] beginning of the 20th century, a few
[0:56] leftover letters would be purged, giving
[0:58] us today's modern Russian cerillic, now
[1:00] redundancyfree.
[1:02] Bonus round. This letter was used in one
[1:04] book of Psalms in the 15th century, and
[1:06] for whatever reason, it was turned into
[1:08] an asy character. Biblically accurate
[1:10] Russian letters, I guess. Good news,
[1:13] Russian has dialects, but most people
[1:15] today speak the standardized language.
[1:17] Bad news, nailing Russian pronunciation
[1:19] is like assembling IKEA furniture
[1:21] without a manual. Everyone tries it.
[1:23] Nobody does it well and you always end
[1:24] up pacing your living room going.
[1:27] There's 10 vowel letters. Five of them
[1:29] are hard vowel sounds and five of them
[1:31] are soft vowel sounds. Why are we
[1:33] establishing this distinction? In
[1:35] Russian, consonants are basically held
[1:37] hostage by the vowels. If one is
[1:39] standing next to an ah, it sounds normal
[1:41] to us. But when followed by yah, it's
[1:43] forced to sound soft. It's palatalized.
[1:47] M. The way I think about it, though, my
[1:50] pronunciation isn't perfect. Imagine
[1:52] you're trying to say the consonant and
[1:54] the Y sound that Y makes at the same
[1:56] time. And if you want this effect, but
[1:58] you don't have a vowel handy, it's okay.
[2:00] There's the soft sign and the hard sign.
[2:02] But this isn't universal. Some
[2:03] consonants are always hard, some are
[2:05] always soft, and the vast majority of
[2:07] them can be either. Oh, but hold your
[2:09] horses. We're not done yet. Russian has
[2:10] vowel reduction, like English. The most
[2:12] recognizable example being
[2:14] >> musva,
[2:14] >> musva,
[2:15] >> musva.
[2:16] >> But that's not all. As a newbie, you're
[2:18] going to have to memorize three things
[2:19] at once. The spelling, the reduced
[2:21] pronunciation, and the stress. The
[2:23] stress. Yes, Russian stress is mobile,
[2:25] which is a fancy way of saying it's
[2:27] completely unpredictable. Vada. Vod. You
[2:30] might think, "Who cares if I get it
[2:31] wrong? They'll know what I mean." In
[2:32] Russian, pis means to write. But pis
[2:35] means to urinate. Imagine you're at a
[2:38] bar in Moscow. You successfully language
[2:41] mogged your way through a conversation.
[2:42] You hand her your unlocked iPhone to get
[2:44] her number. You want to confidently tell
[2:46] her to write it down, but that's not
[2:49] what you actually said. Speaking of
[2:51] phones and the importance of stress,
[2:52] it's a widespread cultural phenomena
[2:54] that Russians will refuse to associate
[2:55] with someone who says zonit as opposed
[2:57] to zanit. So stress is incredibly
[3:00] important. Don't get it wrong. Vowels
[3:03] aren't the only letters that change
[3:04] based on placement. At the end of a
[3:06] word, a voiced consonant to voices droo
[3:08] zup. Inside a consonant cluster, the
[3:10] letter to the right decides. It forces
[3:12] the one before it to match its exact
[3:13] state. If the right side letter is
[3:15] voiceless, the previous letter becomes
[3:17] voiceless with it. Vodka. If it's
[3:19] voiced, the previous letter becomes
[3:20] voiced.
[3:22] Oh boy, that Russian sure is easy, huh?
[3:26] Please like and subscribe. That's how
[3:28] you support the channel. Cases might
[3:29] seem like they're these facemelting,
[3:31] mindbreakingly difficult things, but
[3:33] that's only because you've probably had
[3:35] them explained to you through the lens
[3:36] of that horrible linguistic mumbo jumbo.
[3:39] Get it away from me. The relationships
[3:42] between words in Russian are not decided
[3:43] by word order, but instead by case
[3:45] endings. Here's all six of them in one
[3:47] sentence.
[3:53] Nominative marks who or what is the main
[3:55] focus of this sentence. In our case,
[3:57] Broly. Dative marks to whom or for whom
[4:00] an action is being directed. Accusative
[4:02] identifies who or what directly receives
[4:04] the action. In this case, Broly is
[4:06] showing the essence to Goku, but it's
[4:09] the essence of horror, right? Which
[4:11] means it needs to go in the genative
[4:12] case, which shows ownership. No
[4:15] different from apostrophe s in English.
[4:16] Instrumental explains the tool, method,
[4:18] or companion used to accomplish an
[4:20] action. In our case, a vision.
[4:22] Prepositional is used exclusively after
[4:24] certain prepositions to describe a
[4:26] physical location or what you're talking
[4:29] about. The concept of case is easy to
[4:31] wrap your head around. The difficulty
[4:32] comes from gendered nouns. Russian has
[4:34] three genders.
[4:42] There are a lot of declenion patterns
[4:44] and you need to know all of them. As
[4:46] many of my Russian viewers pointed out
[4:47] in my last video, Russian numerals are
[4:49] one of the best examples of the
[4:51] complexity of this whole thing. Russian
[4:53] numbers make nouns change case. With
[4:56] one, the noun stays in the nominative
[4:58] singular. With two through four, it
[5:00] usually takes the form of the genative
[5:02] singular. And with five and above, it
[5:04] usually takes the form of the genative
[5:05] plural. Do you know your animacy status?
[5:08] In Russian, nouns are split into groups
[5:10] of animate, like family members,
[5:13] snowmen, dolls, and the deceased or
[5:16] inanimate like chairs, bacteria, trees,
[5:19] and the deceased. It also affects cases.
[5:25] A key feature of the Russian verb is the
[5:27] aspect. Italian for example marks aspect
[5:30] but only in the past tense. Russian on
[5:32] the other hand categorizes all verbs as
[5:34] inherently perfective or imperfective uh
[5:37] finished or ongoing. Many important
[5:39] verbs come in pairs of both aspects
[5:41] because verbs are then further
[5:42] conjugated for tenses, persons and
[5:44] sometimes gender.
[5:47] Speaking of going places, to go anywhere
[5:49] in Russian, you need to think about how.
[5:51] Is this a one-way trip or are you
[5:53] trudging back and forth? Is this your
[5:55] grand one-time expedition or something
[5:57] you do every year?
[5:59] After you heard all that, you're
[6:00] probably thinking to yourself, "Russian
[6:03] is so precise in particular, and you
[6:05] couldn't be more right. Even commas are
[6:07] written based on concrete rule sets.
[6:10] Style and pause are completely
[6:11] irrelevant." This is a very explosive
[6:13] area of conversation, and I will handle
[6:15] it with incredible caution as to not
[6:17] give you the magic words necessary to
[6:18] get yourself on Fodena's bad side.
[6:21] However, I did say I teach you
[6:23] everything. To summon Russian Exodia,
[6:25] you must gather the five forbidden
[6:27] pieces, the pillar of masculinity, the
[6:29] feline of femininity, the act, the lady
[6:32] of the night, and the ultimate
[6:34] collateral damage, someone else's
[6:36] mother. I know what you're thinking
[6:37] right now. Are they really that few?
[6:39] Yes, they are. But Russian profanity is
[6:41] additive. Let's look at an example using
[6:43] the symbol of masculinity. Depending on
[6:46] what you snap in front of it, it either
[6:47] means you're completely shocked,
[6:49] absolutely apathetic, or enjoying a
[6:51] succulent meal. Ble is my personal
[6:53] favorite. You don't attach anything to
[6:55] it. You just treat it like punctuation.
[6:56] And I want to make sure you understand
[6:58] me when I tell you, you don't use these
[7:00] words with people you don't know, and
[7:02] you never bring up somebody's mother
[7:04] because that's how you get sent to the
[7:05] shadow realm after Yuggeti challenges
[7:07] you to a duel. Imagine learning all of
[7:09] that just to watch Russian brain rot all
[7:11] day. Ratuka. Russian literature has a
[7:13] prestigious reputation, but I bet the
[7:15] first image you're getting in your mind
[7:16] is a heavy thousandpage book full of
[7:18] moral grandstanding, brooding
[7:20] characters, and an obligatory depressing
[7:22] ending. It was great for its time, but
[7:24] now we got better ones, don't we? Wrong.
[7:26] We got to stop acting like Dsttoyk is
[7:28] the only Russian author ever. There's a
[7:30] saying, Russian literature came out of
[7:32] Goy's overcoat. He has some of the most
[7:34] innovative pros and storytelling, and
[7:36] you've never heard of him, have you? He
[7:37] literally inspired Kafka. for Gregor
[7:40] Samson and waking up his monstrous
[7:41] vermin. Major Kavalof wakes up without
[7:44] his nose, which he finds casually
[7:45] walking around downtown St. Petersburg
[7:47] in a uniform. Kavalof is too afraid to
[7:49] directly ask his nose to return to his
[7:51] face because it outranks him. Then he
[7:53] ends up struggling against an
[7:54] indifferent society and bureaucratic
[7:55] hell until the nose is finally brought
[7:57] back to him after getting arrested
[7:58] trying to flee St. Petersburg on a
[8:00] forged passport. The only reason the
[8:02] nose was caught in the first place was
[8:03] because the officer at the border put
[8:05] his glasses on and realized he wasn't
[8:07] looking at a government official, but a
[8:08] giant nose. Speaking of bureaucracy,
[8:11] Chichikov is an ex-government clerk who
[8:13] managed to come up with a cunning
[8:14] scheme. In Imperial Russia, wealthy land
[8:16] owners owned surfs who were legally tied
[8:19] to the land. For tax purposes, the
[8:20] government counted these surfs in a
[8:22] census every few years. What it didn't
[8:24] do is check if the souls are alive
[8:26] before the next census, and so the owner
[8:27] still had to pay taxes on them as if
[8:29] they were living. Titikov wants to amass
[8:31] a massive portfolio of thousands of dead
[8:33] souls and use them as collateral for a
[8:35] massive loan he will not be paying back.
[8:37] On this little undertaking, he has the
[8:39] misfortune of running into some of the
[8:40] most bossly people this side of the
[8:42] Never River. We have a pillar of the
[8:44] aristocracy in a man-like money who
[8:47] spends his days in idle fantasy. He's
[8:49] overly polite and totally indifferent to
[8:50] the morality or even legality of
[8:52] Chicha's little operation. He signs the
[8:54] souls over without asking for anything
[8:56] in return, even wrapping the deed with a
[8:58] nice little ribbon. How thoughtful is
[9:00] he? The next personality he runs into is
[9:02] the widow Kurabachka. She has no qualms
[9:04] about selling dead people, but she is
[9:06] concerned about getting ripped off. They
[9:08] argue for hours about whether there
[9:10] could be a sudden spike in the market
[9:11] price for the dead. She only agrees to
[9:13] the sale after Chichiku promises to buy
[9:15] her lard sometime in the future.
[9:17] Speaking of ripoff, Nazdr is a drunkard,
[9:19] a gambler, and an utter psychopath who
[9:21] tries to force our protagonist to buy
[9:23] all sorts of useless things from him,
[9:25] including but not limited to a blind
[9:27] horse until he offers they gamble for
[9:29] the souls in a game of checkers. He then
[9:31] proceeds to immediately blatantly cheat
[9:33] at the game, is caught, and then tells
[9:35] his servants to attack Chichikov, who is
[9:37] forced to flee for his life. From
[9:39] haggling with a sly aristocrat who knows
[9:41] exactly what he's doing to Chichikov
[9:43] becoming suspected of being an imperial
[9:44] spy or even the escape Napoleon
[9:46] Bonapart, he ends up having to skip
[9:48] town, a town that is rapidly
[9:49] degenerating into an insane frenzy. If
[9:52] you've never heard of these books
[9:53] before, start referencing them on a
[9:54] daily basis. When you get called out,
[9:56] reluctantly confess that you've actually
[9:58] been reading Russian literature for many
[10:00] years, but you're deeply embarrassed to
[10:01] admit it. If they start asking too many
[10:03] questions, start declining nouns.
[10:07] Stoltoy
[10:09] has a wonderful cautionary tale about a
[10:10] man who can't control his urges. It has
[10:12] two endings and both of them are very
[10:14] bad and not really suitable for YouTube.
[10:16] Although he appears normal on the
[10:18] outside, his lust is driving him
[10:19] completely mad. He doesn't share his
[10:21] problems with anybody and he
[10:22] continuously externalizes them, blaming
[10:25] the peasant girl he's infatuated with
[10:27] for everything he feels. And then
[10:28] everyone lives happily ever after. No,
[10:31] something really bad happens. Depends on
[10:32] which ending you read. That varies
[10:34] between really, really bad to just sad.
[10:36] oddly relevant to modern society. And
[10:38] speaking of poignant in the current day,
[10:40] we have DSTVKI's Notes from the
[10:42] Underground, a book that has made me
[10:44] reconsider my life. You almost can't
[10:46] believe this wasn't written yesterday.
[10:48] It feels like a criticism of the type of
[10:50] hyperironic, totally quote unquote
[10:52] logical thinker. These isolated,
[10:55] terminally online people who think they
[10:57] have the whole world figured out, then
[10:58] you look at their life and it's just
[11:00] miserable. Paralysis by Overanalysis.
[11:03] This one you have to read right now.
[11:05] It's so good I can't put it into words
[11:07] and my whole life has been dedicated to
[11:08] communicating things to other people.
[11:09] Okay, I talk about what I want to talk
[11:12] about all the time. I don't know how to
[11:13] describe this because you need to
[11:15] experience it for yourself. It's
[11:17] impossible not to draw parallels between
[11:19] the bronze horsemen and Don Juan, which
[11:21] interestingly enough Pushkin himself has
[11:22] adapted. But unlike Don Huan, which is
[11:24] about a scandal who lives a debaucherous
[11:26] life and is dragged off to hell by a
[11:28] statue of the man he kills, this poem is
[11:31] very different. It's instead an
[11:32] inversion of the original story in which
[11:34] an innocent man is utterly destroyed by
[11:36] a bronze statue of Peter the Great.
[11:38] That's supposed to function as more of a
[11:40] metaphor because the real destruction in
[11:42] his life comes from the flooding of the
[11:43] river Neva. But none of that would have
[11:45] happened if Peter the Great hadn't built
[11:46] his capital at top a literal swamp that
[11:48] was known to flood. But as with all
[11:50] poems, the magic is in the verse. So if
[11:52] you want to know how good it is, you're
[11:53] going to have to read it for yourself.
[11:55] In the original language, of course, you
[11:56] wouldn't read the Divine Comedy in
[11:58] English. I hope the main reason for
[12:00] making this video was to a give people
[12:02] an understanding of how the Russian
[12:03] language actually works like in depth as
[12:06] much as one can cover in 12 minutes or
[12:08] so and b the greatest reason to learn
[12:10] Russian which is the amazing literature.
[12:12] Sure, there's revolutionary animation
[12:14] and some incredible music, but those are
[12:16] pretty easy to find. Good books, those
[12:18] get recommended to you directly by crazy
[12:20] language guys on YouTube. Either way,
[12:22] I've been your host, Plasterine Hart.
[12:24] See you in two weeks when I make the
[12:25] Italian video. Like, subscribe, and
[12:27] donate a trillion dollars to me so I
[12:29] could buy myself a country and become a
[12:31] brutal zar.