Russian Through Poems & Paintings
Click the images for daily video lessons and other materials…
Day 101
review of case usage and prepositions: the case system; review of basic case usage; prepositions and the cases they take; visiting places and people
Day 102
review of noun types: noun types and gender; overview of noun types; feminine nouns; masculine nouns; neuter nouns
Day 103
review of adjectives: nouns ending in a soft sign; special soft nouns; notes on the nominative plural, genitive plural, and remaining plural forms
Day 104
review of adjectives: some common irregular nouns; hard adjectives; adjectives for describing people; soft adjectives
Day 105
review of pronouns & special modifiers: short-form adjectives; pronouns; question words, negatives, and indefinites; possessive pronouns and other special modifiers
Day 106
review of verb conjugation: verb types, verb endings, and mutations; how verb types are built; consonant stems; vowel stems; non-suffixed stems; the past tense
Day 107
review of basic aspect: basic aspectual distinctions; aspectual pairs and motion verbs; apect and English tense; multiple verbs; aspectual “red flags”
Day 108
aspectual pairs and derived imperfectives: review of irregular verbs; various patterns in aspectual pairs; derived imperfectives; aspectual pairs with АВАЙ verbs
Day 109
advanced aspect: context and emphasis with aspect; “at all,” intent, and obligation; advanced aspect; imperfective of cancelled action
Day 110
aspect and imperatives: the imperative; review of imperative forms; aspect with imperatives; irregular imperatives; first- and third-person imperatives
Day 111
review of unprefixed motion verbs: prepositions and adverbs used with motion verbs; unprefixed verbs of motion and conveyance
Day 112
going in and out; arriving: creating and conjugating prefixed verbs of motion and conveyance; the prefixes в-, вы- and при-.
Day 113
departing & approaching; going up & down: going far away with -у; going a bit away with от-; approaching with под-; going up and down with вз- and с-
Day 114
going through, across, and around: going through with про-; spending time; going across with пере-; reaching a destination with до-; going around with об-
Day 115
together, apart, behind: bringing together, pulling apart; moving together, moving apart; going behind; review of all prefixes and base pairs to date
Day 116
quick round trips and going “for a bit”: special perfective forms of motion verbs; “for a bit” and “quick round trips”; additional meanings of prefixed verbs; two subjectless verbs
Day 117
advanced verbs of motion: remaining verbs of motion; pulling, dragging; driving, chasing; climbing, crawling; rolling, riding; tumbling; roaming
Day 118
more location expressions: review of all motion verbs; location adverbs & prepositions; advanced location adverbs; points of the compass
Day 119
conditionals and hypotheticals: real and unreal conditions; conditionals with если; the hypothetical particle бы; hypothetical constructions with если бы
Day 120
expressing wishes using чтобы: comparing если and ли; word order with ли; чтобы with an infinitive; indirect wishes with чтобы; other ways to express wishes and requests
Day 121
more on subordinate clauses: clauses beginning with question words; “who” and “which” clauses; question words and demonstratives; “one who” and “that which”
Day 122
advanced prepositions: advanced prepositions with the dative, accusative, genitive, and instrumental; using verbs after prepositions; more conjunctions
Day 123
verbal adverbs: general introductions to deverbals; verbal adverbs; forming imperfective and perfective verbal adverbs
Day 124
verbal adjectives: active: overview of active verbal adjectives; present active and past active verbal adjectives; verbal adjectives in literature
Day 125
verbal adjectives: passive: present passive verbal adjectives; past passive adjectives (“PPP’s”) ending in -анный and -тый; the instrumental with passive forms
Day 126
more past passive participles: review of stress patterns in И and Е verbs; review of mutations; forming PPPs in -ённый and -енный
Day 127
short forms of past passive participles: review of short-form adjectives; short-form PPP’s; short forms of PPP’s in -енный / -ённый; short-form PPP’s and tense
Day 128
verbal nouns: forming verbal nouns in -ание, -тие, and -ение; translating verbal nouns; aspect and meaning in verbal nouns; other verb-related nouns
Day 129
more on deverbals: rephrasing verbal adjectives as который clauses; temporal conjunctions; rephrasing verbal adverbs; “-able” adjectives
Day 130
spotting and translating deverbals: reading selections from Lermontov’s long narrative poem, The Demon
Day 131
feelings and the reflexive particle: review of the reflexive particle; verbs that always include the reflexive particle; creating passive verbs
Day 132
feelings: deverbals, nouns & adjectives: verbal adjectives and nouns from verbs of feeling; feeling-related nouns, verbs, and adjectives
Day 133
predicate adverbs and short-form names: using predicate adverbs in subjectless constructions; expressing opinions; short-form and diminutive names; augmentatives
Day 134
feelings and opinions with comparatives: regular comparatives; comparatives with mutations; irregular comparatives; two ways of making comparisons
Day 135
trust, fear, faith, deceit: comparatives used as adverbs; comparatives meaning “a bit”; saying “for a long time”; talking about trust, fear, faith, and deceit
Day 136
reality, fantasy, and imagination: superlatives; “one of the most”; который with superlatives; other meanings of самый; reality, fantasy, and imagination
Day 137
daydreams, desires, and expectations: reviewing hypotheticals; compound comparatives with более; dreams, desires, and expectations; notes on “wanting”
Day 138
memory, learning, regret: subordinate clauses with как; remembering, memorizing, reminding; learning, knowing, studying; regret
Day 139
habits, opinions, debates: (bad) habits; short forms for discussing opinions; more vocabulary for debating; two famous poems on the nature of Russia
Day 140
joking, pretending, cursing: joking; a parody of the Symbolists; pretending; cursing; a famous satire of Russian life
Day 141
Pushkin: The Bronze Horseman (I): Pushkin tells how Peter the Great created, as if by magic, his new capital city on the Neva, but warns us of a sad tale to follow
Day 142
Pushkin: The Bronze Horseman (II): Pushkin introduces the poem’s hero, the petty clerk Yevgeny, whose visions of the future are disrupted by rain pounding on his window
Day 143
Pushkin: The Bronze Horseman (III): as the storm relents, Yevgeny makes it across the Neva to Vasilievsky Island to be reunited with Parasha
Day 144
Pushkin: The Bronze Horseman (IV): though the city around him returns to normal, Yevgeny cannot; his (anti)climactic clash with the Horseman has nightmarish consequences
Day 145
Chekhov: Death of a Clerk: in this very short and darkly comedic tale, Chekhov examines certain psychological consequences of a strictly hierarchical social structure
Day 146
Chekhov: A Little Joke (I): a young man visiting the provinces takes a local girl, Nadenka, sledding, and thinks up a peculiar, but harmless, little “joke”
Day 147
Chekhov: A Little Joke (II): as the sled ride is repeated, the same little joke is retold, and begins to take on unexpected dimensions
Day 148
Chekhov: A Little Joke (III): as the young man prepares to return to the city, the joke is repeated one final time, in the guise of something truly miraculous
Day 149
Tolstoy: Alyosha the Pot (I): Alyosha, an awkward but hard-working young man nicknamed “the Pot,” is sent by his father to work for a merchant
Day 150
Tolstoy: Alyosha the Pot (II): Alyosha’s seemingly unremarkable story ends in great surprise — for him, and for the reader. What is the cause of this wonder?
Day 151
being in a position: English and Russian verbs of position; choosing positions; review of prepositions describing location
Day 152
assuming a position: to depend; verbs for assuming a position; using куда expressions when assuming positions; combining “being in” and “assuming” positions
Day 153
putting into a position: to become; to begin; verbs for putting into a position; imperatives of position verbs; review of all position verbs
Day 154
prefixes and verbs of position: literal meanings of prefixes; review of prefixed verbs of motion; notes on prefix spelling; verb families; families of position verbs
Day 155
verb families from motion verbs: three additional prefixes; creating verb families from advanced verbs of motion: climbing, crawling, dragging, chasing, rolling, tumbling
Day 156
verb families for simple actions: creating verb families for very simple actions: taking, holding, grasping, grabbing, giving, putting (dressing)
Day 157
verb families for moving objects: throwing, striking, letting (releasing), turning, pulling; some more advanced verbs for moving and attaching objects
Day 158
verb families for communication: writing; seeing; speaking and showing; sending and directing; expressing
Day 159
more verb families involving movement: falling, stepping, flowing, jumping, sliding, touching, moving; review of motion, position, and action verbs with Tolstoy
Day 160
more important verb families: changing; dividing; building; shooting; filling; pouring; knowing; calling; thinking; judging; valuing
Day 161
stress patterns in nouns: stem-stressed nouns; end-stressed masculines; masculines with plurals in stressed “a”; stress patterns in two-syllable nouns; latent “ë”
Day 162
three irregular noun types: dealing with irregular nouns; masculine nouns in -ин; neuter nouns in -мя; masculine nouns in -ёнок
Day 163
more irregular noun types: masculines in -а (-я); irregular plurals in -ья; neuter pl. in -еса and -и; masculines in -ей; adjectives that stand along as nouns
Day 164
nouns ending in soft signs: overview of nouns in soft signs; review of -и nouns; spotting soft masculine nouns; agents in -тель, -арь; other soft masculines;
Day 165
nouns for human agents: agent nouns and gender; agreement with “masculine-only” nouns; pairs in -тель / -тельница; feminine equivalents of masculine nouns
Day 166
declining numbers: declining numbers; agreement with один; using numbers in oblique and non-oblique forms; animacy and numbers in the accusative
Day 167
more numerical forms: declining three simple number nouns; number with two forms only; tens and hundreds; compound numbers in oblique cases; both; the same
Day 168
borrowed nouns by suffix: common suffixes of borrowed nouns; nouns in -cracy and -archy; academic disciplines; -philia, -phobia, -mania; -ism; -tion, -sion
Day 169
adjectives and nouns for describing people: alone, oneself, only; past passive participles for describing people; basic adjectives for describing people; nouns related to qualities
Day 170
forming adjectives: adjectives involving numbers; overview of adjective formation; a brief introduction to Russian poetic meter
Day 171
roots and basic nouns: roots and word formation; nouns corresponding to motion verbs, position verbs, and other action verbs; pleophony
Day 172
more roots and basic nouns: continuing with roots for basic action verbs; roots for thought, perception, communication
Day 173
creating verbs and aspectual pairs: derived imperfectives in -ывай, -ай, -вай; derived imperfectives with an inserted -и (ы); creating И verbs from nouns and adjectives
Day 174
notes on transitivity; verbal nouns: notes on transitivity; creating intransitive ЕЙ verbs; intransitive АЙ and НУ verbs; review of verbal nouns
Day 175
borrowed verbs: review of ОВА and АВАЙ verbs; some common “native” ОВА verbs; some borrowed ОВА verbs; verbs with the same form for both aspects
Day 176
Dostoevsky’s life: Dostoevsky’s brush with death and imprisonment haunt his subsequent work. Why is it that we only seem to value life when we risk losing it?
Day 177
Dostoevsky’s thought: today’s readings explore the insights into the irrational depths of human nature that Dostoevsky won from his imprisonment in Siberia
Day 178
how repulsive!: long plagued by dark thoughts, Raskolnikov pays a visit to an old pawnbroker — a visit he refers to as a “trial run” (проба)
Day 179
there’s nowhere left to turn: the drunkard Marmeladov tells of his wife, Katerina Ivanovna, and his daughter, Sonya, who has turned to prostitution to support the family
Day 180
thy kingdom come!: Marmeladov tells how he won his job back, only to lose it again... and concludes his tavern tirade with a desperate appeal to eternal justice
Day 181
or reject life altogether!: back in his room, Raskolnikov is upset by a letter from his mother concerning his sister Dunya’s dubious marriage to a certain Mr. Luzhin
Day 182
Raskolnikov’s dream: Raskolnikov wanders to Petrovsky Island, falls asleep in some bushes, and has a terrible dream: he is a child again, walking with his father, when...
Day 183
a chance encounter: Raskolnikov finds out, by sheer chance, when Lizaveta (the pawnbroker’s simple-minded half-sister) will be away from their apartment
Day 184
arithmetic: Raskolnikov recalls a conversation overheard by chance in a tavern a month and a half or so earlier, postulating a peculiar kind of arithmetic
Day 185
everything’s gone wrong: convinced that he can commit the perfect crime by sheer willpower and intelligence, Raskolnikov finds he has made an unjustified assumption
Day 186
when reason fails, the devil helps!: his plan saved by sheer coincidence, Raskolnikov visits the pawbroker
Day 187
am I losing my mind?: having found the pawnbroker’s keys, Raskolnikov examines the chest under her bed... and becomes aware of a glaring oversight
Day 188
the killer was just here!: hearing footsteps in the stairwell, Raskolnikov confronts two visitors (Koch and Pestryakov) as he attempts to flee the scene of the murder
Day 189
are you sick or something?: having made it home and fallen asleep, Raskolnikov awakens to a summons to the police office, where the murder is being discussed
Day 190
an “arshin” of space: Raskolnikov visits his friend Razumikhin; is whipped by a coachman; rejects a donation; reflects on life’s value; and provokes a police official
Day 191
merciful, but not to us!: Marmeladov is run over by a carriage. After helping him and his family, Raskolnikov is overcome by a sudden, but fleeting, sense of rebirth.
Day 192
Porfiry Petrovich: on a friendly visit to the head investigator, Raskolnikov discusses the ideas in an article he once wrote... and barely evades a subtle trap.
Day 193
Svridrigailov: a nightmare gives way to a visit from Svidrigailov, and a discussion of his deceased (murdered?) wife Marfa Petrovna, and the afterlife
Day 194
the resurrection of Lazarus: Raskolnikov visits Sonya, trying to understand what keeps her from giving in to despair; he asks her to read him the story of Lazarus
Day 195
have you guessed?: Raskolnikov confesses to Sonya, and they begin examining his possible motives — even as he questions his motivation for confessing to her
Day 196
tell everyone: “I have killed”: Raskolnikov delves further into his possible motives, while Sonya, rejecting his racionations, insists there is only one way to rebuild his life
Day 197
no, you won’t flee: in a final meeting with Porfiry, the latter discusses the painter Mikolka (who has confessed to the murder!)... before his tone shifts drastically
Day 198
I’m bound for foreign realms: Svidrigailov wanders to the far shore of the Neva and rents a room; his final night before his depature for “America” is plagued by nightmares
Day 199
I’m the one…: Sonya waits for Raskolnikov to return, knowing he is making the difficult choice between suicide and trying to begin a new life.
Day 200
epilogue: Sonya follows Raskolnikov to Siberia, where he continues to fight his old demons, until a new life begins (it seems) to supplant the old “dialectic”