Russian Verbs

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Привет! My friend "Марисса" recently found 501 Russian Verbs in a free book bin and snagged it for me. As I flip through, I notice that it is structured differently from my 501 Verb books for French and Spanish. For starters, the verbs themselves seem to be different. Every verb has two forms like — *flips to random page* — курить / покурить [kurit' / pokurit'] (which means "to smoke, burn"). What are the different forms? Also, some say ся [sja] after the verb in parenthesis, for instance купать (ся) / выкупать (ся) [kupat' (sja) / vykupat' (sja)] which means "to bathe, give a bath (bath, go swimming). Any information would be greatly appreciated!

Also — can anyone recommend a good book that teaches basic vocab and grammar? Right now all I can do is read Cyrillic and say a *few* words.

Comments

Re: ja rule

[yers.livejournal.com]

it is indeed, but that's yet another convention...

Re: ja rule

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

What do you mean "that's another convention?" That it's the normal convention to transliterate English "sh" as "ш" in Russian?

Re: ja rule

[yers.livejournal.com]

yeah. I meant that Russian transliteration of foreign names is very convention-based, and even though it shifts over time (modern language prefers Ханс to Ганс and Уильям to Вильям), for the most part it still reflects the rules set two or three centuries ago.

Re: ja rule

[ugly-boy.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I think that у makes a lot more since for "w" than в does. I live in Washington and I've seen it written Вашингтон and I don't think this is as phonetic as it could be. For personal use I use ў for [w] but it's not as practical as в for "real world" transliterations.