Learn REAL Russian with Aleksey Kvashonkin

I have watched and still watch a lot of Russian comedy and I think it's great for my Russian skills. The annoying part is that you need like a pretty good level before you can understand Russian comedy, especially since often there are no subs. So in this video, I wanted to just take a short clip from Alexey Koshchunkin and analyze the clip, his joke, and what he's saying and how you can apply this to your speech. So let's get started. Let's go! Yeah, my daughter made me think. So the interesting part here is that the first thing that came to my mind is that in English, if you were to say like daughter made me think, you would have to say my daughter made me think. But in Russian, you don't. You can just say дочка заставила думаться because it's implied that it's like my daughter because who else's daughter could it be if you're saying something like this. Just like if I were to say мама говорила мне, it's implied that my mom was speaking to me. So the next thing here is that задуматься is a pretty tough word and I wouldn't recommend you use it. But if you look closely into it, it's like задуматься, думать is in there. And most people learning Russian know the word думать, which is to think. And задуматься is more like to think deeply. And here I'd say that if you were to say this phrase, it's fine if you say дадочка заставила думать. You don't need to like add prefixes to make like simple verbs like more difficult. That's at a more advanced level. Знаете, она вроде мелкая. Here it's interesting that a word that I recommend you use, for example, if you're talking to people and you kind of need some time to collect your thoughts, you can just say знаете. Which means like you know. Or if you're just speaking to one person, you can say знаешь. This is similar to you know in English and it just buys you time to think about what you want to say next. Then we got она мелкая. Мелкая is kind of like a more emphatic version of маленькая. I recommend if you want to say it, just use маленькая, which means small. Мелкая is more like a little bit like small with more emphatic meaning behind it. And interesting in Russian as well, most people know there's that. But you can say like она мелкая, like she is small. And the is part is omitted, so you don't need to use is in Russian. Вроде is an interesting word that you can use because вроде means like kind of like qualifies. Like seems like she's kind of. And this is an interesting word if you want to say something that is specifically like she is small, but she's kind of small. And it's fine to use it, though more intermediate word, I'd say. Вопросы у нее пиздец. Well, first of all, do not use the word пиздец because it's a bad word. Then interesting вопрос is like questions. And in Russian, there's basically two ways to say her questions. You can say ее вопросы, which is like literally her questions. Or вопросы у нее. It's like the questions by her, with her. And in general, I'd say I recommend you use just the ее вопросы because it's a bit easier. It just makes it easier. Вопросы у нее is more like the questions with her. But if you say ее вопросы, it indicates more ownership of it. Again, this is more intermediate. Don't worry about this if you're in the beginning stages. Как будто дьявол с тобой разговаривает. Now, this как будто means like as if. And I really like using it in my speech because you can kind of say something. Like make a little bit of a metaphor in there. Как будто. Then we've got дьявол, which is a cognate. And cognates are great because cognates help you understand so much work. But дьявол and девол, it's basically the same. You can learn lots of words by learning more cognates. Then we have с тобой, it's like with you. And then we have разговаривает, which means like to have a chat, have a conversation. But in general, it's a little bit more advanced. And if you're learning Russian, I recommend you to say как будто дьявол с тобой говорит. Говорит, you probably know, which is to speak. And it's a little bit less like super expressible, but it still basically says the same thing. Выходишь из гостей. Here it's interesting that first he's like addressing the public by saying знаете, as in like plural. And now he uses выходишь, which means like just singular. It's probably more just a matter of speaking. Выходишь is like you're leaving. Из гостей is like from guests. It implies leaving from the guest's place. And yeah, из always uses the genitive case. So гость will be nominative and гостей is like the plural genitive case. It's not very... Выходить is a good word to say like when you're leaving. Всё, Саша, собирайся. Всё means everything, but it can also mean like that's it or all right. And especially in something like this, like всё, Саша, собирайся. Like, all right, that's it. Let's go. What can you say after? Саша is interesting. Probably his daughter's name is Александра. And Александра, the short name of that becomes Саша. And this is an interesting part because if a man is called Александр, then his short name is also Саша. So Саша can be said to a man and a woman. It's like the shorter form of their name. All right, then собирайся. The verb собирать is to gather. And собирать is like gather as an imperative. And if you say отсеять to the end, it makes it reflexive. So you add yourself to the translation. So собирайся is to gather yourself, to get ready, gather yourself. So, Саша, собирайся. Поехали домой. Now, these two words are super, super, super common. And I recommend you know them and you can use them often. First, the interesting part is that поехали literally means, it's like the past tense of поехать. So it's like the past tense of... So it means we have gone. But in colloquial Russian, it's always being used as let's go. But only if you're going by transfer. So by car, by public transport, by plane. If you walk somewhere, you always say пошли. Пошли comes from пойти. And it means like let's go walk somewhere. Then we have домой. And домой just means to home. In terms of the case system, it's a bit of an exception. But домой just means to home. Зачем? Now, this is something where lots of Russian learners struggle. Because there's two words that kind of mean like why or what for. And with почему. And I also occasionally just mess them up. Почему means why. And зачем means like what for. So in general, if you ask почему, it more means like general reason why something is happening, why. But if you say зачем, it's more about the real purpose behind someone's actions. So for example, if you ask like why are you crying? Почему ты плачешь? It means like what's the reason why you're crying? Like why are you crying? What happened? But if you ask зачем? Зачем ты плачешь? It's more like what's the purpose? Why are you crying? What are you trying to achieve by crying? So this is interesting. In general, if you're unsure, I would recommend you use почему. Because почему is more often correct than зачем. Сначала даже не понимаешь, что произошло. Here are some good words. I recommend you not say блядь. Because again, it's an offensive word. But the other words are very useful. Сначала means like at first. So if you want to say something like first I did that. Then we have даже. And every time in English you say like even, then I don't even understand. Я даже не понимаю. I don't even want it. Я даже это не хочу. Даже is very useful. And again, it adds a little bit more of a colloquial thing to it. Instead of just like robotic Russian like you might learn in a textbook. And I really like using stuff like даже. That's a little bit of spice to your speech. Не понимаешь is like you don't understand. Что началось means like what has started. And then he adds блядь because he wants to add this explicative to it to make it hit harder. Что началось is just a phrase you can use like what has started. It's not super common, but начаться is good to know. Ты просто такой радостный. Here are a couple of good words. First, просто is kind of like даже. It means just or simply. And if I analyze my speech in Russian, I say просто all the time because it just adds like it's a little bit of a colloquial thing. As in I could say like я говорю по-русски. I speak Russian. Я просто говорю по-русски. I'm speaking Russian. It adds like this friendly vibe to it. At least that's what I feel. And I think it's kind of fun to say that. Then we have такой радостный. And такой is useful because you can use it in front of adjectives in order to make it so. If you say я такой радостный, you say like I'm so happy or such. And if you want to say like it's such a big house, you can say это такой большой дом. Or if you want to say the girl is so small, девушка такая маленькая. So такое is like something you can add in front of adjectives to just, again, add something to make it bigger to improve the strength of the adjective. Okay, then we continue. Типа, ну как? Как? Зачем? Like, well, how? How? What for? Just some questions here that I'm just throwing out there. Типа is like. And in English, some people might be might be complaining about that. English people tend to say like, like, like, like all the time. So I went like there. In Russian, типа is being used less. Don't use it all the time. But if you occasionally say like типа, then it's fine. Ну is another fun word. It's like a small word that doesn't really... Well, you can use it again to buy some time. Как is like the question word. Как? Зачем? Нас там с тобой ждет мама. But in Russian, you cannot say that. You need to specify whom exactly. So in that case, you need to say... Or often, it's more... It's better to specify who exactly. So say Нас с тобой. So in English, this would be She's waiting for us with you there. Нас там с тобой ждет мама. And this is just something... It's kind of odd. And I always think like... I regularly forget it because in Dutch just like in English, we don't have that, but it's more correct to say нас с тобой. If you make a mistake here, no problems, but that's more correct Russian. Зачем? Like, what's the reason? What's the reason behind why mom is waiting for for them there? Ну как? В смысле? Well, how? В смысле? Смысл means sense or meaning, so it's like в смысле, it's like prepositional case, it's like in the meaning of Мы же с тобой с ней живем. Here we have twice, like we with you are living with her. The word order messes it up a little bit, but it's better to be Мы же с тобой живем с ней. We with you are living with her. Just that in Russian comedy, since Russian is a flexible word order, they tend to put more like the punch line of the phrase more towards the end because the Russian grammar allows that, and that's part of what I like about Russian comedy, because the structure of the language makes it so that the punch line comes at the end, so it packs a bigger punch. Again, it's like where we said us with you, but the same thing, it's like we are doing, we are living, we with you are living, and then it's like with her. Oh, there's an interesting part. This же doesn't really have a translation, but it makes it more like add some emotional strength to the sentence. If we were to say мы с тобой с ней живем, it's like we with you are living with her, but if you say мы же с тобой с ней живем, it's more like we're living with her. It just adds some emotional punch, and I like adding it to my own speech, and you can do it as well if you try to say something more emotional. Зачем? Again, she's asking like, so what's the purpose behind us living with her? Ну, погоди, в смысле? Погоди is like a more older way of saying wait. Usually, you'd say подожди, but погоди is, there's an old Russian cartoon, it's just like ну, погоди, and I don't really recommend using погоди as in saying wait, but if you say it, then people are like, wait, are you saying ну, погоди, as if you're more in on Russian culture. So it's fun to say that instead of ну, подожди. В смысле, again, like in the meaning of... Ну, как? Ну, я же. Well, how? Well, I... же is the same as же before, like adding this emotional thing, and now here it comes. Я же на ней женился. Я женился на ней means I married her. And this is something that can only be said for men, like a woman would say, она вышла замуж. But as a man, you жениться на ней. And yeah, here, of course, it means that. Of course, what's going to come next? His daughter, of course, is going to ask. So зачем? What's the purpose? What's the reason why you married her? All right, so I hope you enjoyed me analyzing this short comedy skit, because I think it's funny. And also, you can check all the literal word translations, you can check them in the description, because that way you can puzzle more kind of like together, re-watch it, see if you understand kind of how it goes. And if you have any ideas on how to make these types of... Tell me in the comments whether you liked this video, like this type of stuff, because I can make more of it, or whether you've got some tips on how to improve this format.