Russian Classes: Express your emotions in Russian

Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Art Center, Victoria Chyornaya

Привет!

Let’s enjoy masterpieces from Russian artists and learn some grammar!
The first painting is ‘Алёнушка’ (‘Alenushka’) by Victor Vasnetsov, the second is ‘Демон сидящий’ (‘The Demon Seated’) by Mikhail Vrubel, the third is ‘В деревне. Баба с лошадью’ (‘In a Village. Peasant Woman with a Horse’) by Valentin Serov, and the final one is ‘Медведь’ (‘Bear’) by Wassily Kandinsky.
Not all of these paintings are famous, but I’m sure you know the artists!

Grammar!

When we talk about emotional states in English, we use the construction “I am + adjective”. In Russian, it’s even easier: you only need two words! However, the pronoun should be in the dative case.

Examples:

• Мне интересно.
  I’m interested.
• Тебе удобно?
  Are you comfortable?

The thing is, we, Russians, love to use impersonal sentences when describing our emotional or physical state. Impersonal sentences don’t have a grammatical subject and can be literally translated as: “It’s interesting to me.”

CAUTION: Not every state can be expressed in this way. For example, in order to say “I’m tired”, we use the pronoun in the nominative case together with a verb: “Я устал.”

Check out more lessons in our Telegram channel, using the tag #russianclasses!

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