How to say "you" in Russian

In Russian, there are two different ways of saying "you", a formal and an informal way. There are no specific rules about when to use each, but in general we could say the following:

• Formal "you": used with older people and people we don't know well.
• Informal "you": used with relatives, children and close friends.

You will only need to learn two forms: ты and вы. The first one (ты) is only used for informal address in singular. For any other case вы is used:

In the dialogues you have seen examples of formal and informal situations. During the course you will see many more examples.

Also, pay attention to the verbs. The endings for ты and вы are easy to recognise:

The verbs in the present tense

During these three lessons you have learnt the personal pronouns in Russian (I, you, he, we,...). You only need to learn how to say "they": они́ (pronounced "a-ni").

Here you have the whole conjugation of the verb говорить in the present tense. Listen to the audio and pay attention to the pronunciation:

• Говори́ть
• Я говорю́
• Ты говори́шь
• Он говори́т
• Мы говори́м
• Вы говори́те
• Они говоря́т

In future lessons you will learn new verbs.

How to form questions in Russian

If you want to ask a question in Russian, you only need to use a question mark and change the intonation. This means:

• You do not need to change the position of the verb.
• You do not need to use an auxiliary verb like "do" in English.