Università Roma Tre

The course is aimed at deepening the lexico-grammatical and semantic foundations of Russian. It will focus on the following topics: the semantic functions of cases; pronouns (possessive, indefinite, negative); adjectives (comparative and superlative degrees); numerals (dates, time expressions); impersonal constructions with the dative case; modal expressions; verbs of position; prefixed verbs of motion; the use and functions of aspect in the imperative; conditional. Basic notions regarding the syntax of complex sentence will also be provided (temporal, causal, final, concessive, and hypothetical clauses; direct and indirect speech).

Course manual:
N. Nikitina, Grammatica d’uso della lingua russa. Teoria ed esercizi. Livello A2, Milano, Hoepli, 2018.

Course materials downloadable from the Moodle page and the course Team.

The course provides the theoretical foundations and practical tools necessary for an initial methodological approach to translation between Russian and Italian and vice versa. It focuses on the use of bilingual and monolingual dictionaries, online resources, and basic specialized reference materials. The selected texts—drawn from a range of stylistic domains (advertising, expository-popular, literary, audiovisual)—will also be analyzed in a workshop-based format, with particular attention to the specific features of the Italian and Russian linguistic systems from a contrastive perspective.

Reading, morphological and syntactic analysis of texts, as well as metalinguistic reflection prompted by the comparison between the two languages, will enable students to develop advanced operational skills and a deeper awareness of translation-related challenges. The comparative approach will adopt a perspective oriented toward linguistic and cultural mediation, highlighting similar or divergent phenomena between the two languages, and delving into cases where translation proves particularly complex.

Assessment will be carried out through written and oral exercises, as well as workshops conducted on digital platforms (Moodle), where students will participate in peer review and evaluation activities. These tasks will foster the consolidation of organizational skills, the autonomous and collaborative management of the translation process, and critical engagement with different approaches and solutions.

By the end of the course, students will be able to understand and translate texts by grasping their essential information, apply basic lexicographical tools in a conscious manner, and methodically address the main challenges of interlinguistic and intercultural transfer.

N. Nikitina, Grammatica d’uso della lingua russa. Teoria ed esercizi. Livello A2, Milano, Hoepli, 2018.
Materials downloadable from the Moodle page and from the course Team.

Dictionaries:

Bilingual - V. Kovalev, Il Kovalev. Dizionario Russo-Italiano Italiano-Russo. Quinta edizione. 126 000 voci, 220 000 significati, Bologna, Zanichelli, 2020.
Monolingual - S.I. Ožegov, Tolkovyj slovar’ russkogo jazyka. 100 000 slov, terminov i vyrazhenij. Novoe izdanie, Moskva, Mir i obrazovanie, 2021. Disponibile online all’indirizzo: https://slovarozhegova.ru/

Non-attending students and native speakers: A. Timberlake, A Reference Grammar of Russian, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004 (chap. 5, 6, 7).