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[kittydesade]

The Russian verbs for begin, end, open, and close have both nonreflexive and reflexive forms. The reflexive forms end in the reflexive particle -

Use the nonreflexive form when an animate being is the grammatical subject.

Ваня начинает работу. Vanya begins work.
Ваня открывает книгу. Vanya opens the book.
Ваня закрывает книну. Vanya closes the book.

Use the reflexive form (with ) when something inanimate is the grammatical subject.

Работа начинается в 9 часов. Work begins at 9 o'clock.
Работа кончается в 5 часов. Work ends at 5 o'clock.
Библиотека открывается в 9 часов. The library opens at 9 o'clock.
Библиотека закрывается в 7 часов. The library closes at 7 o'clock.

The verb кончаться/кончиться to come to a conclusion is rarely used without the particle in contemporary spoken Russian. Use the verb заканчивать/закончить in reference to someone finishing an activity.

Работа кончается в 6 часов. Work ends at 6 o'clock.
Я заканчиваю работать в 6 часов. I finish work(ing) at 6 o'clock.
Работа начнётся в 10 часов. Work will begin at 10 o'clock.
Я начну работать в 10 часов. I will begin work(ing) at 10 o'clock.

открываю, открываешь, открывает(ся), открываем, открываете, открывают(ся)
открою, откроешь, откроет(ся), откроем, откроете, откроют(ся)
закрываю, закрываешь, закрывает(ся), закрываем, закрываете, закрывают(ся)
закрою, закроешь, закроет(ся), закроем,закроете, закроют(ся)
начинаю, начинаешь, начинает(ся), начинаем, начинаете, начинают(ся)
начну, начнёшь, начнёт(ся), начнём, начнёте, начнут(ся). начался, началось, началась, начались.
кончается, кончаются, кончится, кончатся.
заканчиваю, заканчиваешь, заканчивает, заканчиваем, заканчиваете, заканчивают
закончу, закончишь, закончит, закончим, закончите, закончат.


Okay, seriously, what other minor yet irritating thing can go wrong today? A sewer or water or parallel and both pipe burst, which means now we have muddy water till they flush all the pipes. It got fixed, but still, muddy, stinky water. I did finally find the damn camera, because of course the end result of cleaning the apartment is that you forget where you'd put everything when it was messy. Gchat keeps connecting me, which isn't aggravating except that I wanted to glee over these principles being instinctive. English might not have reflexive verbs, but Spanish damn well does.

... I shouldn't have said that. Gimp keeps crashing while I try to size the picture down to something that isn't "impression of the notebook two inches from your face."

Sigh. Maybe things will improve by the time I get to work. Trying to think of what else I have to do before I run off is resulting in my brain going scrambled. There. Photobukkit might still resize it, but that's a little better.

Um. Hm. Things. I think I figured out one story to submit. The Middle East and North Africa seems to still be ... My first instinct is to use the phrase blowing up and that just sounds like a really bad word choice, and yet in some ways it's not untrue. Boiling over, we'll call it. In many, many places. Oh damn, now I remembered what I wanted to do before work, copy over my vocabulary. Well, I'll do that real quick. And then figure out what the hell else I'm going to do. Oi, this morning has not gone as planned at all.

On the plus side, the boy got me two Valentine's Day eggs last night. Because he's awesome like that, and I was cooking dinner.

... On the minus side, DragCave's swallowed its head again. Dammit. Minor annoyances! Again!