Dialogue: First Day at Work

A first day in a Russian office compresses several grammar points into a few polite sentences. In the space of three turns you have to introduce yourself, register a colleague's name and patronymic (the backbone of polite address at work), and either give or receive an offer of help. The exchange below is exactly what a new colleague and an established one say to each other — short, warm, and entirely in the вы register. Read it through first, then work through the line-by-line commentary; each line carries one workhorse construction you will reuse in every workplace conversation.

The dialogue

Line by line

— Здра́вствуйте, меня́ зову́т А́нна, я ваш но́вый колле́га.

Three things happen in one breath. First the formal greeting здра́вствуйте sets the register: it is the вы-form (the ты-form is здра́вствуй), and choosing it tells the room you are being polite with everyone — appropriate on a first day with people you have not met. (Remember the first -в- is silent: say it as здра́с-tvuy-tye.)

Then comes the name formula меня́ зову́т А́нна. This is not built like "my name is" at all. Word for word it is "(they) call me Anna":

• зову́т is the 3rd-person plural of звать ("to call") — an impersonal "they call / one calls", with no stated subject.
• меня́ is the accusative of я ("me") — the person being called is the object of the verb.
• А́нна simply tags along in the nominative as the name they call her.

Finally я ваш но́вый колле́га ("I'm your new colleague"). Two features stand out. There is no word for "am" — Russian has no present-tense copula, so the subject я sits straight against the predicate. And the possessive is ваш (the вы-form of "your"), agreeing with the masculine noun колле́га. Note the trap: колле́га ("colleague") ends in -а like a feminine noun, but it is common gender — it takes whatever gender the actual person is. Here Anna is female, yet колле́га still pairs with the masculine adjective но́вый and masculine ваш, because the noun's grammatical class, not the speaker's sex, drives the agreement of these forms. Russians treat колле́га as masculine by default unless context forces otherwise.

— О́чень прия́тно! Я Серге́й Петро́вич.

О́чень прия́тно is the fixed reply on being introduced — literally "very pleasant / very pleasing", i.e. "(it's) very nice (to meet you)". There is no verb, no "it is", no "to meet you": the phrase is a self-contained formula. You will also hear the fuller О́чень прия́тно познако́миться ("very nice to get acquainted"), but bare О́чень прия́тно is the everyday default.

Then the colleague gives his name as Серге́й Петро́вич — and this is the cultural heart of the page. He does not give a surname; he gives his first name plus patronymic. The patronymic Петро́вич means "son of Pyotr (Peter)": it is formed from the father's name plus the suffix -ович / -евич for men (and -овна / -евна for women — a woman would be Серге́евна, Петро́вна, etc.). The first name + patronymic combination is the standard respectful way to address and refer to colleagues, especially older ones, bosses, teachers, and officials. It is warmer than a surname but far more polite than the bare first name. Once Anna knows he is Серге́й Петро́вич, that is exactly what she should call him.

— Е́сли бу́дут вопро́сы, обраща́йтесь.

This is the most grammatically loaded line, and the one English speakers most often get wrong. The opening Е́сли бу́дут вопро́сы means "If (there) are questions" — but look closely at the verb. English uses the present ("if you have questions"); Russian uses the future. бу́дут is the 3rd-person plural of быть in the future ("(they) will be"), and вопро́сы ("questions") is its subject. The literal sense is "if there will be questions". This is a firm rule: in a real е́сли-clause about the future, Russian puts the verb in the future, because the questions have not arisen yet — they belong to a time still to come.

Then the offer itself: обраща́йтесь — "feel free to ask / get in touch / come to me". This is a single-word imperative, and it is reflexive: the verb обраща́ться ("to turn to someone, to address oneself to") ends in -ся / -сь, here surfacing as -тесь in the polite plural imperative. The reflexive ending is why it means "turn yourself to (me)" rather than simply "turn (something)". The imperfective aspect (обраща́ться, not perfective обрати́ться) is deliberate: it issues an open, standing invitation — "any time, as often as you like" — which is exactly the tone an established colleague wants. A perfective imperative there would sound like a one-off instruction rather than a friendly open door.

— Спаси́бо большо́е, обяза́тельно.

Anna closes with спаси́бо большо́е ("thank you very much" — note the neuter adjective большо́е agreeing with the indeclinable-feeling спаси́бо, which is treated as neuter) and обяза́тельно ("definitely / without fail"). Обяза́тельно here works as a one-word promise — "I certainly will (come to you with questions)" — with the rest of the sentence left unsaid because the offer it answers is fresh in both minds. This kind of elliptical reply, where a single adverb carries a whole response, is very natural in spoken Russian.

Why вы all the way through

Both speakers stay on вы (and its forms ваш, вас, the -тесь / -те imperatives) from start to finish. This is correct and expected: colleagues meeting for the first time — and most coworkers indefinitely, unless they are the same age and quickly get friendly — use вы. Switching to ты on a first day, especially with a senior colleague who introduced himself by name and patronymic, would read as presumptuous. The patronymic and the вы-register reinforce each other: together they say "I respect the distance between us." See navigating ты and вы for when and how coworkers eventually move to ты.

Vocabulary gloss

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Меня́ зову́т X = "my name is X", literally "(they) call me X": impersonal 3rd-plural зову́т
  • accusative person + the name.
• Zero copula: Я ваш но́вый колле́га — no "am". The possessive ваш and adjective но́вый agree with колле́га, which is grammatically masculine despite its -а ending.
• Name + patronymic (Серге́й Петро́вич) is the standard polite address at work; use it once you hear it.
• Future in the е́сли-clause: Russian says Е́сли бу́дут вопро́сы ("if there will be questions"), not the English present "if you have questions".
• обраща́йтесь is the reflexive вы-imperative (-те + -сь) of обраща́ться; the imperfective makes it an open, standing offer to ask any time.
• Stay on вы with new colleagues; the patronymic and the вы-register together signal respect.