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To discuss sleep cycles, late-night observations, and patient demographics in a research lab, this lesson teaches how to express approximate times and ages.

### Approximating Age (под + Accusative)

In Russian, you use the Dative case to state someone's age (for example, **пациенту шестьдесят** — the patient is sixty). 

To say that someone is *approaching* or *nearing* a certain age, add the preposition **под** before the number. The number itself is in the Accusative case (which, for numbers ending in zero, looks identical to the Nominative case).

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### Approximating Time of Day

You can also use **под** + Accusative to mean "towards" or "approaching" a specific time of day, such as **утро** (morning), **вечер** (evening), or **ночь** (night). This is very useful when describing long experiments or overnight shifts.

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### Inside the Sleep Lab: Recording and Interrupting

Monitoring sleep involves specialized vocabulary. Key action verbs include **фиксировать / зафиксировать** (to record, to track) and **прерывать / прервать** (to interrupt). 

You will also use important nouns to describe what is happening to the patient, such as **фаза** (phase), **цикл** (cycle), **длительность** (duration), **пробуждение** (awakening), and **отклонение** (deviation/anomaly).

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### Bringing it Together

When running overnight observations, you will often need to combine these scientific terms with time approximations to report exactly when an event or anomaly occurred.

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Approximating time and age (под)

adjective

adverb

conjunction

determiner

interjection

noun

numeral

particle

predicative

preposition

pronoun

sentence

verb

Presentative (это)

Noun gender

Soft-sign nouns (-ь)

Subject pronouns (я, ты, он...)

Yes/no questions (да / нет)

Basic interrogatives (кто / что)

Basic negation (не)

Coordinating conjunctions (и / а)

Possessive pronouns (мой, твой, наш, ваш)

Demonstrative pronouns (этот, эта, это)

Adjective agreement

Which and whose (какой, чей)

First conjugation verbs, singular (-ать)

First conjugation verbs, plural (-ать)

Second conjugation verbs (-ить)

Irregular present tense verbs

Adverbs of manner (как, очень)

Locations in prepositional case (в / на)

Prepositional case modifiers (-ом, -ой)

Topics of speech (о, об)

Direct objects (-у, -ю)

Direct object pronouns (меня, тебя)

Verbs of motion (идти, ехать)

Destination (куда, в, на)

Plural nouns (-ы, -и, -а, -я)

Irregular plural nouns (друзья, дети)

Plural adjectives and pronouns (-ые, -ие)

Numbers 1 to 10 (один, два, три)

Possession with pronouns (у меня есть)

Possession with nouns (-а, -я, -ы, -и)

Genitive of negation (нет)

Numbers 2, 3, and 4

Quantities with mass nouns (сколько, много, мало)

Animate direct objects

The past tense of to be (был, была, было, были)

Regular past tense verbs

Time sequence expressions (вчера, завтра, раньше, потом)

Verb aspect in the past tense

Dative personal pronouns (мне, тебе, ему)

Expressing likes (нравится, нравятся)

Absence (нет)

Expressing age (год, года, лет)

Indirect objects (-у, -ю, -е)

Modal verbs (хотеть, мочь)

Reason and contrast (поэтому, но)

Double negation (ничего, никогда)

Reflexive verbs (-ся, -сь)

Polite requests and instructions (-ите, -йте)

Days of the week (в + Accusative)

Compound future tense (буду...)

Simple future tense

Accompaniment (с)

Multidirectional verbs of motion (ходить, ездить)

Greetings and goodbyes (здравствуйте, привет)

Thank you and sorry (спасибо, извините)

Countries and languages (русский, английский)

Meeting people (меня зовут, как дела)

Public transport (трамвай, остановка)

Left, right and the compass (слева, справа)

Places in the city (цирк, зоопарк)

Fruit and vegetables (помидор, огурец)

Post and travel (открытка, чемодан)

Family and relatives (внук, родственник)

Jobs and professions (инженер, продавец)

Sport and games (футбол, теннис)

Describing people (умный, сильный)

Health and the body (болен, здоровье)

The months of the year (январь, февраль)

Accusative feminine and inanimate adjectives (-ую, -юю)

Accusative animate masculine adjectives (-ого, -его)

Short-form adjectives (готов, занят)

Personal obligation (должен, должна)

Professions in the instrumental case

Genitive singular adjectives and possessives

Prepositions of absence and purpose (без, для)

Dative singular adjectives and possessives

Impersonal states (мне холодно)

Impersonal obligation (надо, нужно)

Impersonal permission (можно / нельзя)

Instrumental adjectives and pronouns

Reciprocal verbs (с + Instrumental)

Reflexive possessive pronouns (свой)

Reflexive pronouns (себя)

Specific indefinite pronouns (-то)

Non-specific indefinite pronouns (-нибудь)

Negative pronouns (никто / ничто)

Numbers 11 to 20

Question	Answer
towards / nearing (approaching a time or age)	под
the observation	наблюдение
the phase	фаза
Towards morning, our observation showed a new sleep phase.	Под утро наше наблюдение показало новую фазу сна.
The patient is nearing sixty, and he sleeps very badly.	Пациенту под шестьдесят, и он очень плохо спит.
My grandfather is nearing eighty, but he sleeps well.	Моему дедушке под восемьдесят, но он хорошо спит.
to record, to track	фиксировать
the activity	активность
The sensor is recording high brain activity.	Датчик фиксирует высокую активность мозга.
to interrupt (an action or process)	прерывать
the cycle	цикл
Why does high activity interrupt the cycle?	Почему высокая активность прерывает цикл?
A loud noise usually interrupts the sleep cycle.	Громкий шум обычно прерывает цикл сна.
the duration	длительность
Towards evening, the cycle duration increased.	Под вечер длительность цикла увеличилась.
I was interested to read the research about sleep duration.	Мне было интересно прочитать исследование о длительности сна.
the awakening	пробуждение
The sensors constantly record every awakening.	Датчики постоянно фиксируют каждое пробуждение.
to interrupt (perf)	прервать
The awakening interrupted the deep sleep phase.	Пробуждение прервало глубокую фазу сна.
to record, to track (perf)	зафиксировать
the deviation, the anomaly	отклонение
We recorded a strange deviation.	Мы зафиксировали странное отклонение.
When we recorded the signal, my colleague interrupted the experiment.	Когда мы зафиксировали сигнал, мой коллега прервал эксперимент.
Towards morning, the professor became worried, as he noticed a deviation.	Под утро профессор заволновался, так как заметил отклонение.
Towards night we were scared, because the patient started screaming.	Под ночь нам было страшно, потому что пациент закричал.
Observation of the sleep cycle in the laboratory ends towards morning.	Наблюдение за циклом сна в лаборатории заканчивается под утро.