Russian Geography Lesson 08 - тайга

FULL LESSON: http://www.ruskyed.com/GEO/geo08a.html TRANSCRIPT: -------------------- Rusky Ed here with a lesson about the largest biome in Russia. More on that topic following the intro song. In the meantime, take a look at the focus words for this lesson. хвойный (coniferous) тайга (taiga) Сибирь (Siberia) лес (forest) ягода (berry) биом (biome) First of all, the Russian word for biome is биом and as you may or may not know from taking biology courses there are many different biomes. BTW, another word for biome is ecosystem or экосистема (или экологи́ческая систе́ма) in Russian. It just so happens that the largest biome in Russia is known as taiga or тайга in Russian. Taiga covers roughly eighty percent of Russia. In fact, taiga is the world’s largest biome. Other biomes found in Russia include semidesert, deciduous forest, mountain steppe, tundra, mountain tundra, steppe, and mountain forest. тайга (taiga) - also known as boreal forest or snowforest, is a biome consisting mainly of coniferous forests. (That’s хвойные леса plural or хвойный лес in the singular form.) Trees likely to grow in a taiga biome include: пихта - fir лиственница - larch ель - spruce, fir-tree ёлка - spruce, Christmas tree кедр - cedar Other plants likely to be encountered in the Russian taiga include: жимолость - honeysuckle земляника - wild strawberry брусница - cranberry, lingonberry черника - blueberry, bilberry смородина - currant It should be noted that Siberia (Сибирь) is mostly taiga and Siberia is basically the eastern portion of Russia or everything east of the Ural Range. And now for a couple sentences utilizing the focus words: Лиственница это хвойное дерево, ежегодно сбрасывающее хвою. (Larches are conifers, annually shedding their needles.) Много съедобных ягод растёт в тайге. (Many edible berries grow in the taiga.) Now let’s take a look at a few review words: лиственный - deciduous листва - foliage осень - fall, autumn корень - root проникать - to penetrate почва - soil And now for a couple sentences utilizing the review words: Лиственные деревья сбрасывают листву каждую осень. (Deciduous trees shed their foliage each autumn.) Корни проникают глубоко в почву. (The roots penetrate deep into the soil.)