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it starts
-ся (-сь after vowels) marks a reflexive verb. It’s somewhat like himself/herself/itself (though it usually would be awkward to include those words in a translation).
“Работа начинается”, “Work (itself) starts”, or maybe “Work starts (itself).” Compare to “Он начинает работать”, “He begins to work.”
I assume it originated as a contraction of “себя” which is the accusative of “сам” which basically means “self”.
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That’s a peculiarity of the Russian language.
When you speak about things you always need the reflexive verb form начинаться.
Концерт начинается в 20 часов. – The concert starts at 8 p.m.
Песня начинается словами … The song starts with the words …
Фильм начинается со следующей сцены … The film starts with the following scene …
Such a Germanic language as Sweedish has also something similar.