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Tag Archives: Russian conjunctions

Are conjunctions necessary? Part II Posted by on Apr 5, 2021

bridge

We’ve talked about Russian sentences without conjunctions before, but we’ve yet to discuss my favorite Russian punctuation sign “тире́” (dash) and its role in these бессою́зных предложе́ниях (sentences without conjunctions). There are six instances where you can use “тире́” (dash; typed as an m-dash sign) in place of a conjunction. I’ll provide examples for each…

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Are conjunctions necessary? Posted by on Mar 23, 2021

keyboard_connect

Если… а… но… Three perhaps most commonly used сою́зов в ру́сском языке́ (conjunctions in Russian), aside from “и”, and exactly how much I got to say as a kid when trying to convince my parents to get me дома́шнего пито́мца (a pet). It usually went like this: Since then, some things stayed the same – my parents…

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5 Ways To Say “Because” in Russian Posted by on Mar 21, 2018

jenga

Linking words are one of the things that help you express your thoughts coherently in a new language. This post will look at some of the common conjunctions (союзы) that express causality in Russian. Потому что This may be the best known transition word in Russian. Потому что is a neutral way of saying because…

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Contrast in Russian: What’s The Difference Between А (And/But) And Но (But)? Posted by on Jul 25, 2017

man wearing one blue shoe and one yellow shoe

If your native language only has the basic “and” vs “but” distinction, Russian conjunctions а and но may be a bit confusing. How do you use them, and what’s the difference? I will explain the difference on an intuitive level below and will include links to additional resources at the bottom. Но: Contrasting the Entire…

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One After Another: Past Temporal Clauses in Russian Posted by on May 2, 2016

vintage alarm clock

In this post, we will look at the ways you can introduce temporal clauses in Russian. We will concentrate on past verb forms. Translations are used to illustrate the meaning of the Russian phrases and may not reflect your local dialect of English. Previous Events If we want to describe one action that happened before…

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Basic Russian: Uses of Что Posted by on Aug 31, 2015

We have been asked by one of our readers to explain the uses of что. This seemingly simple word has several applications. We will go over the most common uses of this word. Forms The primary meaning of что is “what.” Dictionaries will tell you that it is technically a местоименное существительное, a “pronominal noun.”…

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The Return of «ибо»! Posted by on Feb 2, 2010

When in Moscow it is a rule to go for a stroll «на Красной площади» [on the Red Square], «ибо это делают все» [because everybody does that] «и туристы, и провинциалы» [both tourists and people from the provinces]. «Провинциал» means ‘provincial, backwoodsman; unsophisticated person’. The female version of the word is «провинциалка». When I first…

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