Russian Language Blog

Some approaches to learning a language, such as the communicative method, encourage teachers and students to only use the target language in the classroom. What do you do if you don’t understand what was just said or lack the vocabulary to ask the other person to repeat or explain? This post will equip you with…

Russian is a Slavic language that has shares its origins with such languages as Ukrainian or Belorussian and, earlier, Polish or Bulgarian. Most of its vocabulary comes from this common Slavic “stock.” However, a few words in Russian have Turkic origins. They probably entered Russian from the Turkic languages (the group that includes Turkish, Tatar…

How do you say “natural” in Russian? The answer depends on what you are talking about. This post will look at the different ways of referring to organic things and when each of them is appropriate. For the sake of variety, I will be listing the feminine forms of the adjectives in this entry. Есте́ственная…

Are you looking for someone to follow on social media? We have already covered popular Telegram channels, and today’s post will look at four popular Instagram accounts in Russian. Olga Buzova Olga Buzova (О́льга Бу́зова; buzova86) is a Russian socialite who I would say is famous for being famous. 🙂 She started her career as…

The Levada pollster recently published the results of a survey that asked what Russians liked doing in their free time. It turned out that more “highbrow” activities like reading fiction or going to the theatre are losing popularity, while watching TV shows has picked up. The survey (опрос) included over 1,600 adults in 50 constituent…

In Part I of this post, we looked at some concepts that come up in the Russian media to talk about the government and society. Today, we’ll look at three additional words that you will often see in Russian-language sources. 3. О́бщество О́бщество translates as “society.” You can see this word in such combinations as…

If you read news stories in Russian, there are certain words that pop up again and again. Understanding these key concepts will help you grasp the writer’s and audience’s assumptions and the overall angle of the article. This post will cover the first two, and Part II will cover the rest. 1. Власть Власть corresponds…