Archive for August, 2013
Day of Rest and Volunteering Posted by yelena on Aug 29, 2013
In Russia, calendar week starts в понедельник (on Monday). So вторник (Tuesday) is the second day of the week. Can you guess what day of the week is субботник? Ok, so that was a trick question. Субботник is not a day of the week, but a concept. Суббота (Saturday) is the sixth day of the…
How to Say “I am Single” in Russian Posted by yelena on Aug 28, 2013
Superstitious Russian young ladies know that May is the worst month to tie the knot. As the saying goes, в мае выйти замуж – век маяться (to get married in May is to throw life away). Which sounds like a perfect excuse for single men to stay холостой just a bit longer. And the adjective…
Learn Russian and Stay Positive Posted by yelena on Aug 22, 2013
Learning Russian is not an easy task and it’s important to stay positive while tackling numerous grammar rules and even more numerous exceptions to them. So today’s word is позитив. While the word is a direct transfer from English into Russian, there are a few important differences to keep in mind. First, the stress in…
Ugly Word You Need to Know Posted by yelena on Aug 20, 2013
To learn lots of Russian words quickly, it’s critical to understand how they are built. And to better understand how Russian words are built and how they change, it is important to learn some most common Russian prefixes and suffixes. For example, today’s word is безобразие. It is built with the prefix без- or бес-…
Russian Phrase of the Day – Bells and Whistles Posted by yelena on Aug 16, 2013
Let’s try to switch gears a bit. Some of you have recently asked for advice on moving to the next level of fluency in Russian as well as for tips on building словарный запас (vocabulary). So I decided to experiment a bit here, on the blog. Yes, we do have the Word of the Day…