Archive for May, 2016
Birds’ Rights And Other Animal Idioms in Russian Posted by Maria on May 30, 2016
There are a few idioms referring to animals in Russian. These idioms are used in colloquial speech and expressive writing to get the idea across vividly. На птичьих правах Права is, of course, “rights” (singular право). Птичий comes from птица, bird, and means “bird’s.” На птичьих правах means “without a lawful status or claim to…
Top Business Concepts in Russian Posted by Maria on May 19, 2016
We have covered some business phrases on this blog before. This time, let’s concentrate on key business concepts and learn to talk about them in Russian. Property First of all, we need to talk about property (собственность). Private property (частная собственность) is thought to be an important condition for entrepreneurship (предпринимательство). Property may include недвижимое имущество (or…
Ten Must-Know Introductory Phrases in Russian — Part II Posted by Maria on May 9, 2016
We are continuing from last week’s post about introductory phrases in Russian. These phrases help you bring ideas together in your writing and speaking. Make sure you read the first part for the first five phrases. 6. Кро́ме того́ Кроме того introduces additional information, akin to “besides.” Эта маши́на сли́шком дорога́я. Кроме того́, нам не́где ее…
Ten Must-Know Introductory Phrases in Russian — Part I Posted by Maria on May 5, 2016
Please see Part II here. A comment to a recent post asked me to cover some introductory phrases in Russian. These small words are ubiquitous, especially in argumentative writing like news articles, and they link the ideas in a text to help the reader follow the writer’s logic. In most cases, introductory words (вво́дные слова́)…
One After Another: Past Temporal Clauses in Russian Posted by Maria on May 2, 2016
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…