Archive for June, 2018
Bob’s Your Uncle, or Using Kinship Terms for Strangers in Russian Posted by Maria on Jun 21, 2018
Did you know that some words normally reserved for family members can be used in Russian to refer to people you are not related to? This post will look at some of the situations when this may happen. Тётя The primary sense of тётя is “aunt.” This word may also refer to any adult or…
5 Words You Hear in Informal Russian Conversations Posted by Maria on Jun 14, 2018
If you’ve listened to a speaker of Russian in an informal conversation, you know that there are a few words they say over and over again. Some are fillers, meant to give the speaker some time to come up with what to say. Others mark logical connections in a conversation or express the speaker’s attitudes…
Advice for First-Time Travelers to Russia by Arie Helderman Posted by Maria on Jun 11, 2018
This post is the second in a series of first-hand accounts and tips from people who have traveled to Russia. Check out previous posts in this series here! Our second guest author is Arie Helderman, a freelance copywriter from the Netherlands. He runs his own site about learning Russian at learntherussianlanguage.com. The rest of this post…
Command Forms Beyond the Imperative in Russian Posted by Maria on Jun 7, 2018
You may know the imperative mood as one way of making requests or giving commands in Russian, but there are other, less common, ways you may come across. Read on to learn how to recognize and use them. Imperative Mood — Повелительное наклонение The most common way is, of course, the imperative mood. The forms…