Archive by Author
“Журавли”: Cranes Posted by yelena on Dec 11, 2010
Do you remember David, our guest blogger who wrote about letters of the Russian alphabet and also about why we say “двести“? Not surprisingly given his interest in Russian language he is also a member of a Russian “кружок” [club, lit: small circle]. At one of their recent meetings the club members discussed one of the most beautiful…
Make Every Single Word Count Posted by yelena on Dec 9, 2010
My aunt is visiting from Russia «через пару недель» [in just a couple of weeks] and I’m seriously contemplating asking her to bring me a pair of «валенки», the traditional Russian felt boots. «Зима!» [It’s winter!] «Подмораживает» [It’s getting frosty]. One of the beautiful things about Russian language is that you can build a…
“Котлета” – It is What Hamburger Always Wanted to Be Posted by yelena on Dec 2, 2010
Do you love Russian language? Of course or else why would you be reading this blog, right? Do you also love «готовить еду» [to cook] or «читать о еде» [to read about food]? Then «я настоятельно рекоммендую» [I strongly recommend] to immediately get a copy of a wonderful book called «Книга о вкусной и здоровой…
Russian Chemistry for Muggles Posted by yelena on Nov 30, 2010
It’s been a while since we had our last guest post, but today is the day! Our guest writer today is Rob whom many of you know from the comments on the posts and invaluable contributions to our Fanpage discussions. Rob is what we, in Russia, call «эрудит» [a polymath] aka «ходячая энциклопедия» [a walking encyclopedia]…
Reading “Мастер и Маргарита”: Chapter 19 Posted by yelena on Nov 25, 2010
For those of the blog readers who’ve taken up our challenge to read «Мастер и Маргарита» [Master and Margarita] «по-русски» [in Russian], congratulations! We are now officially done with «часть первая» [part one] of the novel and are moving on into a very exciting «часть вторая» [part two]. It is only here, in Chapter 19…
Russian Greetings are Fun Posted by yelena on Nov 19, 2010
You’ve all likely heard an expression “nature abhors vacuum”. You can translate it into Russian quite literally as «природа не терпит пустоты» or more figuratively as «свято место пусто не бывает» [lit: the holy place is never empty]. This last one is especially appropriate when talking about people. And so now we have a new…
Same-Same but Different IV: Paronyms Posted by yelena on Nov 17, 2010
Quick grammar check: what’s the right way of saying this – “Девушки одели платья в горошек” or “Девушки надели платья в горошек”? If you’re not sure, then read on. Sometimes I set out to write a post about one thing, but life gets in the way and I end up writing about something totally different…