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Russian Phrases for Giving and Receiving Gifts Posted by yelena on Dec 7, 2012
Image Source: asenat29 via Flickr! It’s that time of the year for many of us to give and receive gifts. Whichever you like most, let’s learn the Russian gift-giving vocabulary just in time for the holidays. Since it’s so much fun to get gifts, let’s start with the verbs получать (imperfective: to get, to receive)…
Sweet Tooth and Sweet Table Posted by yelena on Dec 6, 2012
The New Year is не за горами (not far away). Have you put together your holiday menu? If not yet, then how about having сладкий (sweet) стол (table)? Don’t worry, you won’t need to perform miracles of confectionery mastery crafting a table out of sugar or covering your tabletop with ganache. What сладкий стол means is…
How to Tell Time in Russian Posted by yelena on Nov 29, 2012
Image source: wstryder via Flickr I always thought one of the most useless sections in my old English-Russian разговорник (phrase book) was the one that taught how to tell time. After all, years ago most of us wore часы (watches). But now that we rely on cell phones to tell the time, the topic once again becomes…
Shopping, Lines and Discounts Posted by yelena on Nov 23, 2012
Image Source: crd! via Flickr! Today is the Black Friday in the US or Чёрная пятница. If you prefer to save, not spend, then ignore распродажи (sales) and instead learn how to talk about шоппинг (shopping) in Russian. SHOPPING By the way, the word шоппинг is a new one in Russian language. How did we manage to describe the process of…
How to Count to a Billion in Russian Posted by yelena on Nov 15, 2012
Image source: Wikimedia Commons Do you know how to count to a million in Russian? Recently, we posted about counting до двадцати (to twenty) in Russian. And a while ago we talked about counting to 100. But суровая действительность (the harsh reality) dictates that we learn numbers well beyond the first сотня (hundred). Here’s why. Budgeting for…
Russian Phrases for a Road Trip Posted by yelena on Nov 9, 2012
Image Source: Flickr Summer, the official road trip season, is over. But the big holiday season не за горами (is just around the corner) meaning more поездки (road trips). Which is a great reason to learn words and phrases for the road. Of course, if you happen to go on a road trip in…
Russian Halloween – Reading the School of Horrors Posted by yelena on Nov 1, 2012
I wasn’t going to do a Halloween post this year. Instead, Rob was going to talk about Russian verbs that can come quite handy around Halloween time. But it looks like, thanks to Hurricane Sandy, Rob was left without electricity and Internet access and was not able to post yesterday. Hopefully him and his…