Archive by Author
Getting Through a Hurricane Posted by yelena on Oct 30, 2012
As I am writing this, much of the Восточное побережье США (East Coast of the USA) is getting through ураган “Сэнди” (hurricane Sandy). It is expected to be one of the worst шторм (storm) on record as it plows through крупные города (large cities) of the East Coast, including Вашингтон, Нью-Йорк и Филадельфия. It might…
Fall Clothes, Foul Weather Posted by yelena on Oct 23, 2012
It is definitely autumn now. The nights are finally довольно холодные (pretty cold) and the days are chilly too. And it is starting to rain more often. So it is time to put away летняя одежда (summer clothing) and get out… what? Well, it’s not quite cold enough for зимняя одежда (winter clothing) such as…
Presidential Debates in Russian Posted by yelena on Oct 18, 2012
First, a disclaimer is in order – this is NOT a post about politics, but about how to talk about politics. Of course, as the saying goes, приличные люди о политике не говорят (well-mannered people do not discuss politics). Then again, rules change. It used to be that разговоры о сексе (conversations about sex) were…
Watching a Movie – Falcon Posted by yelena on Oct 12, 2012
In my previous post about Georgia (and why we, the students of the Russian language and culture should care about Georgia), I promised that come weekend we’ll be watching a movie and gave you a few hints as to which one. The famous Georgian director, Георгий Данелия (Georgiy Danelia), directed and the famous Georgian…
More About Georgia Posted by yelena on Oct 9, 2012
While the recent парламентские выборы (Parliamentary elections) in Georgia are still fresh in our minds thanks to Natalie’s recent post, let’s talk some more about this country. But wait, Georgia is not Russia! Russian is not its official language. It seems that unless you are interested in geopolitics, Georgia is outside of the scope of…
Word-Wide Webs Posted by yelena on Oct 4, 2012
One of the challenges in learning Russian language is expanding your vocabulary. With over сто тридцать тысяч слов (one hundred and thirty thousand words) in the Russian language, figuring out where to start can be a bit frustrating. One option is to narrow it down to, let’s say, the 1000 most commonly used words and memorize…
Going Negative with Accusative and Genitive Posted by yelena on Sep 25, 2012
How about this phrase Не вижу смысла (It doesn’t make sense to me). The verb видеть is transitive, so according to the rule the noun смысл must be in accusative. Yet смысла is not accusative, but genitive case (check out the complete declension table). Besides, if I were to say Я вижу смысл в чём-то (Something…