Archive for 'language'
Easy Does It: Sayings With Лёгкий Posted by Maria on Dec 1, 2016
Лёгкий means “easy” or “light” (weight-wise). Apart from being a useful word in its own right, лёгкий appears in a number of common sayings. Pronunciation note: don’t worry about trying to enunciate the г. This word is pronounced as if it were spelled “лёхкий.” A useful homonym is лёгкие (lungs, singular лёгкое). Лёгок на помине…
Conquer the Backwards R — Learn to Read Russian (Part II) Posted by Maria on Nov 28, 2016
Last time, we looked at some letters of the Russian alphabet that either look and sound or just sound like their Latin counterparts. This time, we will look at letters that have similar sounds to other languages and, finally, some unique letters. Letters That Sound But Don’t Look Like Latin Letters A lot of these…
Conquer the Backwards R — Learn to Read Russian (Part I) Posted by Maria on Nov 21, 2016
Every so often a reader of this blog will be frustrated about not being able to read Russian characters. While we will occasionally include transliteration and audio, learning to read Cyrillic is much easier that you think! There are several reasons why reading Russian is beneficial, and we will look at some relatively painless ways…
Silver Linings: Five Idioms For Dealing With Shock And Disappointment Posted by Maria on Nov 14, 2016
The results of the presidential election in the US came as a surprise to both supporters and opponents of the President-Elect Trump. For situations like this, along with Brexit, which we covered on this blog, a few Russian idioms may come in handy. How and whether you will use them will depend on your outlook…
Five Easy Parts of Learning Russian — Part II Posted by Maria on Nov 7, 2016
We are looking at parts of the Russian language that are easier to grasp that many learners would expect. Make sure you read Part I. Subjunctive and Conditional Moods Russian has very simple forms for the subjunctive (сослагательное наклонение) and the conditional mood (условное наклонение). Both of these look like past tense forms + the…
Five Easy Parts of Learning Russian — Part I Posted by Maria on Oct 31, 2016
This is part one of this post. Make sure you read part two when it comes out. Russian has the reputation of a hard-to-learn language. The Foreign Service Institute has placed Russian into category 4 out of 5 for how long it takes native English speakers to learn it. A different alphabet, noun declensions, verb…
Stop And Go: Russian Verbs For Taking About Processes Posted by Maria on Oct 25, 2016
It may sometimes be useful to talk about the phases of a process — beginning, interrupting, picking up, and finishing actions. Below are some verbs that will help you express these temporal notions. Начать Начинать (imperfective)/начать (perfective) means to begin. It can be followed by an infinite or by a noun in the accusative case…