Archive for 'Russian for beginners'
A very polite hedgehog Posted by bota on Apr 19, 2022
If you are новичок, this blog is for you. If you are an advanced student or a native Russian speaker, this blog is also for you. How? Simple. The answer is ёжик. Или точнее, очень вежливый ёжик. As Russians like to say “Повторение — мать учения“.. For those of you new to Russian language, use…
The joy of grammatical mistakes, or a few of my lightbulb moments Posted by ryan on Jan 25, 2022
Как уст румя́ных без улы́бки, Без граммати́ческой оши́бки Я ру́сской ре́чи не люблю́ These lines, from Alexander Pushkin’s famous novel in verse «Евге́ний Оне́гин» Eugene Onegin, pretty well explain what I would like to cover in today’s post. Much of learning a new language has to do with restructuring your thinking to express ideas using a construction…
ЖЕ: particle or conjunction? Posted by bota on Dec 14, 2020
ЖЕ [pronounced “zhe”, see here for audio] can be either a particle or conjunction. Either way, it is written separately from the words it modifies and can add a lot of “flavor” to your Russian. ЖЕ as a particle The main function of this particle is to either intensify the word before, or show the…
Russian phrases-homophones Posted by bota on Dec 4, 2020
You might have seen a post or a meme of the “good luck non-native speakers” nature before, and not necessarily about Russian grammar ( think of “Who’s on first” by Abbott and Costello). The internet is full of them and, frankly, some are a hoot and a half. But while I’m also guilty of “sharing”…
Есть – To Eat Or To Have Posted by Nadya on Nov 19, 2020
Should I use один or раз? Posted by bota on Nov 13, 2020
Ever wondered why some Russians count “one, two, three” as “оди́н, два́, три́…” while others say “ра́з, два́, три́…”? Why would there be two Russian words to say “one”? Here’s how to differentiate between the two if you’re a beginner Russian learner. “Ра́з, два́, три́” is really only used when counting orally, like when a…
Ordinal Numbers in Russian Posted by bota on Nov 2, 2020
На пе́рвый-второ́й рассчита́йсь! This phrase has got to be the only thing I remember from НВП classes in high school (Нача́льная Вое́нная Подгото́вка = basic military training). It’s part of the drill to assign either “first” or “second” to people in a line so that they can easily be divided into two groups for other…