Archive for 'Vocabulary'
How to sound Russian in less than 4 letters Posted by bota on Jun 1, 2020
An interjection is, ironically, a big name for the little words we use to express emotions. Here are five such utterances that have less than four letters. These interjections will help you feel and sound more Russian than saying babooshka over and over again (with the exception of Kate Bush, of course.) Эx [ˈɛx]…
What You Need To Know To Navigate Russian Airports Posted by Maria on Mar 11, 2020
In case you need to fly into, out of, or through a Russian airport, there are some common phrases that will make navigating it much more comfortable. Of course, international airports (аэропо́рты) have announcements (объявле́ния) and signs (указа́тели) in English and in the flight origin/destination language, but you if you fly within Russia, these words…
Don’t Worry About Gender or Number with These Russian Phrases Posted by Maria on Mar 5, 2020
Russian is notorious for its complex system of inflection. Oftentimes, it’s not enough to remember the dictionary form of the word—you need to take into account its gender, number, case, person, or tense, as the case may be. However, some very basic Russian words are not like that at all! We will look at some…
5 Slang Words in Contemporary Russian Posted by Maria on Feb 21, 2020
Do you ever find yourself reading an article in Russian on a hip website and seeing a word that doesn’t seem to make sense even after you look it up? This post will look at some expressions that have cropped up or taken on new meanings recently. I will include examples from various Telegram channels…
Coronavirus Coverage in Russian Posted by Maria on Feb 13, 2020
The new respiratory illness that emerged in China last December and has now been named COVID-19 has also been detected in Russia. COVID-19, caused by a novel coronavirus (коронави́рус), has, understandably, received a lot of coverage in Russian-language media. This post will share some useful vocabulary for talking about this and other seasonal diseases. Seasonal…
Talk About Employment with This Russian Root Posted by Maria on Dec 3, 2019
You might know работа, work, and other related words as a helpful word family for talking about employment. Have you heard about труд and other related words, though? This post will look at how this word family can help you express ideas about jobs and labo(u)r. Труд The basic word is труд, labo(u)r, effort, hard…
6 Slang Words for Your Face in Russian Posted by Maria on Oct 24, 2019
It has recently occurred to me that Russian has multiple ways of referring to someone’s face, especially in a critical manner. Learning some common synonyms of лицо́ (litso, face) will help you understand colloquial Russian more easily because they come up a lot in informal speech. This post will use International Phonetic transcriptions for each…