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…
Halloween Words & Phrases Posted by Nadya on Oct 29, 2020
Everyone’s favorite in the United States, Halloween is gaining popularity in Russia. And since the festival of spirits, witches, and pumpkins is tomorrow, I hope it will be helpful to put together a list of words and phrases on this topic. I’m sure at least some of you were wondering what the Russians do on…
What is “pознь”? Posted by bota on Oct 23, 2020
What if I told you there was a single word in Russian to help one convey that just because something is labeled X doesn’t mean that all things X are like the first thing X? The word in question is рознь and here’s how it works. You take a Russian noun, put it in the…
Weird Russian Omens And Superstitions Posted by Nadya on Oct 20, 2020
– Honey, you have been with me all through the bad times: when I was fired, my business failed, when we lost our home. When I was hospitalized, you also were there to support me. You know what? …
Particles. Sentence Structure Part II Posted by bota on Oct 15, 2020
We continue our quest of making sense of sentence structure in Russian. While Part I covered the basics of the subject and verb placement, this blog focuses on the smaller but equally important parts of the sentence. It may seem a bit more obvious where to place a word if it’s a verb or a…
Kaliningrad – A Piece Of Russia In Europe Posted by Nadya on Oct 9, 2020
There are people who will say, „I’m going to Russia,“ while they are already inside Russia. Wait… What? A city that is “cut off” from the country The Kaliningrad region or Kaliningrad Oblast'(Калинингра́дская о́бласть) is a semi-exclave of Russia, not bordering (не грани́чащий) on any of its other regions. When Lithuania (Литва́) and Belarus (Белару́сь)…
Was Yoda Russian? (Sentence Structure in Russian. Part I) Posted by bota on Oct 5, 2020
“Do or do not. There is no try.” While Yoda’s OSV (object-subject-verb) word order may seem a bit unusual, the Russian translation of the quote doesn’t sound all that strange or other-worldly, all because the Russian sentence structure is flexible. So, please do try, because learning about the nuances of word order variations in Russian…