Tag Archives: Russian for beginners
Time to Lighten Up Posted by yelena on Aug 28, 2012
What can be easier that learning Russian verbs? Russian adjectives, of course! And to switch gears, let’s choose лёгкое слово (easy word). In fact, why not talk about this exact adjective – лёгкий. To begin with, лёгкий might describe an object that is light as in Лёгкий танк весит меньше, а двигается быстрее, чем тяжёлый…
An irregular verb that keeps on giving… Posted by Rob on Aug 27, 2012
According to a lot of grammarians, the Russian language has only FOUR basic verbs with “irregular conjugations.” Students of Russian may be skeptical of this. And it’s frankly hard to believe that a verb as wacky as (for example) лечь, “to lie down,” is by any stretch of the imagination regular! After all — just…
Beyond «рука» and «нога»: Words for (outside) body parts Posted by Rob on Aug 15, 2012
When you first begin studying Russian, one of the things they tell you is that рука can be translated as either “hand” or “arm” — and similarly, нога can mean either “foot” or “leg.” Well, that’s pretty darn convenient for the beginning student, with fewer new words to memorize! But wait — what if you…
Hang on, I want to weigh in on something… Posted by Rob on Aug 8, 2012
In her excellent Friday post about telephone-related expressions, Natalie mentioned the verb вешать — which is literally “to hang,” and in the context of telephones can mean “to end the phone call by hanging up.” So I wanted to take a closer look at вешать, along with some other verbs (and a few nouns) that…
Speak Russian без акцента in just one month!!(?) Posted by Rob on Jul 25, 2012
Okay, maybe it’s not actually possible for a student of Russian to speak «без акцента» (“without a foreign accent”) in just a month — heck, I started studying the language in 1989 and I still haven’t completely gotten rid of my US-English акцент! But with the caveat that my Russian pronunciation is far from native…
A couple more words from the birds Posted by Rob on Jul 18, 2012
When I was working on last Monday’s “Name That Bird” post, in which a panel of six avian “mystery guests” offered подсказки (“hints, clues”) to their identity, I considered a longer list of birds but ended up cutting some of the feathered panelists just to avoid making the post too long. For instance, фламинго and…
Keep your shirt on! (Buttoning and zipping in Russian) Posted by Rob on Jun 13, 2012
Getting dressed is one thing. But unless you’re in some kind of tight-fitting spandex, you won’t STAY dressed very long if your clothes aren’t properly secured with some kind of застёжка (“fastener”). As young children have to learn, there are various types of застёжки. For instance, a пуговица (“button”) can help keep your рубашка (“shirt”)…