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Tag Archives: vocabulary

Kitchen Appliances Posted by on Jan 15, 2021

old samovar

What comes to your mind when you think of kitchen spaces in Russia? Maybe you think of beautiful hand-painted wooden cups and spoons like in the pictures below?                 Or is it a big samovar, an infamous symbol of Russian teatime and, in my opinion, the grandest of…

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5 Slang Words in Contemporary Russian Posted by on Feb 21, 2020

lamps hanging off the ceiling

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…

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Give or Take: Russian Verbs with -давать Posted by on Nov 14, 2019

giving

It may be useful to learn words in related “families,” so let us look at several verbs that share their root with дава́ть [dɐˈvatʲ], to give. I will include the imperfective and perfective forms of the verb and any related nouns for each verb. This post does not cover every verb or every possible meaning…

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Russian Verbs with Prefixes: Пускать for Letting Go Posted by on Aug 30, 2018

cinema

Several readers have commented that they find posts on verbs with prefixes helpful, so here is another verb “family.” This time, we will look at verbs with the пуск-/пуст- roots that share the general sense of allowing something. The verbs are given in pairs of imperfective and perfective. Пуска́ть/Пусти́ть This verbs means “to let someone…

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Do You Know The Old Meaning of These 5 Russian Words? Posted by on May 11, 2017

flipflops on a beach

Because modern Russian (современный русский язык) only emerged as recently as the 19th century, a lot of what’s considered Russian literary canon is easily understood by Russian speakers today. However, there are a few words that have changed their meaning over the last centuries. Do you know the old meaning of the following words? Живот Живот…

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5 New Year’s Resolutions To Help You Learn Russian In 2017 Posted by on Jan 5, 2017

old radio

Perhaps some of our readers have made resolutions for the new year. Along with career and fitness goals, would you like to learn Russian or improve your current level? Maybe it’s not the first time you’ve tried to do so, but things did not always work out in the past. Here are five areas that…

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Not Just Swimming: 3 Main Senses of Плавать in Russian Posted by on Dec 15, 2016

Плавать is a verb that means either swim or sail in Russian. It is interesting in many ways. As a verb of motion, it has two distinct imperfective aspect forms. In addition, it has useful metaphorical applications. 1. Water Travel You may remember that verbs of motion have not one but two imperfective forms. Плыть/плавать…

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