Blog

  1. Home
  2. Blog
Grammar Leave a comment
Masculine nouns with feminine endings
Are there many masculine nouns with feminine endings?
Not many, but there are some masculine nouns that are used a lot:
мужчина, папа, дедушка
 Almost all of Russian male names have feminine endings in their short version:
Александр – Саша
Михаил –      Миша
Григорий –   Гриша
Николай –    Коля
 How are masculine nouns with feminine endings declined?
They are declined like feminine nouns according to their endings.
В комнате нет папы (Genitive) = Dad is not is not in the room.
Женщина разговаривает с мужчиной (Instrumental) = A woman is talking with a man.
Grammar Leave a comment
Is Russian a phonetic language?

Is Russian a phonetic language?

To a certain degree yes. Or, maybe, it’s better to say that Russian is almost phonetic because you pronounce all of the letters in the word.
The word ‘молоко’ – 6 letters, 6 sounds.
Therefore, if you know pronunciation rules, you can read any Russian word.
It’s not like in English.
For example in the word ‘thought’ there are 7 letters and only 3 sounds.
When Russians learn English, they learn words together with transcription (pronunciation).
There are some exceptions though: in the word ‘здравствуйте’ the middle ‘в’ is not pronounced.
Blog Leave a comment
The Mystery of Women

Einstein once said: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”
I think women are a motive for the thousands pieces of art and are the truly mysterious themselves. That is what makes them so exciting. For over 500 years, people have debated what the Mona Lisa is smiling about. Some have even given up the debate, concluding that the Mona Lisa was actually a painting that Leonardo Da Vinci did of himself. Wouldn’t that be a great trick? Regardless of why the Mona Lisa is smiling, her image still captivates people around the world.

In Berlin’s Museum of Egyptian Art I discovered a beauty that I had known about but never seen. As I walked through the museum, I encountered many objects of cultural and historical significance. While all of the pieces of art were fascinating in their own way, I had not been prepared for Nefertiti. As I looked up, my gaze met hers. Our eyes locked and I was momentarily hypnotized by the beauty of this 3, 300-year-old limestone bust. It was incredible. Read More

Grammar Leave a comment
Accent Mark in Russian Textbooks

In Russian textbooks, each word has an accent mark, because the accent affects pronunciation.
You won’t see any stress marks in regular books. But for the learning purpose knowing where the word stress falls is extremely important.

For example, there are 3 letters О in the word ‘молоко’, and only one of them (the last one) is pronounced like in the alphabet. The first two are pronounced like “a” because they are unstressed. Generally speaking, Russians don’t care about unstressed syllables and they pronounce them casually. If you do the same you will get the correct pronunciation without thinking too much.

It is similar to English, particularly American English when you hear: “I gonna do it, I wanna go” … instead “I want to do it, I want to go“.

Blog Leave a comment
Maths exercise to improve your Russian

Загадка:
Ты берешь в долг у мамы 25 рублей, и у папы 25, всего у тебя 50 рублей.
Идешь в магазин и тратишь там ровно 45руб.
По дороге домой ты даешь в долг подружке 3 рубля (ей не хватало на что то).
У тебя остается 2 рубля.
Ты приходишь домой, отдаешь долг маме- рубль и папе – рубль.
Теперь ты должна им по 24руб.
Итог: 24 + 24 равно 48, и 3 рубля тебе отдает подружка,получается 51.
Вопрос – откуда взялся рубль если у тебя было 50?

Grammar Leave a comment
The difference between ъ and ь

These two letters are silent. They don’t make any sound by themselves.
ъ – hard sign
ь – soft sign
First of all, both of those signs work as separation signs. In order to understand the difference you should listen to the following words, using Google Translate:
сел        лёд
съел      льёт

In addition to the separation job soft sign does something else – it softens the previous consonant:
мол     тонко
моль    Тонька

Blog Leave a comment
Q&A: Is it true that you can not use the dictionary to learn new vocabulary?

Question:

I was struck by one video where the Russian teacher said to learn only phrases and not words, this makes all kind of phrasebooks important; also she said not to place emphasis on grammar books and dictionaries. To try to gather the meaning from the context. I often read the dictionary, not much now, as with very restricted vocabulary, difficult to grasp meanings.
Is it true that you can not use the dictionary to learn new vocabulary?

Read More

Blog Leave a comment
Russian Fairy Tales in Russian and English (a book recommendation)

Russian fairy tales

Whether you would like to practice your Russian and read these tales in Russian, or you just want to acquaint yourself with some beautiful Russian fairy tales –  you will enjoy this book. In the XIX century, a famous Russian collector of folklore gathered over 600 Russian Fairytales. A great Illustrator Bilibin created drawing for some of the fairy-tales at the beginning of the XX century and they remained popular for a hundred years.

You can buy a Kindle version of the English Translation or high-quality hardback book in English or Russian.