These are my articles about the Russian language – its grammar, word usage and more.
Like in many other languages, Russian names have two forms — a full name for official communication and a diminutive or affectionate name for family and close friends. Usually, it is easy to form a diminutive form out of the full name. Thus, when you get into a person’s intimate circle, Elena turns to Lena,
Often enough, my students get frightened by long Russian words. A student, who normally reads fluently, stops in terror upon seeing a four-syllable word and approaches it like a horse face-to-face with a tall hurdle. I found that explaining what the long word consists of helps to disassemble or lower the hurdle. Compare two words:
Why do people anticipate Winter holidays? Because this is the time to switch off an alarm clock and sleep longer. This is a time for lazy morning coffee and the quiet satisfaction of taking your time. Christmas is a good time for relaxation. Some countries limit winter vacations to a few days, right between Christmas
When an English-speaking person wants to report his or her likes and dislikes, (s)he normally says, “I like it”. The sentence is pretty simple: “I” is a subject, “like” is a predicate and “it” is an object. The same goes with “I need it”. We now have a person who intentionally and responsibly reports his
Up until recent times, personal automobiles have been rare in the Soviet Union. The principal mode of suburban transport has been the elektrichka. Elektrichka is an informal word for an “electric multiple unit passenger train.” Though many people in the Post-Soviet Russia drive personal cars, the electrichka is still very popular today. Designed to carry
1. The Russian alphabet is weird itself. Some characters are exactly like in the Latin alphabet, while others look the same, but sound different, and the two characters “ъ” and “ь” represent no sound, who needs them? 2. One character E may represent two different sounds [ye] and [yo].Actually, there is a special character for
