Russian is one of the more difficult major languages to learn because of its crazy grammar (from the point of view of a native speaker of English). But grammar is only one piece of the puzzle. Another one is developing a good словарный запас (vocabulary) which means memorizing lots and lots of Russian words.
While there seems to be no easy way around memorizing grammar rules, growing your Russian vocabulary can perhaps be simplified. For example, you can concentrate on 100 most frequently used Russian words, learn those, and be well on your way to success. Ah, but which words to learn…
In just a few days Russia will be celebrating one of its most significant days, «День Победы» [Victory Day]. How much do you know about this holiday? Well, I hope after reading this post you will know quite a bit more. So let’s get going with the «День Победы – вопросы и ответы» [Victory Day Q&A.]
Q: What’s this Victory Day all about?
A: If you don’t know yet, «День Победы» commemorates Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
How to use из-за, от and благодаря: Someone once said that prepositions are small words that give big headaches. And that is probably especially true of из-за, от and благодаря. But once you understand how they differ in usage, choosing the right preposition is much easier.
You might have learned at some point that all nouns in Russian are either animate (одушевле́нные) or inanimate (неодушевле́нные). Roughly speaking, living things are animate and/or sentient: студе́нт, ко́шка, де́ти; and non-living things are inanimate: стена́, телефо́н, письмо́. This subject has beencovered on this blog before.
The road to success in foreign language learning might be full of bumps and slopes and, as humans, we all stumble in it. Usually those people who start this road with high expectations and no equipment end up scrambling out of a slumpy countryside trail. And those who are more prepared, either mentally or physically end up heading to the Disneyland adventure, full of fun and exciting moments. One way to be prepared to take this road is to know some of the mistakes that most people make and, therefore, try to avoid them, so that you will stumble less. As the proverb goes: “forewarned is forearmed”. School «Native Russian» has done the research. And here are the top 5 main mistakes of those who study the Russian language:
Как насчёт (how about something or someone) is a very functional phrase that can be used either as a question, a suggestion or an offer. As shown in the examples, it takes the genitive case.
In a nutshell, remember that задавать/задать is used when you want to say that you have a question to ask. Use спрашивать/спросить to ask that question, remembering the proper rules as explained in the Bitesize graphic. And use просить/попросить to either request something from someone (an object), or to request someone to do something (an action). These three verb pairs will be our next Words of the Week in which we will provide the complete conjugation along with some additional sentence examples.
