Russian Word of the Day

The Russian word for park is парк. It is a perfectly regular first-declension noun, as long as you keep in mind the seven-letter spelling rule:

Today let's look at the word in contexts that distinguish location and motion. Remember that motion phrases with в/на use the accusative case, whereas location phrases use the prepositional:

The Russian word for 'to sleep' is спать/поспать. It conjugates like this:

The perfective form of the verb has the prefix по-, which often adds the idea of ‘for a while,’ as it does in this verb.

When you use duration phrases like два часа ‘for two hours,’ they normally require the use of an imperfective verb, but in the case of perfective verbs prefixed with по- in the ‘for a while’ meaning (and sometimes for verbs with the prefixed with про-), duration phrases are possible:

But of course when you talk about sleeping somewhere regularly, you must use the imperfective:

¹ ‘Alconaut’ is a Russian slang word for an alcoholic. Here is what lurkmore.ru has to say about the word:

The Russian word for taxi is такси. It is an indeclinable neuter noun, which means it never changes its endings:

Adjectives that modify indeclinable nouns must still occur in the case form required by the context:

Of course those are all possible in the plural as well:

Since Russians usually don't own cars, they use taxis a lot more than most Americans. This last summer in Kazan I used them constantly. To my surprise, when I bought tickets at the movie theater at Кольцо, I was given a discount taxi card:

I'm Scottish by descent, and let me tell you that we Scots hate paying more than we have to. For us, receiving a discount card is like... gosh... what can I compare it to? It's like getting free and painless high-quality dental work. I mean, you just can't think of anything better. I used that discount card all the time. And what's even better is that when you order your cab using your cell phone, they automatically pick up your number and when your taxi arrives, you usually get a text message saying that it has arrived. For instance, here is a text message I received:

It reads, “Black Hyundai #348 is waiting for you. The driver's number is 524-XX-XX.” Most taxis don't have a taxi sign on them, so that information is really convenient. Why the heck haven't American taxis picked up such a common-sensical idea?

Taxi service is reasonably priced in Kazan, but I wouldn't be surprised if it triples over the next year. Some regulations are going into effect that will increase the fees taxi drivers have to pay, which will probably result in less competition. I'm not looking forward to the change.

The word море means sea. It's one of the few nouns in Russian that ends in -е and has a soft consonant before it. Many two-syllable neuter nouns in Russian have a stress shift in the plural. In this case, the noun is stem-stressed in the singular, and end-stressed in the plural. It declines like this:

The seas closest to Russia are:

Notice that the «море» part in Russian is not capitalized.

Russians love to go to the sea of vacation, especially to a sea that is warm and has palm trees. Back in the Soviet period, one of their favorite places was Ялта, a city on the Black Sea that had, relative to Moscow, a warm climate. (By Arizona standards the place is refreshingly cool, but of course this blog is not entitled “Arizona Word of the Day,” so the Moscow viewpoint must predominate.) Море is a на word. In otherwords, when you talk about going to the sea or being at the seashore, you must use the preposition на, not в.

In Modern American English we mostly talk about going “to the beach” in these contexts, so “sea” will often not appear in such translations.

The generic Russian word for doctor is врач. It is an end-stressed, first declension noun:

Russia has some great doctors. Although they often do not have access to the latest Western equipment, they have profound clinical experience, and I have never regretted sending my students to Russian doctors when they are ailing. Twice this last summer I had to take students to the doctor or hospital, and, to the best my eye can tell, they did exactly the things necessary for the students' conditions. Here are a few sample sentences:

Actually, that last line is potentially misleading. The word терапевт, when used by itself, is often the equivalent of ‘general practitioner,’ so just because someone is called a терапевт does not mean he are not a physician.

One last comment... although the example sentences assumed a male doctor, most doctors in Russia are actually women.