Russian Word of the Day

Ходить is the most generic word in Russian that means “to go.”

Because it implies travelling under one's own power (that is, not using some device or animal for transportation), we often translate it “to walk”:

The verb is also used in sentences where someone regularly goes somewhere.

The verb is also used to describe the motion of someone walking around a place with no set goal or direction, e.g. walking around a park for pleasure, walking around the city, or going here and there among shops:

Last but not least, the verb is used to indicate a single round-trip in the past. In this usage it implies that the person is no longer at the place mentioned.

Russian verbs of motion have the reputation of being quite difficult. Certainly they take some practice, but if you just calmly, slowly, and methodically work on them, particularly identifying what contexts they are used in as we did here, then you can certainly master them.

Here is a list of the fifteen verbs of motion. They are usually taught in verb triplets, not pairs. If you want to work on these verbs, I suggest Muravyova's “Verbs of Motion in Russian” if you can still get it, and also William Mahota's “Russian Motion Verbs for Intermediate Students.”

The word xлеб is translated as bread. In Russia, the two most popular types of bread that can be found at any real supermarket or bakery are the regular white bread and the dark rye bread.

When you’re buying bread at a store or a kiosk, a courteous clerk is likely to ask you if you would like a буханка (loaf), полбуханки (half a loaf), a батон (long loaf of bread) or полбатона. To a foreigner, the shape of the xлеб might not be such a big deal, but to some Russians, батон and буханка make all the difference. Don’t know why, it’s just one of those random things that have been embedded into the culture since before Ivan the Terrible.

Russian bread tastes delicious, especially the dark rye bread. Rye bread is usually very filling, like zucchini bread or a bagel, and has a strong, distinct aroma about it that often reminds people of pines. But even though the bread is tasty, it’s not always fresh; Russians aren’t exactly like the French. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays fresh-baked bread was a guarantee, as for other days of the week... only if you lived next to a bakery. Fortunately now, many big-chain supermarket stores deliver their own bread every day, although they charge significantly more. Maybe that is one of the reasons many Russians keep a xлебница (breadbox) in the kitchen.

Image from ru.wikipedia.org

Буханка, полбуханки и два батона lying on a table.

Some example sentences with the word xлеб:

The next use of the word на with the accusative case is equivalent to the English word “by” in contexts where you are comparing one thing to another.

That last example brings us to an interesting point. When you are counting differences in numbers of people, you get the following quirk with the numbers two, three, and four:

If this were the true accusative after на in this meaning, we would expect «на двух человек» or «на двоих людей», not «на два человека». Other examples:

This shows us one of two things: either a) the accusative case is not entirely stable in modern Russian, or b) на in this meaning actually uses a separate case that is minimally distinct from the accusative. I argued for the latter in my doctoral dissertation, although the former is probably true as well.

¹ Yes, I know that the “correct” way to say it is “I'm older than he,” but any normal American is going to say “I'm older than him.” It's time for the pedants to catch up to the living language: “than” has become a preposition in such contexts.
² Yes, I know that the “correct” way to say it is “eleven wives fewer,” but normal people don't talk that way. It's time for the pedants to catch up to the living language: “less” is perfectly normal these days when dealing with count nouns.

The word for bus in Russian is автобус. Public transport is well developed in major Russian cities, much better than its counterpart in the sprawling cities of the American West. Russians regularly ride buses all over the country, and Russians visiting the US expect the same services to be available here. After all, a bus is fairly low-tech, so the Americans must have them all over the place, right? Imagine the surprise of my acquaintance Natasha, then, when she wanted help getting from Los Angeles to Denver. She figured that buses were cheap, so she could probably make the trip quickly and cheaply. Alas, that was cross-cultural ignorance. The trip from LA to Denver would have taken twenty-two hours, and it would have been more expensive than a plane ticket. I told her to grab a plane flight. Sure enough, for -less than- a bus ticket, she got to Denver by plane.

In America people smile to indicate that they are not currently hostile toward the person they are talking to. So a cashier in a grocery store smiles at the customer she talks to. A security guard smiles at a person he doesn't intend to be rude to. An IRS agent smiles when you walk up to him to ask a question because he is trying to make you feel comfortable.

Russia is not like that. Former students of mine have gotten on the bus in Russia, laughing and chatting, only to have one of the бабушки old ladies say:

Despite the lack of smiles the buses in Russia are überconvenient. They, along with the streetcars, electric buses, and subway, will take you wherever you need to go. You simply don't need a car to get around in Russia. So what are the phrases you need to describe your bus activity? Here we go:

¹ In this context the они form of the verb is used without the actual pronoun они to be functionally equivalent to a “you shouldn't” sentence.

Two words that I continually confuse in Russian are пыль dust and пыл heat/passion. Time to blog about them so I can get them straight! Пыль is a third declension feminine noun used only in the singular:

¹ The phrase “you are really strange” literally means “you have cockroaches in your head.”

When a random person is walking down the street and producing tense chewing motions with the jaw, he or she is probably having some жевательная резинка. The adjective жевательная (chewing) and the noun резинка (rubber/eraser/elastic), combined together, make up the term “chewing gum.” But most of the time Russians will avoid the longer, two-part term and simply say жвачка or резинка instead.

Gum was always kind of a big deal among kids when I was growing up, especially if the wrapper included stickers of superheroes, famous athletes, fast cars or nude women. But before that, in the Soviet days, gum was rare and was largely looked upon as another bogus product of depraved Western culture, standing alongside Coca-Cola and blue jeans. So way back then (60s, 70s), as the ultimate replacement people tell me, they chewed sweet tree sap. Thankfully no one needs to resort to such folksy measures any longer; they just buy a pack of Wrigley or Orbit at any kiosk.

Here is the declension of word резинка; adding жевательная is just too long:

Image from 20th.su

Picture of a Soviet chewing gum called "Coffee Aroma."

Here are some example sentences with the words жевательная резинка and жвачка:

The next use of the word на with the accusative case is equivalent to the English word “for” in some contexts. For instance, when you are talking about what you ate for a particular meal:

When you put aside money for a particular purpose, на plus accusative also works:

The Russian word for border is граница. It can be used of national borders or of borders between concepts:

The Russians very often use the phrase “beyond the border” in the sense of “out of the country” or “abroad.” The idea can be expressed as a location phrase, using за followed by the instrumental case:

The idea can also be expressed as a motion phrase, using за followed by the accusative case:

If somone or something comes from outside of the country, you can use the preposition из-за followed by the genitive case:

The phrase «за границей» has become such a standard part of the language that an adjective has even been made of it, заграничный, which is usually translated as “foreign” or “external.”

The Russian word кухня can be translated as kitchen or cuisine.

Most kitchens in Russian homes are pretty basic; there is a cupboard, a refrigerator, a sink, a stove and maybe an oven of some sort. Russians prefer gas stoves and ovens to electric ones. In fact during the Soviet days it was almost impossible to find electric stoves in any Russian home.

I remember how a friend of mine had a big, old, red gas tank standing in the corner of his кухня, wrapped up in a plastic bag, connected to his tiny portable stove through a rubber pipe. It always seemed like that hazardous thing was going to explode at any minute or leak enough poisonous gas to asphyxiate all his guests. (I should add that that was not a typical Russian kitchen.)

When you want to say that something is located in the kitchen, it’s better to use the preposition нa on instead of в in. People will understand you either way, but нa кухнe sounds more common.

Image of the chef from www.linein.org

Here are some example sentences with the word кухня:

The Russian verb “to drink” is пить/выпить. It conjugates like this:

The drinker appears in the nominative case, and the thing drunk shows up in the accusative case:

Just as in English, if you use drink without any particular object, it implies drinking alcoholic beverages:

In English we talk about “taking medicine,” whereas in Russian you usually take about “drinking medicine.” The implication is that the medicine is swallowed «с водой» “with water.”

The second meaning of the preposition на is “on” in the sense of “onto.” In this meaning it is complemented by the accusative case.

¹ Двор and neighborhood are not really the same thing, but for this example it should work.

The Russian word галстук is simply translated as tie. It refers to the basic necktie men, and sometimes women, wear to work and does not have any other meanings. But if you add the word бабочка (butterfly) after it, you get a bowtie. To say that you need to tie a tie, use the verb завязать (tie) before галстук.

Image from www.rudata.ru

Ippolit "Kisa" Vorobyaninov, the grouchy, misanthropic and often very confused character of the "The Twelve Chairs," donning a галстук.

Here are some example sentences with the word галстук:

Over the last week we noted that the verb болеть can mean “to ache” or “to be sick.” Curiously enough, the verb can also mean “to root for, cheer for.” In this meaning it conjugates like this:

The person or team for whom one cheers appears in the accusative case after the preposition за:

¹ Спартак Москва “Spartacus, Moscow” is a popular Russian soccer team.

The Russian word картина has more than one meaning and consequently can get a bit confusing in certain situations. The most popular definition of the word is the noun painting. And the painting has to be a true piece of art of considerable size or reasonable value to be called a картина, otherwise it’s a картинка (something I and kindergarteners would draw).

Kартина can sometimes stand for image, picture or scenery— depending on the subject matter of the conversation. For example you can use the scene/scenery translation to describe nature or anything else that you see live; like some swimmer being attacked by a a Great White, and etc… Also, just like a lot of English-speaking filmmakers refer to their films as “pictures," many Russian directors describe them as картины.

A картина can be нарисована (drawn), написана (written/painted), снята (filmed), описана (described) and создана (created).

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Вот картина Ивана Шишкина «Утро в сосновом лесу». Here is Ivan Shishkin's painting "Morning in a Pine Forest." It is one of the most recognizable paintings in Russia, partly because it is depicted on the wrappers of the popular candy «Мишка Kосолапый» "Clumsy Bear."

In addition to the verb болеть “to hurt, ache,” Russian has another verb болеть which means “to be ill.” Here's how it conjugates:

The imperfective verb can be used both to mean that someone is ill at the moment or that someone is often ill.

The suffix за- of the perfective adds the idea of “start to be ill” or “become ill.”

The illness that one comes down with appears in the instrumental case with no preposition.

The first meaning of the preposition на is “on.” In this meaning it is complemented by the prepositional case.

One of the most important and valued items in a Russian’s wardrobe has been the warm, soft and heavy sheepskin/lambskin coat known simply as дублёнка. Russians have always prized this particular garment very highly because it can keep one cozy on cold Russian nights, when the icy, piercing northern winds raise sweeping blizzards. And more importantly... because it costs some serious rubles. But fortunately, once you buy a quality дублёнка, whether it’s out of basic sheepskin, lambskin or the lavish shearling, it can serve you for half a lifetime. When I think of a дублёнка, the first thing that came to my mind is my grandfather’s old, rugged sheepskin coat that he has had since the early seventies and still wears today when out in the snowy countryside. Overall, sheepskin coats remain quite popular with men and women alike.

Image from img11.nnm.ru

A hefty дублёнка worn by Vasily Alibabayevich, a character from the famous Russian comedy "Gentlemen of Fortune."

Here are some example sentences with the word:

Russian has a verb болеть which means “to hurt, ache,” and another verb болеть which means “to be ill.” That's right: their infinitives are spelled exactly the same, although they are conjugated differently. Today we will discuss the former.

The first thing to notice about the verb is that it is only used in the third person, never in the first or second:

In English we say, “My head hurts.” The Russians phrase it as “at me hurts the head”:

There are а couple things to note here. First of all, the person experiencing the pain shows up in the genitive case as the object of the preposition у. The body part that hurts shows up in the nominative case. Since the body part is the subject, the verb has to agree with it, not with the person who is suffering. If more than one thing hurts, the verb goes in the plural. Thus:

The prefix за- often adds the idea of “start to” to a verb, and the perfective заболеть is not an exception. Here are some examples.

Some words always bring a smile to my face, like higgledy-piggledy, hurlyburly, hullabaloo, and floccinaucinihilipilification. Now I have a new one from Russian: гоголь-моголь.

Гоголь-моголь is a dish made of raw egg yolks beaten with sugar. If your daughter has a sore throat and doesn't like to take medicine, then you feed her гоголь-моголь and soon everything will will be better.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Even Doctor Aibolit, the Russian equivalent of Doctor Doolittle, treated his animals with it:

Гоголь-моголь is considered a cultured and refined dessert, worthy of being served in aristocratic homes. It may be flavored with chocolate or vanilla or coffee, made with fruit juices or pureed fruit, or even served in bars as a cocktail.

One interesting and very common use of unchanging это is to refer to a situation broadly. Consider this sentence:

Although «Это были наши соседи» and “It was our neighbors” resemble each other superficially, they are grammatically quite different. In the English sentence “it” is the subject, singular “was” agrees with “it”, and “neighbors” is a predicate noun in the plural. In the Russian sentence соседи is the subject and induces verbal agreement. Notice that это does not agree in gender with anything in the sentence that precedes it. It's not referring to the night. It's not referring to the noise or the neighbors. It refers to the whole, abstract situation. Here are a couple other examples.

This use of unchanging это is not limited to “be” sentences. For instance, in Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov confesses with this phrase:

This use is a bit different than the one we discussed earlier because instead of referring to a whole abstract situation, это serves to direct the listener's focus on the identity of one particular person in the situation:

¹ The precise quote is «Это я убил тогда старуху-чиновницу и сестру ее Лизавету топором и ограбил.» “It was I who killed the old woman and her sister Elizabeth with an axe and robbed them.”

The Russian word for a rough draft copy or a notebook where an author outlines his/her story, writes down ideas, and etc. is черновик.

Черновики are especially popular with teachers in Russian elementary schools. I remember having to first do my classwork and homework in a черновик before carefully copying the final version into an exercise book without any errors and turning it in. These rough draft notebooks were usually mandatory and each student had to keep one for a grade.

Alexander Pushkin, a famous Russian poet, often drew sketches of his characters in his rough drafts, next to their line descriptions. Pictured above is a rough draft for the second canto of his celebrated novel in verse "Eugine Onegine."
Image taken from feb-web.ru.

Here are some examples with the word черновик: