Russian Word of the Day

There is nothing Americans like to do more than make fun of the French. It's not just because their language sounds as if it is being spoken by geese with headcolds. It's not just because they make so much mediocre pastry. It's not just because they like to go on strike for recreational purposes. It's not just because they once gave us a huge statue in a shapeless dress as if we couldn't handle designer clothing. It's because... they are French. So today's Russian word of the day is Франция France. There is only one France, thank heavens, so we usually decline it only in the singular:

Note that when it comes immediately after the preposition в, the в becomes во:

Here are a couple more sample sentences with Франция in other cases:

The Russian word for Hawaii is Гавайи, and when you decline it, it has only plural endings, no singular:

Those are the forms to use if you are discussing the Big Island itself. If you are talking about the whole state or the whole chain of islands, then it's best to call them Гавайские острова The Hawaiian Islands. (Notice that in Russian we capitalize the first word but not the second.)

Because we are dealing with an island, we use the prepositions на and с to mean to/at and from:

The ending -йи is not typical for a Russian noun in the nominative, so the Russians are still slightly unsure of how to deal with it. Some people and references treat Гавайи as an indeclinable noun, but the current advice of style guides is to decline it.

The common Russian word for Mexico is Мексика, while the official name is Мексиканские Соединённые Штаты ‘The Mexican United States.’ Russian Wikipedia defines Мексика as «государство в Северной Америке, граничащее на севере с США» “a state in North America that shares a border on the north with the USA.” A Mexican man is мексиканец and a Mexican woman is мексиканка. Notice that names of nationalities are not capitalized in Russian. The language of Mexico is not мексиканский язык but испанский язык. Gosh, I wonder if there are any other countries where the name of language does not match the name of the country…

The name of Mexico City in Russian is Мехико. Curious, eh? The country is a feminine noun and declines. The capitol city does not decline and, despite its ending in -о, is masculine in gender, as you can see in this sentence «Мехикo был основан в 1325 году индейцами-ацтеками» “Mexico was founded in 1325 by the Aztec Indians” (Russian Wikipedia).

One of the great things about living in Arizona is you can make quick trips to Mexico. «В субботу мы ездили в Ногалес» “On Saturday we went to Nogales.” «Смотри, какую крутую татуировку мне сделали в Ногалесе!» “Look at the cool tatoo I got in Nogales!”