Who doesn't love a good deal? And the best deal is when you get something for free or "бесплатно." The adverb бесплатно means "free of charge"; the adjectival version is бесплатный. Here is how the word breaks down: the prefix без- means "without" (and here takes the form бес-) and the stem -плат- means "pay." I love it when words make simple sense like that! But remember, just because we can translate the word as "free" doesn't mean it can be used in any other context. There is a different word for "free" as in "independent" or" available." I doubt many companies want to think of 4th of July as "Free of Charge Day!"

Here are a few examples on how to use "бесплатно:"

When I go to New York, one of my favorite places to eat is this Chinese restaurant where they have my favorite kind of deal on wine: "Вы платите за ужин, и вино бесплатно!" "You pay for dinner, and the wine is free!"

Нравиться literally means “to please/be pleasing,” so to communicate the ‘like’ idea, you have to mentally rephrase “I like tomatoes” as “Tomatoes please me”. Notice this is grammatically quite different than the analogous English sentence. In English the person experiencing the pleasure is the subject of the sentence, and the source of the pleasure is the direct object:

In Russian the source of the pleasure is the subject of the sentence, which means it appears in the nominative case. The verb, of course, agrees with the subject. The person experiencing the pleasure is the indirect object and appears in the dative case:

Thus when one person likes another, we can have sentences like these:

There is one last quirk. In the Russian sentence, the source of pleasure often (though not always) shows up in final position, just as in the English sentence, even though grammatically it is the subject. Notice that the verb agrees with the subject in the Russian sentence, even though the subject is at the end of the sentence:

Here are some present tense sentences. Notice carefully the case of each subject and object, and how the verb agrees with the subject:

Now let's look at those same sentences in the past tense. Note how the verb agrees with the subject:

If you are dealing with masculine or neuter nouns, then you have to use an adjectival form that copies the genitive plural:

If you are dealing with feminine nouns, it is usually best to use an adjectival form that copies the nominative plural:

Here are some sample sentences:

¹ You will sometimes also encounter две новых машины, аlthough новые is better style these days.

Very often брат is used with the words старший older/oldest and младший younger/youngest. Since those words are ambiguous, I like to fudge in non-professional work and translate them as big and little. In professional translation, of course, you should determine whether the superlative meaning (oldest/youngest) or comparative meaning (older/younger) is the correct one:

Probably the most common question about flash drives is how much data they can hold. The way to ask the question properly is:

It's also possible to say things like:

I was amused to find out that sometimes geekoids will substitute the word гектар hectare for гигабайт gigabyte:

Last but not least, you might also hear something like:

Those versions look awful in print. Don't ever write them in an official document or course paper, but don't surprised if you hear them when friends are talking among themselves.

The «н» versions of the pronoun occur when the pronoun is the object of a preposition.

Она refers to feminine singular nouns, which can be either people or things, so sometimes it is translated as she/her, and sometimes it is translated as it. In other words, if you are refering to an учительница "school teacher," then the sentence must be translated with she/her, and if you are refering to a машина car, the same sentence must be translated with it:

In casual conversation it's common in America to say things like “Me and Sally went to the store,” especially when we are children. Schoolteachers then try to beat us out of that habit and make us say “She and I went to the store.” Because of that influence, English speakers may be tempted to say things like «Она и я ездили в магазин» in Russian. While theoretically one can say that in Russian, no one ever does. Instead it gets rephrased as “we with her” «мы с ней». Of course, it would be ridiculous to translate that as “we with her” in English; you still want “she and I” or just plain old ‘we.’

A couple of weeks ago I decided to learn how to make this treat for myself. «Бэлла, вареники легко сделать» "Bella, vareniki are easy to make," my mom declared, so together we made a big batch. I invited some friends over, and by the end of the night there were no vareniki left - не было больше вареников!

The word вареники roughly translates to "little boiled things." Basically they are crescent-shaped stuffed dumpling. The fillings range from berries to meat to cheese. Often they are topped with sour cream. It is an easy and convenient food to make and freeze, therefore it is very popular in Russia and Ukraine. In fact, the city of Cherkasy, Ukraine, put up a big monument featuring the folk hero Cossak Mamay in front of a giant varenik!

Over the centuries time/entropy/life disrupted all that beautiful grammatical symmetry. The "-a" form of masculine nouns often resembled the genitive singular, so nowadays the numbers два/две are followed by nouns in a form that generally coincides with the genitive singular form. The gender association of the numbers shifted as well: nowadays два is used with masculine and neuter nouns, and две is only used with feminine nouns. Here are some sample sentences: