Archives for: "May 2009"
Суп
The Russian word for soup is суп. It is an end-stressed noun in the plural, but stem-stressed in the singular, which means it declines like this: Singular Plural Nom суп супы Acc суп супы Gen супа супов Pre супе супах Dat супу супам Ins супом супами The… more »
Икра, часть третья
Okay, brace yourself, this one is freaky. In addition to meaning caviar and vegetable pâté, икра also means calf in the sense of the gastrocnemius muscle on the back of your lower legs. In that sense it is mostly used in the plural, although the… more »
Икра, часть вторая
Just because a can has the word икра on it does not necessarily mean that it contains caviar. If you chop vegetables finely, season them and mix them with some oil until they make a paste that resembles pressed caviar in texture, that is called икра, in… more »
Икра, часть первая
The word икра has several meanings in Russian. The first one that comes to mind is caviar, which means fish eggs. Russians love caviar. In the US it's a rare family that buys caviar, but in Russia it's very common to buy caviar for parties. It's… more »
Ничто, ничего
The word for nothing in Russian is ничто. Grammatically we call it a negative pronoun, and as a pronoun of course it occurs in all six cases: Nom ничто Acc direct object: ничего after prepositions: ни во что, ни на что Gen ничего Pre ни о чём Dat ничему… more »