Archives for: "June 2011"
Они
Они is a pronoun that replaces grammatically plural nouns. It declines like this: Pl Nom они Acc (н)их Gen Pre Dat (н)им Ins (н)ими The primary meaning of они is they/them in its various forms. In such contexts you get sentences like: Они приезжали ко… more »
Губа
This by way of Ryan, a former student of mine, currently dating a lovely Russian girl: Learning a foreign language is difficult. Sometimes it is downright dangerous; like when you accidentally tell your girlfriend that she has a great mustache when you… more »
Слизняк
Okay, I lied on Friday. My favorite word in Russian is not слизь. It's слизняк. Слизь of course means mucous, and -няк is a suffix that forms a new noun, so слизняк is a ‘mucousling,’ in other words... a slug! Isn't that an awesome word? Growing up in… more »
Слизь
I think my favorite Russian word is слизь, which means mucous. Almost all American students will laugh out loud the first time they hear it, which will doubtless mystify Russian readers, so I should explain that English has a word ‘sleaze’ which means a… more »
В (degree of comparison)
English and Russian both have special comparison forms for adjectives and adverbs, which makes them seem sort of similar. In English the comparative form often ends in -er, and in Russian it often ends in -е or -ее: The Ferrari is faster than the… more »