One of the things that surprises Americans going to Russia is the Russians fondness for mineral water. In conversational Russian it can be called минера́лка, although of course the proper word for it is минера́льная вода. Минералка declines like this.

Dozens of types of mineral water have been sold in Russia since Soviet times, and among the most recognized names are Боржоми, Нарзан, Миргородская, Новотерская and Ессентуки. There are dozens more. Even big western firms are in the mineral water business in Russia. The Coca-Cola Company puts out БонАква, and PepsiCo puts out Аква Минерале. (See this link for a discussion of the Russian mineral water market.)

In short, you can find mineral water on every street corner in Russia, so you may hear things like this:

Sometimes when you study a foreign language, especially one as difficult as Russian, you just want to show off your new-found skills and knowledge, and for Russian one of the great words you can use for that purpose is достопримеча́тельности. It means ‘sights.’ That's right, sights. In English it’s one syllable. In Russian it’s eight syllables. Here is how it is pronounced:

When you are trying to learn to pronounce a polysyllabic monstrosity like that, there is a little trick that will help you get it right. If you would like to learn the trick, play this bit of audio:

In terms of declension достопримечательность is a standard third declension noun:

Although we usually translate it as ‘sights,’ you could also translate it as ‘attractions’ or ‘places of interest.’

We previously noted the use of the word чтобы in sentences like this where someone in the first clause wants someone else in the second clause to do something.

The translation of such sentences into English is fairly straightforward. But sometimes a person in the first clause wants someone else in the first clause to get a third person in the second clause to do something. Hm. That was not the clearest statement, was it? An example is in order:

Пётр говорит Тане, чтобы её подруга позвонила вечером.

Here Pyotr is talking to Tanya with the purpose of getting Tanya's friend to call in the evening. Now just how are we supposed to translate that? We are going to have to add some words in the English translation to get it to flow better. After some reflection I have decided that you need either a “to have” construction or a “should” construction:

Pyotr is telling Tanya to have her friend call in the evening.
Pyotr is telling Tanya that her friend should call in the evening.

Here are five more examples:

On the whole I like the “to have” translations better than the “should” translations. In either case there is a bit of ambiguity. The “to have” construction in such contexts can express either a suggestion or a command. In other words “Misha told Pyotr to have Arkadi give him a call” can mean either that Misha is making a suggestion for Pyotr to call Arkdai, or it can be taken as a command, i.e., Misha is telling Pyotr to do it.

The “should” construction in such contexts can express either a suggestion or a statement of moral obligation. In other words “Misha told Pyotr that Arkadi should give him a call” can mean either that Misha is making a suggestion or that Misha is saying Arkadi has a moral obligation to call.

The Russian чтобы clauses in these context better match the “to have” range of meaning than the “should” range of meaning.

All the Russian examples here are from p. 140 of “Russian Stage 2: Welcome Back!” by Irina Dolgova and Cynthia Martin. The suggestions for English translations are my own, so any errors must be blamed on me, not them.

We previously noted the use of the word чтобы in sentences like:

In the Russian version of that sentence the чтобы clause contains a perfective verb to express a one-time action with result to the point of discourse:

That's all well and good, but what happens if the opposite is the case? In other words, we want to say:

In this case the verb in the чтобы clause must be expressed in the imperfective:

Alternatively, one could put the не right in front of писала instead of in front of хочу:

For beginners the rule of thumb is this: a negated verb will be expressed in the imperfective. In these sentences the scope of negation seems to include not only хочу but also the complement of хочу, i.e. the чтобы clause. Here are some other examples. Notice all the sentences in blue have a perfective чтобы clause. All the sentences in yellow are negative and thus must have an imperfective чтобы clause:

Consider the following two sentences in English:

Both sentences use an infinitive construction in the second part of the sentence. If the implied subject in the second part is the same as the subject in the first part, the subject is not repeated in the second part. If the subject in the second part is different from the subject in the first part, it is specified in the second part. Russian uses an infinitive construction for sentences like #1, but it uses чтобы + past tense for sentences like #2:

This чтобы + past tense construction is sometimes referred to as the “subjunctive mood” because it is equivalent to similar subjunctive uses in Spanish, French, German, and some other languages. It is used not only with the verb хотеть “to want,” but also with many other verbs where one person asks/tells/orders another person to do something, especially просить/попросить to request/ask, говорить/сказать to tell, приказывать/приказать to order, and предлагать/предложить to suggest.