The word я ‘I’ is a personal pronoun that declines like this:

In American English there are a couple of problems with the word ‘I.’ First off, in conversational English we often say ‘me’ where we should say ‘I’ in the literary language. Thus kids often say things like “Me and John went to the store” or “It's me” when theoretically we should say “John and I” or “It is I.” The Russians never make that mistake. They always use subject/nominative form in the right place:

Other examples:

¹ Although this sentence is theoretically okay, the Russians usually say it differently. We'll address the better usage in an upcoming entry on the word мы.
² Although theoretically one should say “It is I” in this context, no normal American will do so. Only pedants say “It is I.”

The word он is a personal pronoun that declines like this:

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

Он refers to masculine singular nouns, which can be either people or things, so sometimes it is translated as he/him, and sometimes it is translated as it. In other words, if you are refering to a врач doctor, then the sentence must be translated with he/him, and if you are refering to a грузовик truck, the same sentence must be translated with it:

In casual conversation it's common in America to say things like “Me and John went to the store,” especially when we are children. Schoolteachers then try to beat us out of that habit and make us say “He and I went to the store.” Because of that influence, English speakers may be tempted to say things like «Он 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 him” «мы с ним». Of course, it would be ridiculous to translate that as “we with him” in English; you still want “he and I” or just plain old ‘we.’

There are several ways in Russian to express the idea of “the same” in the sense of “the same house” or “the same country.” One way is to use один (which is also used as a cardinal number), and another way is to use «тот же». For instance, if you are just starting a conversation, you could say:

Oddly enough, in that context you cannot say «в том же доме». What's the difference? Essentially it's this: in order to use «тот же» the noun must have previously been mentioned in the conversation. For instance:

Another example. If you are for the first time mentioning your transportation over the weekend, you might say:

But if you have already mentioned the train car, then you use the other phrase:

Of course, the phrases can be used in other cases as well:

Sometimes один and тот же combine into a single phrase «один и тот же», but we'll save that phrase for another time.

The Russian phrase for “each other” is formed by saying the word друг twice in a row. The second друг occurs in a case other than the nominative, i.e. you can find these five forms:

The case of the second друг depends most often on the verb in question. If the verb requires a direct object, the second друг shows up in the accusative case; if the verb requires a dative object, the second друг shows up in the dative case. Likewise genitive — genitive, and instrumental — instrumental. Here are some examples:

If the verb requires a prepositional phrase as its complement, then the preposition comes between the two другs:

Native English speakers, of course, will be tempted to write things like «Мои сёстры постоянно сплетничают о друг друге». And truth to tell, native Russians will say or write something like that, but it is not considered good written style.

Interestingly enough, sometimes the Russians substitute дружка for the second друг. Thus you get:

That makes the phrase much more informal and conversational. For instance:

I was interested to find the phrase as well in a site devoted to Russian folk magic. Here is a spell people use to help repair a family fracas:

You'll notice that жгут, обходят and читают are not command forms but third person plural verbs. In the translation they are rendered as imperatives to make the English flow better.

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:

The first curious thing to note about the word is that you rarely encounter the nominative case form; instead you often find the genitive. For instance, if you wanted to say “nothing helped,” you might expect the translation to be «ничто не помогло». That is a perfectly grammatical sentence, but more often you would hear something like this:

That's not to say you won't ever see ничто. Back around 1997 there was an advertising campaign in Russia for Sprite. It began with posters of sexy models that said «Имидж ничто…» “Image is nothing…” and followed a while later by another set of posters with sexy models that said «Жажда всё» “Thirst is everything.” I remember being confused when I saw the first set of signs because they had nothing about Sprite on them, but weeks later I understood it when the second set of signs appeared that included Sprite images. Apparently the campaign worked: even a decade later you can still find people playing with the phrase. For instance, at the beginning of this month there was an article on podrobnosti.ru entitled «Имидж ничто, ответственоость всё» “Image is nothing; responsibility is everything.” The phrase has even penetrated popular humor:

“Image is nothing; thirst is everything. I won't let myself dry out.”

It's worth remembering that once you put a form of ничто in a sentence, you must also include the negative particle не before the verb. And if ничто is the object of a preposition, the ни separates from the rest of the word and moves in front of the preposition:

In conversation ничего acquires a wide range of meanings:

Thus in the end nothing means a lot of different things. Ironic.