One of the verbs I really like in Russian is разбираться. It has several meanings, but the one I have in mind today is the equvialent of "to have insight into, to understand". In this sense the verb is only used in the imperfective. For instance,

As an imperfective/perfective pair the verb can mean "to sort out the details, to figure out what's going on, to clarify the situation":

Here is the conjugation of the verb for your convenience:

Notes: "House" is amazingly popular in Russia. Everyone I talk to here has watched it.

The conversation about пельмени is based on one I had at the Чеховский рынок in Казань. The woman who ran the pelmeni stand was particular gracious and willing to have an extended conversation with a foreigner. It was she who introduced me to хинкали. She was selling mass-produced ones that were very good. I think regular khinkali actually have thinner dough. See this Wikipedia article for a picture.

Рисовать/нарисовать means to draw or pаint. It is a perfectly standard -овать verb, which means that in the conjugated non-past forms the -ова- is replaced by -у- :

Sample sentences:

The noun form is рисунок:

Both the verb and the noun are used in the world-famous song «Пусть всегда будет солнце» "Let there always be sunshine." Just as in French you cannot live without knowing "Freres Jacque" and "La vie en rose," just as in Spanish you cannot live without knowing "La cucaracha," just as in English you cannot live without knowing "Oh, my darling Clementine," so in Russian it is absolutely essential that you know this schmaltzy song, without which you will an ignoramus and a hooligan... So click here for the text and a video of the song.

When I was a kid, every morning when I woke up I would go into the kitchen, and immediately my mother would say, "Good morning, sweetie, how did you sleep?", and I would answer "Good, thanks." Or Mom would say, "Good morning, honey, did you sleep well?", and I would answer "Yeah" or "Fine" or "Not so great" or "Awful. I couldn't sleep at all." The verb that the Russians use when asking about how you slept is the pair высыпаться/выспаться "to get enough sleep." It conjugates like this:

Some sample sentences:

Recently we discussed the noun tan; now, I would like to continue on the topic and discuss the usage of the verb "to tan".

In Russian the imperfective and perfective forms are the following: загорать and загореть.

Personally, I always try to be careful with tanning. I can only remember a few times in my life that I've gotten badly sunburned. However, as we say in Russian, it was редко, да метко, "rarely but to the point". Every single time it happened, it was a handful. One summer, I remember, I was reading outside; the sun wasn't even out - it was cloudy! Nevertheless, I got burned so badly, I couldn't sleep the following night! What can I say? Just my luck!

A little while ago I wrote about words that can have multiple meanings because of their use in Russian slang. The verb «ломать» as well as its reflexive form «ломаться» are also such words.

The main meaning of this verb is “to break”. However, someone could say меня ломает to express a feeling of withdrawal after using drugs or when being sick and running high fever. Consequently, the word for withdrawals is «ломка».

There is also a rather well used idiom using this verb: «ломать себе голову». It means to puzzle or rack one's brains over something.

The reflexive form, ломаться, means to quit working or functioning.

However, ломаться can also mean, “crack” when referencing changes in a young’s man’s voice.

Also, ломаться has two other meanings in Russian slang. The first one is to "put on airs, while the second one is to "stubbornly refuse to concede".

Here's a video from Kira Muratova's movie. Her movies are always very unique. More often than not the main character is played by Renata Litvinova, who is the queen of putting on airs.

If you would like to see a transcript and translation of this clip, click here.