The Russian word for bridge is мост. In Russia, my grandmother owned a chalet дача which was surrounded by a beautiful garden. This chalet was a few miles away from our home and we often traveled by bike велосипед to the chalet. On our way to the chalet, we had to cross a long and old bridge which hung over a great river. This river emptied into the Black Sea and each time we crossed it, I threw a stick into it as part of my routine. Each time we crossed the bridge I felt very anxious and scared because despite my grandmother’s reassurance of its safety, the bridge looked unsafe to me and my sister. With each step we took forward, I heard the noise of the old wooden boards under my feet. My grandmother said to me and my sister, «Не бойтесь! Этот мост безопасный» “Don’t be scared! This bridge is safe”. I trusted my grandmother but I still felt anxious every time I crossed the bridge. I must say that crossing the scary bridge was worth it because my grandmother’s chalet was very beautiful and peaceful. I often said to my grandmother «Я люблю дачу!» “I love the chalet”.

The Russian word for chicken is курица. My great-grandmother had a henhouse by her home where she kept many chickens. Although the henhouse required many hours of cleaning every week, my great-grandmother enjoyed caring for her chickens and was happy doing the work. Primarily she raised the chickens for the eggs «яйца» and meat «мясо».

Occasionally my great-grandmother killed a chicken to make dinner for the family. She owned a small ax «топор» which she used to behead the chickens. She would tell me «сейчас мы будем готовить ужин» “now we will cook dinner”. She would choose the oldest chicken and carry it to the butchering table by its neck while it screamed and scratched. With one quick strike, she executed it and I watched with sadness as the beheaded chicken began running quickly around the yard for a few seconds before dropping dead. Afterwards, my great grandmother cleaned and plucked the chicken before she prepared dinner with it. Although, I sometimes felt sad when eating the chicken that was once alive, I could never resist my great grandmother’s cooking. I told her all the time «бабушка, ты вкусно готовишь курицу» “grandmother, the chicken you cook is tasty”.

A student with four identical sisters asked how he could say 'quadruplets.' He had looked in a bunch of dictionaries and couldn't find the word anywhere. Let's dig into that a bit.

First off, Russian has a word близнецы (singular близнец) which can mean twins, triplets, quadruplets, or larger multiple births; thus you can say У нас родились близнецы and mean "We had twins" or "We had triplets" etc. A similar word is близняшки, which sometimes sounds better in examples with girl-children for reasons that would take to long to go into here. Examples:

Since English doesn't have a commonly used word that covers twins and triplets and quads, when translating близнецы you will usually use "twins." Of course, you'll have to determine from context whether triplets or quadruplets or larger sets are in mind, but twins are much more common than the larger sets.

In Russian twins and triplets are often discussed with the words двойня and тройня, which are feminine singular words meaning a set of twins or triplets:

From those words a clever student might predict words like четверня, пятерня, шестерня for quads, quints, and sextuplets, but there you run into a problem. The words двойня and тройня are part of the Russian literary language; that is, they are considered “real words” that you can write in essays or pronounce in official speeches or hear from an educated TV announcer. But the word четверня is not a part of the literary language. Oh, sure, if you say it, everyone will understand you, and some people won't think twice about it, but most will consider it conversational, and some people will consider it “not a real word.” And when you get to the other words, they have nothing to do with children. Пятерня means “hand (not including the arm)”, and шестерня is a team of six-horses hitched together.

In conversational Russian there are also the words двойняшка and тройняшка, which mean a member of a set of twins and triplets respectively. But again here, once you reach the “quadruplet” idea, people don't really say четверняшка very often, and you won't ever hear пятерняшка and шестерняшка, except maybe in a joking sense.

Note: if you'd like to read a Russian website with information on twins, go to bddb.narod.ru.

The word прошлый means 'last' in the sense of «В прошлом году я перестал чистить зубы» "Last year I stopped brushing my teeth" or «В прошлом месяце у меня выпали все зубы» "Last month all my teeth fell out." Прошлый means last in the sense of time but not in the sense of "last one of the batch." In other words, you can use it to say 'last week' but you can't use it to say 'I bought the last tomato.'

We particularly find this word in the following time phrases:

Notice that years and months are used with the preposition в and the prepositional case (году is an irregular prepositional form), seasons are used in the instrumental case with no preposition, weeks are used with на and the prepositional case, and days are used with в and the accusative case.

On occasion people will say «прошлой субботой» in the instrumental case with no preposition to mean 'last Saturday,' but that's considered uneducated. Never write it in a composition.

Last but not least, if you are discussing American academic life, you will need the phrases:

The Russian word for mineral water is минеральная вода. Before coming to America, I lived in a city called Минеральные воды which means mineral waters in English. The city is close to the Black Sea and my family visited the sea often during holidays and summer vacations.

One of the most famous attractions in Минеральные воды is the Mineral Water Park. This park is famous for its mineral water which comes straight out of the ground from a springhead «источник». Many people come to this park to drink the healthy mineral water and enjoy the green scenery. Every time my grandmother said to me «мы едем в парк Минеральных вод» “we are going to the Mineral Water Park”, I became very excited because many other children came to the park with their families and I always found children to play with. I especially loved to run around where the huge trees grew on both sides of the grassy walkway and arched over each other making it difficult for the sun to shine through. I often brought blankets with me and took naps under the tree arches. When I woke up, I would look up at the beautiful green arch and feel as if I was in a huge green tunnel. It was truly a heavenly experience.