The most common word for three in Russian is три. If три occurs in the nominative case, then it is followed by the genitive singular form of the noun:

However, if you put an adjective between the number and the noun, you don't use the genitive singular. So what form do you use? Well, that depends...

If you are dealing with masculine or neuter nouns, then you have to use an adjectival form that copies the genitive plural:

If you are dealing with feminine nouns, it is usually best to use an adjectival form that copies the nominative plural:

Here are some sample sentences:

¹ You will sometimes also encounter три красивых дочери, аlthough красивые is better style these days.

In most Russian apartments the bathtub is located in a room next to, but separate from, the room that has the toilet. Since bathtub in Russian is ванна, the room that contains it is called a ванная. Ванная is a deadjectival noun; that is, it is an adjective in form, but a noun in meaning, so it declines like this:

Now, we are going to have a bit of a translation problem here. In the US the word bathroom means the room that contains the toilet. (It might be different in the UK...) I just asked a buddy of mine “What do you call a room in America that has a bathtub but not a toilet?” He looked at me with incredulity, as if I were an American manqué, and said “I don't know. I have never encountered the situation.” ‘Washroom’ doesn't work, because it, too, implies a toilet, as do john, head, wc, powder room, restroom and lavatory. So for the purposes of this blog entry I will call it the “bathtub room.” That sounds odd in American English, so if you are a Russian reading this blog, don't use the phrase yourself; just understand that we are making do. That said, here are some sample sentences:

Did you hear about the great new restaurant on the луна? The food is delicious, but there's no atmosphere! Hahahaha!

The word луна means moon. Is the joke funnier now?

Где луна? Я ничего не вижу!
Where is the moon? I can't see a thing!

Сколько лун вокруг Сатурна?
How many moons are around Saturn?

In Arizona all I have to do is drive for about a half an hour out of Phoenix on any given night to get a great view of the sky. It's really convenient since:

Я люблю смотреть на луну.
I love to look at the moon.

При солнечном затмении Луна частично или полностью закрывает Солнце. (adapted from this source)
During a solar eclipse the moon partially or completely covers the sun.

Мы стояли под яркой луной.
We stood under the bright moon.

Когда следующее полнолуние?*
When is the next full moon?

* The roots полн- ‘full’ and лун- ‘moon’ combine as «полнолуние» to mean a full moon.

When you learn a foreign language, one of the things that causes problems are false cognates, which are words that sound similar but can have quite different meanings. The classic example for Spanish students is ‘embarazada’ which sounds like the English word ‘embarrassed’ but actually means ‘pregnant.’ If an American woman tries to say that she is embarrassed using ‘embarazada,’ the reaction of her cohorts will teach her her error promptly. She won't make that mistake a second time.

It's a little trickier when the meanings of the false cognates are much closer in the two languages. In that case there is much more likely to be continuing confusion and cross-cultural mis­com­munication, and that miscommunication can be both on the dictionary-meaning level and on the emotional level. A case in point are the words туалет and toilet. In American English toilet means the actual device one sits upon, and in Russian туалет means the room in which the toilet (but usually not the bathtub) is located. Since the Russian word is so similar to the English word, American students of Russian only have to hear it once to remember it forever, and they promptly start producing sentences like:

In terms of grammatical communication it is a perfectly adequate sentence, but the student hasn't said quite what he thinks he has said, and there is a very good chance he has just committed a cultural faux pas. The sentence is a little too direct for polite company, and simply saying you want to go to the toilet summons up unpleasant images of... well, you get the idea. In American English we avoid those images because the word “bathroom” focuses on the ‘bath’ idea; that is, there is a subtle association with cleanliness, not urination or defecation. So to avoid being quite so direct, the Russians have several ways of euphemistically expressing the idea. The one I use most is «помыть руки», which word-for-word means “to wash the hands”:

If you say it that way, there will be a bit of ambiguity to the Russian, who won't necessarily be sure if you need the toilet or the sink, but since in a Russian apartment the room with the toilet is usually right next to the room with the bathtub and sink, they will lead you right to where you need to go for either purpose. Of course, if you are not directly discussing bodily functions, it's perfectly fine to use the word туалет:

The social contexts that affect the direct use of the word туалет are complex. My friend Tanya assures me that if she is at a restaurant with a mixed group of men and women, she never uses the word туалет. Instead she would just stand up, say «Я сейчас приду» “I’ll be right back,” and then leave. But if she is with just her female friends at the restaurant, she might well say «Я пойду в туалет» “I'm going to the bathroom,” and since she is with her friends she might add to one of them «Ты хочешь со мной?» “Do you want to come with me?” Similarly a Russian man in mixed company will use euphemistic phrases like the ones mentioned before or «Я отойду на минутку» “I'll step away for a moment.” (But unlike Russian women, a Russian man won't ask a buddy to go to the bathroom with him.)

Hello readers! I'll be honest with you. Last week was a frustrating and stressful week. Nothing went as planned and that left me grumpy. I even found myself throwing down an expletive or three.

Warning! The following paragraphs contain Russian and English vulgarity.

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