One of the words in Russian that is translated as need is надо. It is used in impersonal sentences. Impersonal sentences are those which do not have a grammatical subject in the nominative case. The verb used with надо appears in the infinitive form, and the person who needs to do the action appears in the dative case. If you need to do something only once, then usually the verb appears in the perfective:

To put the sentence into the past or future, you add the words было or будет:

If you need to do something regularly, then the infinitive shows up in the imperfective:

Now here is a subtle point. If you use надо 'need' as a rough equivalent for 'it is time to,' then the infinitive appears in the imperfective, even if you are talking about a one time action:

Оканчание is the Russian word for ending in the sense of a grammatical ending. Memorizing noun and verb endings is probably the greatest challenge of the first two years of studying Russian, so it's worth getting a few phrases that help you discuss endings. The verb is оканчиваться, which is perfectly regular:

One way to say "to remove an ending" is «убирать/убрать окончание», and to add an ending «ставить/поставить окончание»:

The Russian phrase for "season" in the sense of the time of year is «время года», literally "time of year," and the plural is «времена года» "times of year." There is also a borrowed word сезон with plural сезоны which means the same thing:

If you want to specify that something happens during a season, then you use the preposition в followed by the accusative case:

Note that if you use the names of the seasons—весна, лето, осень, зима—then those seasons go into the instrumental case when you mean "during that particular season":

One last quirk of the seasons is their starting date. In the States we say that winter starts on December 21st or 22nd. In Russia all the seasons start on the first of the month, so winter starts on the 1st of December.

One of the Russian words for cloud is облако. In the singular it is a perfectly regular neuter noun, but in the plural genitive may surprise you:

Some sample sentences:

Most simple nouns have one or more adjectives derived from them, and to really master Russian you need to learn them as well. In the case of облако the derived adjective is облачный:

Many adjectives have an adverb derived from them that you need to know as well. The adverb formed from облачный is облачно. Adverbs are often used predicatively in Russian:

The Russian word for last name or surname is фамилия. Фамилия does not mean family. Let's say you are in a post office, and the worker there needs to know your last name. He might ask your last name by saying:

Russian last names tend to end in -ин, -ын, -ов, -ев, and -ёв. Those are the masculine forms. You can also have feminine and plural forms as well:

Many Russian last names also end in -ый, -ой or -ский. Those are the masculine forms. You can also have feminine and plural forms as well:

The declension of last names is discussed in these entries:

• Last names in -ин, -ын, -ов, -ев, -ёв
• Last names in -ович
• Adjectival surnames
• Foreign last names

Note for Russian readers: the word 'surname' is not used very often in the United States. I have seen it on a few official forms, but for the most part we say 'last name,' not 'surname.' The one time I visited Britain, I did here 'surname' used.