The verb “to cost” in Russian is стоить:

The verb is mostly used in the third person. Bear in mind that the thing whose price you are discussing is the subject of the verb, so the verb has to agree with it:

The price itself goes into the accusative case. You don't normally notice that it's accusative because the accusative of most numbers is the same as the nominative; but if the cost includes a feminine singular noun like копейка, then you will clearly see the accusative. Likewise the number тысяча ‘one thousand’ is a noun in form, so you may see its accusative form as well.

One thing a beginner has to be careful about is the stress on these verb forms since they are different from the forms of стоять, even though they are mostly spelled the same. You can take a look here for a quick review of that verb.

The Russian word for tea is чай. It declines like this:

Чай first of all means the leaves of the tea plant and the drink made from those leaves. Sample sentences:

Just as in English, infusions and tisanes of other leaves are also called чай even when they contain no tea leaves:

The plural of the word can mean “varieties of tea,” although it's an uncommon use of the word:

Every once in a while you will encounter an old-fashioned u-stem genitive form of this word. Even though it looks like a dative, it's a genitive in meaning, which adds the idea of “some” to the sentence:

You may also encounter an old-fashioned u-stem locative form of the word as well. Again, although it looks like a dative, the meaning is locational:

Водород is the Russian word for hydrogen. The English word is made up of Greek roots where ὑδρο- (hydro-) means ‘water’ and γεν- (gen-) means ‘‘bring forth/become,” thus hydrogen means “the substance that forms water.” Notice that the Russian word is formed similarly: the root вод- means ‘water’ and the root род- means “give birth to”; thus the Russian words also means “the substance that forms water.” It is not a coincidence that these words have a similar structure. When one language models a new word by following the structure of the word in another language but subsitutes its own roots, that word is called a calque. The use of calques in a language is a very sensible way to build new words. A Russian child can learn the word водород and immediately see a connection between the word and the substance ‘water.’ An English speaking child will most likely never see the connection between hydrogen and water unless he takes a class on English roots or studies Greek.

Just as in English, водород is usually only used in the singular; we rarely say ‘hydrogens.’ It declines perfectly regularly:

Let's explore some sample sentences:

If you see a diagram of methane in a Russian textbook, you will something like this:

Notice that Latin letters are used, not Cyrillic letters. That's an international convention, which means that when you begin reading Russian chemistry articles, you will be able to understand the diagrams easily, although of course you will still have to learn the Russian names of the elements to discuss them intelligently.

Henry Cavendish is usually credited as first identifying hydrogen as a discrete substance in 1766 (source). Before that, mankind rarely saw the substance in its pure gaseous form on Earth. In the eighteen hundreds it was discovered in the sun and other stars by its spectral signature. This was a great shock. This substance, whose gaseous form was completely outside the day-to-day experience of most ordinary human beings, turned out to be the most common form of matter in the universe.² This strange truth reminds me of a line from the song Fireflies: “Everything is never as it seems.”³ At every moment of every day we should remember that everything is different from what it appears to be, whether the seeming solidity of the table in front of us or the blueness of the sky or the unexpected short-temper of our neighbor. In relating to inanimate things, this should give us a sense of wonder at the beauty and complexity of physical existence. In relating to living beings, it should give us a sense of graciousness and compassion toward the occasional quirks of others since we never truly know the pains that underlie them. In both cases we can be reminded of the incredible privilege of being alive and conscious at this moment.

¹ Not all organic molecules necessarily have hydrogen. I'm fudging for the sake of this blog entry.

² Nowadays some scientists posit that the majority of the universe's mass may be in dark matter, which has a corollary that hydrogen may not be the most abundant substance in the universe. Nota bene: even those who are expert in their subject may have to radically shift their views on subjects they know well, thus we should all hold our opinions with an easy grace, open to change.

³ The most common way to say this in English is “Nothing is ever as it seems.” Adam Young showed a beautiful artistic touch when he rephrased it in this song.

Another common verb pair for “to close” in Russian is закрываться/закрыться:

This is a reflexive verb. Reflexive verbs are verbs that add the prefix -ся or сь after the standard endings. Reflexive verbs usually have meanings that are somewhat different from their non-reflexive verbs. Sometimes they have a passive meaning, sometimes a habitual meaning, sometimes other meanings. For this verb the reflexive forms has a ‘medio-passive’ meaning. Thus:

In the early nineties, when the Soviet grocery stores were nearly empty, куриные окорочка “chicken legs” (the cut that has leg and thigh) became very popular. They were called ножки Буша “Bush’s legs” because of the trade agreement that was signed between Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush. The agreement made the United States the largest exporter of frozen chicken drumsticks to the former USSR (now the Russian Federation).

I remember when I was growing up they were everywhere: from a major celebration to a family dinner. Because they were cheap, housewives all over Russia would try to find more and more ways to prepare them. They would put them in various soups and cold salads or stuff them with liver pate and mushrooms.

Окорочок “drumstick” is diminutive for окорок, which means the leg and hip portion of an animal prepared as food.

Here is a funny cartoon called Масяня. It is very popular in Russia. In this particular episode the creators are poking fun at how Russians speak (or rather don't speak) English.