Posts tagged with "Russian grammar"

Russian No-nouns

Posted by yelena 10 Comments
Jan 31 2012

I love good sci-fi (this is not an endorsement of this particular book since I haven’t read it). The phrase братья по разуму (lit: intellectual brethren) is sometimes used to describe intelligent (and presumably friendly) space aliens. In this case the aliens are not only unattractive, but definitely unfriendly. 

This post’s idea comes from Richard who mentioned that he was confused by the noun нежить (lit: the undead) that he encountered reading Nabokov’s story “The Wood Sprite”. Indeed, the noun нежить (undead) sounds exactly like the verb нежить (to pamper), but the meanings of the two words couldn’t be more different. False cognates strike again!

As you’ve undoubtedly realized by now, the noun нежить is related to the verb жить (to live). In fact, one of the definitions of the word нежить is всё, что не живёт человеком, что живёт без души и без плоти, но в виде человека… (everything that is not a human being, that lives without soul and flesh, but in human likeness). Simply put нежить не живёт и не умирает (the undead neither live nor die).

This would be a good post for Halloween, don’t you think?

There are quite a few nouns in the Russian language that are formed according to the same principle as нежить:

Неуч (ignoramus) is someone who не учится (does not study). So a teacher might scold нерадивый ученик (lazy, negligent student): А ты, Петров, как был неучем, так им и останешься (And you, Petrov, have always been an ignoramus and will remain such forever).

Нелюдим (misanthrope) is someone who не с людьми (is not around other people, a loner). Я думала, что мой начальник меня терпеть не может, а он просто нелюдим. (I thought my boss hated my guts, but he’s just a misanthrope).

Недруг (enemy) is someone who is не друг (not a friend) as in the old saying без недруга веку не изжить (can’t live out one’s life without having an enemy).

Незнайка (a know-nothing) literally не знает (does not know) much. It is a character from a popular children’s book that also features a character named Знайка (the know-it-all). An adult know-nothing is невежда since he or she не ведает (does not know). Невежда is an old-fashioned word much like the word it came from, ведать (to know).

Somewhat confusingly, the alike-sounding невежа (a boor) is someone who is не вежливый (is not polite). As this quote from Приключения Незнайки и его друзей (Adventures of Know-Nothing and His Friends) shows: Если … какой-нибудь малыш даже скажет обидное слово малышке, то над ним все смеялись и говорили, что он невоспитанный невежа, который незнаком с самыми простыми правилами приличного поведения. (If… a boy were to say rude words to a girl, then all would laugh at him and say that he was an ill-mannered boor, unfamiliar with even the simplest rules of proper behavior.)

Недоделка is an unfinished item, something that is не доделано (is not completely done). Another good word is недоработка, something that is not up to standard yet. Я – человек быстро увлекающийся и легко отвлекающийся, так что у меня больше недоделок, чем поделок. (I am quick to get into something, yet easily distracted.  As a result, I have more unfinished projects/crafts than finished ones.)

Невольник is a rather высокопарный (highfaluting) word that means someone who lacks воля (free will, freedom). In other words, it’s a slave. The most famous line that uses this word is probably the opening of Lermontov’s poem: Погиб поэт! – невольник чести… (The poet’s dead! – a slave to honor…)

Неурядица is probably my most favorite word in this list. Sure, its meaning isn’t all that pleasant – trouble, woe, confusion. But it comes from the word ряд (here: order, harmony). The old Russian уряд (order, rule) is no longer used, but порядок (order) is as popular as ever. После длительной череды финансовых неурядиц Росавиация аннулировала сертификат «Авиановы» (After a long streak of financial trouble, Rosaviatsiya (Federal Air Transportation agency) withdrew Avianova’s (Russian low-cost air carrier) certificate.

This is not исчерпывающий список (an exhaustive list) of Russian не (no) words. Feel free to add more. And if you have a question, let me know and I’ll blog you the answer (or at least something entertaining and educational).

Time to Learn Russian Declensions

Posted by yelena 19 Comments
Dec 19 2011

Three warriors, three horses, three roads, three genders, three declensions… Warning: wrangling with this grammar issue might require much effort and three free time.

Do you remember the Gender of Russian Nouns post that appeared a few weeks ago? It generated the record number of comments and all of them contributed to the subject. So if, after reading the post itself, you have more questions than answers, then do check out the comments.

Here’s the thing though… I originally set out to write a post on declensions, following a request from one of the readers, Aurea. I decided to start off with an overview of gender, but to do cover it вкратце (briefly). Yeah, right…

Still, now that we have had time to refresh our grammar on the subject of род имён существительных (gender of nouns), it’s finally time to move on to склонения (declensions).

Knowing declensions is helpful when you are trying to memorize all the ways a noun’s ending changes as you take it through падежи (cases). Let’s start with some good news:

  1. Russian language has only три склонения (three declensions) – первое (first), второе (second) and третье (third)
  2. You really only need to concentrate on singular endings because plural endings are quite similar

And now let’s look close at the three склонения. Keep in mind that in Russian grammar Roman numerals I, II and III are used to show declensions:

Declension group I

Almost all masculine nouns fall under the first declension. The exceptions are masculine nouns that end in -а and -я, such as папа (dad), дядя (uncle), дедушка (grandfather), etc. These nouns decline as declension II.

Another important exception is the masculine word путь (path) which declines as nouns in group III.

Neuter nouns are also, almost all, belong to this declension. The exceptions here are the ten -мя nouns and the word дитя (a child). They all decline as nouns in group III.

Declension group II

Nouns from all three genders – masculine, feminine, and neuter – can be in this group as long as they end in -а or -я (the ten -мя nouns and дитя are exceptions, don’t forget). Now, if you read through the comments on the genders post, you’ll see some questions about how to decline diminutives of men’s names, such as Саша (for Александр), Женя (for Евгений), Костя (for Константин), etc. These all decline as group II.

Some other masculine nouns that belong to this group are the ones ending in -а or -я that diminish or magnify the original group I masculine nouns they are formed from, such as

мальчонка is a diminutive of the group I masculine noun мальчик (boy)

братишка is a diminutive of the group I masculine noun брат (brother)

домина (large house) is based on the group I masculine noun дом (house)

парнишка is a diminutive of the group I masculine noun парень (young lad)

Declension group III

Feminine nouns that end in the combination of a consonant+ ь belong to this group along with the masculine путь, the ten -мя nouns and the neuter дитя.

And that’s almost all there is to the fundamentals of Russian declensions. I say “almost” because of the compound words that start with пол- (half), as in полчаса (half an hour), полгода (half a year), полжизни (half a life), полпути (midway), полбутылки (half a bottle), etc.

To figure out into which group these nouns will fall (or to determine their gender), you need to look at the gender and declension of the main part, or in the case of the above:

Полчаса – masculine, group I – same as for час (an hour)

 

Полгода – masculine, group I – same as for год (a year)

Полжизни – feminine, group III – same as for жизнь (a life)

Полпути – masculine, group III – same as for путь (a path, a way)

Полбутылки – feminine, group II – same as for бутылка (a bottle)

However, if the compound word is used to tell time and the main part of it is formed from an ordinal adjective, as in полпервого (twelve thirty), полпятого (half past four), etc, then you are in luck since case endings don’t change, although you will hear Russians change them for Dative case in informal conversations:

Мы приедем в полвторого or Мы приедем к полвторому (we will arrive at half past one)

Она уходит с работы в полпятого or Она уходит с работы к полпятому (she leaves work at half past four)

Once you figure out which word falls into which declension group, you’ll just have to memorize declension tables. I say “just”, but I do realize this can be a frustrating and confusing task for non-native speakers.

So I have a question to those of our readers who mastered the declensions – please, share your learning experience, any tips or tricks you might have – with those of us who are just approaching this intimidating grammar topic!

Let’s Learn the Learning Verbs

Posted by Natalie 7 Comments
Nov 22 2011


Well, I think it’s finally autumn. For a while, the weather was quite warm, but recently, whenever I walk outside, «мне холодно» [I am cold]. This means I have to wear my «пальто, сапоги, и шапка» [coat, boots, and hat]. And I try not to forget «перчатки» [gloves] either! In the photo: birches near Novosibirsk in autumn. Do you know how to say “birch” in Russian?

The learning verbs in Russian are very, very complicated. I’m in an advanced Russian class and we just went over them, so I thought I would post a little bit about these verbs, including some example sentences, so you can see how they are used.

«Учиться» means to learn and is usually used with general knowledge, such as «учиться писать» [to learn to write] or «учиться музыке» [to learn music]. If you learn from someone specific, use «у кого», such as «Я учился терпению у отца» [I learned patience from my father]. This is the verb you usually use when saying that you study at school or university: «Я учусь в университете» [I study at university]. You can also be more specific and say «Я учусь в МГУ» [I study at MGU (Moscow State University)].

By contrast, if you want to say that you study something specific, one of the verbs you can use is «изучать». You usually use a specific field with «изучать», such as: «историю, английский язык, физику» [history, English language, physics]. The imperfective of this verb is «изучить» and has a slightly different meaning: it means that you have mastered whatever it is that you are studying, whereas «изучать» does not imply that.

«Заниматься» is sort of like «изучать» in that you can use it to say that you study a certain field, but it is not always used in the same way. When people ask me what I study at university, they can say: «Чем ты занимаешься?» [What do you study?] and I answer: «Я занимаюсь историей и русским языком» [I study history and Russian language]. «Заниматься» can also be used in more of a general study sense, such as: «Я занимаюсь обычно дома» [I usually study at home].

I hope this provides somewhat of an introduction to the learning verbs. I have not covered everything by far, but hopefully this is somewhere to get you started.

Questions? Comments? Let me know below!

By the way: birch in Russian is «берёза», in case you were wondering.

This Russian Grammar Round-Up Will Make Your Head Spin

Posted by yelena 2 Comments
Nov 15 2011

An old poster commands: “You are helping to liquidate illiteracy! All join the “Down with Illiteracy” society”.

If you are looking for entertaining and helpful takes on some of the stickier problems of Russian grammar, then this post is for you. NOTE: not all the posts mentioned below were written by me. In fact, I wrote just a tiny portion of them. So if you leave comments on those posts (with links in italics), your comments might not appear right away and might take a couple of days to be approved.

Over the years we collected quite a few posts on this blog, 472 to be exact. A few of these posts are grammar posts. In case you don’t like digging through the archives and don’t have time to search by keywords, this is a round-up of our grammar posts:

As a warm-up, read a quick review of «части речи» [parts of speech]. Once your grammar juices are flowing and you are ready, dive right in!

One part of speech that Russian language doesn’t have is «артикль» [article]. How do Russians get by without all those “a/an” and “the”? Quite famously, thank you very much! Seriously, find out how to make your Russian friends understand that you’re talking about THIS blog and not about another blog.

Russian verbs can be very confusing and time-consuming to learn. The «глаголы русского языка» [Russian verbs] overview post might help you get oriented in the verb maze.

Once you’re done with the overview, you might want to start digging deeper. If you always thought Russian verbs of motion to be tricky and confusing, this post on «глаголы движения» [verbs of motion ] is for you and so is this one.

Tired of «глаголы» [verbs] yet? If not, then I have some good news for you. Russian verbs don’t just have the three tenses, but two aspects as well – perfective and imperfective.

Another topic that is difficult for many Russian learners is that of «склонения» [the Russian cases]. We’ve tried to demystify and simplify them through the years:

«Именительный падеж» [Nominative case] – «так просто и полезно» [it’s so easy and useful]

«Родительный падеж» [Genitive case] is such a trouble-maker that it required 3 posts to cover it – Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

«Дательный падеж» [Dative case] – lots of examples in the post make this case an easy one to crack.

«Винительный падеж» [Accusative case] – with «кто виноват?» [who is to blame?] being one of the two eternal Russian questions, this case merits a post of its own. (By the way, what’s the other eternal Russian question?)

«Творительный падеж» [Instrumental case] – a must-know for when you want to congratulate your Russian friends with something, whether it’s a holiday, «новоселье» [housewarming], «новая машина» [a new car] or «прибавка в семье» [new family member]. You might also need it to make plans for your own and your children’s future. Plus we have more examples here, here and here.

Wow, looks like we haven’t covered «предложный падеж» [prepositional case] at all! Good to know as it gives us something to work on.

After dealing with the cases and the verbs, learning how to use prepositions and pronouns will be easy-peasy. By the time you get to adverbs, you’ll be a grammar guru. Don’t let your newfound confidence be shattered once you get to the posts on homonyms, homophones, homographs and paronyms.

You know by know that Russian is a hard, but rewarding language to learn, maybe even one of the hardest and most rewarding in the world. If you are not sure how to say “hard”, “harder”, “the hardest” in Russian, then it’s time to review «сравнительные степени прилагательных» [comparative adjectives]. If you want even more examples, you can find them here.

Did I hear you saying you want to know even more about adjectives? No problem! Here’s a post about short form adjectives that will either enlighten you or confuse you. Either way make sure to read the comments… all 35 of them.

Moving onto sentence-building, find out how to use a marvelous little word «ли» to ask tru-ly great questions in Russian.

Speaking of questions, how easy is it to ask a “why” question in Russian? Turns out, it can be quite tricky since there are two words for “why”. Find out the rules so you never «попадать впросак» [put one’s foot in one’s mouth] when being «любознательный» [inquisitive].

One of the most famous questions of all times is, of course «быть или не быть» [to be or not to be]. Find out all about using the verb «быть» [to be] in Russian sentences.

Some other, no less dramatic, but more language-specific questions, are “how to form a plural of a Russian word” and “where is stress in this word?” Needless to say, we provide answers to both these vexing questions and, unlike Shakespeare we write in a much more readable «проза» [prose]. By the way, irregular plurals are covered in a separate post.

As you know, real life isn’t always about «не могли бы вы» [could you, would you]. Sometimes you have to put your foot down, bark orders and act «по-командирски» [as a commander]. Find out how you can make others do your bidding without sounding rude with «повелительное наклонение» [imperative].

Of course, you might still get a response along the lines of «умерь свой энтузиазм» [curb your enthusiasm]. And that’s (“your”) is just one meaning of the word «свой». It’s a very important word for anyone who’s trying to speak Russian «как свой родной язык» [as one’s native language]. Naturally, we are happy to help figure it out with a post on possessive pronouns.

So at this point, if your head is not spinning with all the Russian grammar, then I just don’t know! Seriously though, this post is meant as a reference – favorite it, bookmark it, or tag it for future use. And let us know what other sticky points of Russian grammar you’d like us to write about. Actually, we tend to procrastinate, so go ahead and use that «повелительное наклонение» [imperative] after all.

Let’s Unite and Learn Russian Grammar!

Posted by Natalie 4 Comments
Oct 21 2011

I am back, «дорогие читатели» [dear readers], ready to explain obscure points of Russian grammar to you. What have I been doing in the past weeks? Many things, all of which relate to school. I am writing «тезис» [a thesis] on a famous Soviet leader and just generally studying for exams (I just took three exams in a week-and-a-half span). Today, I am ready to teach you about a group of Russian verbs that are all translated into English as “to unite”. How do they differ? Read on! In the photo: the eighth party congress of «Единая Россия» [United Russia], Russia’s ruling party, from here.

In my Russian class, we have to report on the news every day («конечно, по-русски» [of course, in Russian]). Today I reported that «Евразийское экономическое сообщество» [the Eurasian Economic Community] discussed «присоединение Киргизии к таможенному союзу» [Kyrgyzstan's joining the customs union]. The word «присоединение» made me think. It comes from the verb «присоединяться/присоединиться», which is often translated as “to unite”. But so are the verbs «объединяться/объединиться» and «соединяться/соединиться». I have never been clear how to use these three verb pairs, so I said to my professor: «Существует ли разница между этими словами?» [Is there a difference between these words?] He answered: «Конечно» [Of course] and proceeded to explain.

The verb pair «объединяться/объединиться» refers to a few things (states, political parties, etc.) all coming together at once. So, in reference to that customs union Kyrgyzstan wants to join, you could say: «Россия, Белоруссия и Казахстан объединились» [Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan united]. Or like this strange headline from 23 August of this year says: «”Справедливая Россия” предложила КПРФ объединиться на выборах» [A Just Russia (a political party) has proposed to KPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) that they unite in the elections].

Let’s say that A Just Russia did unite with the communists and that after this union, suddenly «Правое дело» [Right Cause] wanted to join, too. Then we would say that «Партия “Правое дело” хочет присоединиться к группе» [The party "Right Cause" wants to join the group]. If there is an already-existing union, then you use «присоединяться/присоединиться». It might make more sense to think about this verb pair as meaning “to join”.

The verb pair «соединяться/соединиться» simply means “to unite” and is the most neutral. When I search it on Google (Google can be a great language learning tool, my friends), I see it often used in relation with technology, such as: «Не могу соединиться с сервером» [I can't connect to the server].

Any comments about these verbs? Please leave them below!

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