Category: BLOG

How to learn Russian fast. 1. Immerse yourself in the language: Surround yourself with Russian as much as possible by listening to Russian music, watching Russian movies and TV shows, and reading Russian books and newspapers. 2. Find a language partner: Look for a native Russian speaker who is willing to help you practice speaking and listening. You can find a language partner through language exchange websites or local meetup groups. 3. Use a language learning app: There are many language learning apps that can help you learn Russian quickly and effectively. Some popular ones include Duolingo, Babbel, and Rosetta Stone. 4. Take a Russian course: Consider enrolling in a Russian language course at a local community college, language school, or online. A structured course with a knowledgeable instructor can help you learn Russian more efficiently. 5. Practice speaking: Speaking is an important aspect of learning a new language, so try to practice speaking Russian as much as possible. You can do this with your language partner, by recording yourself speaking and comparing it to native speakers, or by engaging in conversation with Russian speakers. 6. Memorize vocabulary: Make flashcards or use a vocabulary app to help you memorize Russian words and phrases. The more vocabulary you know, the easier it will be to communicate in Russian. 7. Stay consistent: Consistent practice is key when learning a new language. Try to dedicate time every day to practicing Russian, whether it’s through listening, speaking, reading, or writing. 8. Immerse yourself in the culture: Learning about Russian culture and traditions can make the language learning process more enjoyable and help you understand the language in a broader context. Remember, learning a new language takes time and dedication, so be patient and persistent in your efforts to learn Russian fast. Good luck!

Learning the Russian Cyrillic alphabet can be an interesting and rewarding process. Here is a brief overview of the alphabet along with some tips on how to learn it: 1. Familiarize yourself with the letters: The Russian Cyrillic alphabet consists of 33 letters, some of which look similar to the Latin alphabet, but have different sounds. Take the time to study and become familiar with each letter. 2. Practice writing: Writing each letter repeatedly can help you to remember its shape and sound. You can use worksheets or practice books, or simply write out the alphabet yourself. 3. Use mnemonic devices: Creating associations between the Russian letters and their sounds, as well as their counterparts in the Latin alphabet, can help with memorization. For example, the Russian letter “б” looks like a “b” with a short tail, and makes the sound “buh.” 4. Seek out resources: There are many online resources, apps, and videos that can help you learn the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. Look for ones that offer interactive exercises and quizzes to test your knowledge. 5. Practice reading: Once you feel comfortable with the individual letters, practice reading simple words and phrases in Russian. This will help reinforce your understanding of how the letters sound when combined in words. 6. Be patient and consistent: Learning a new alphabet takes time and dedication. Set aside regular time for practice and review, and be patient with yourself as you progress. Overall, learning the Russian Cyrillic alphabet can be a rewarding pursuit and open up new opportunities for learning and communication in Russian-speaking communities. Good luck!  

   Many people want to read Russian literature in the original language. There’s just one big problem. It’s incredibly difficult. And in order to practice reading Russian, you already need a reasonable vocabulary. So if you’re a beginner, you can’t practice reading, since you lack the necessary experience. But you also can’t gain experience, since you don’t have the skills yet to practice reading. Bilingual books in Russian…What are bilingual books? Bilingual books sometimes (also called dual language) books are books that show the English translation next to the original text. In our case, that means that you see the English and Russian languages at the same time. In practice, most bilingual books: have the Russian version on one page, and the English on the other show the English translation underneath the Russian original hide the English translation underneath the Russian original – so you need to click it if you want to see the translation (only works online) These are the 3 most common formats. After all, the main goal is that you can test yourself, and see if you understand the Russian original. And if you do not understand the phrase, you can easily look it up. In the previous 10 years many new Russian English bilingual books have been published. The reason for that is that the internet makes it easier and simpler to create books, and to add the translation on the other page or below. If you would want to, you could even create your own bilingual book, by using Russian translate and a Google Docs document. It would require a lot of copy-pasting, and the translation from Google Translate would be missing the point once a while. But you would be able to create it. That’s not the point, though! It’s a lot easier to just read the books that others (who are often both fluent in Russian and English) have created. How do bilingual books help you learn Russian? To start, they’re the first step to reading actual books. If you’re anything like me, you’re learning Russian because you’re interested in the language, country and culture. You need a reasonably high starting point to read Russian books. Even if you’re reading Russian children’s book, those still require a small-to-moderate vocabulary. Depending on the book, they say it’s about 500 to 1000 words Bilingual books are the answer if you’re a beginner When you’re reading a book that has both the original Russian and the translated English text next to it, you can enjoy both worlds. You can read the story. See how much you know. And if you don’t understand something, just check the Enlish version. While checking the correct translation, see if you can direct words back to the original text. It almost has a ‘puzzle-like’ feeling to it. You read the Russian sentence. You understand 50% of the words. You’re almost grasping the meaning of the sentence, but cannot completely get it because of your limited vocabulary. Now you check the translation. You see that you got half the words right. And you see the translation of the words you didn’t know. Now you check in which cases they were, and who was the subject of the sentence. Everything becomes clear. You’ve learned a couple of extra words, and tested your grammatical knowledge of Russian. So bilingual books do a great job at:–     helping you start reading in Russian if you’re a beginneallowing you to read books above your level (for example there are bilingual versions of classic literature from Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. Many people wish to read them in original, but you need a good intermediate Russian level for that) teaching new vocabulary testing your grammatical skills making learning Russian fun It’s also a pretty low intensity activity, as you can choose to focus more on the story, and less on the ‘need to figure out exactly how this sentence in grammatically constructed’ type of reading, that often gets used in classes. So having one of those books next to your bed, to read for about 5 to 10 minutes before sleeping, would be a great way to improve your Russian. 3 tips to get the most out of dual language books As with any effective method, there are some things you should do to get the most progress out of it. And some things to avoid. Here are my 4 tips to successfully read the books: 1.START WITH BILINGUAL BOOKS FOR CHILDREN It might be tempting to start with world-famous Russian literature, since the translation is right next to it. However, if you’re a beginner, you better start with books at your level. Specifically bilingual books for children. The language used isn’t too difficult. The stories aren’t long. Sentences are short. Everything works together. If you already have a basic vocabulary, then it will be much easier to get into the flow of reading the book. If you’d start with difficult books, you would end up just reading the translated text. Starting with children’s bilingual books allows you to understand just enough, so that the puzzle element becomes challenging. But not too hard. If you’re unsure about your level, check this page that shows you apps that are developed by TORFL (The Test of Russian as a Foreign Language) examiners and professors. If you don’t manage to pass the B1 test satisfactorily, I recommend you start with bilingual children’s books. 2.PICK A BOOK/GENRE YOU ENJOY There’s no need to torture yourself. Read a book or genre that you want to read. If you’re not a fan of detective stories, don’t try to read the bilingual version of anything Boris Akunin wrote. If you do like that genre, please get his books. The more you enjoy the story, the easier it will be to pick up the book and start reading. And the more time you spend reading, the faster your progress will be. 3.TEST FIRST IF YOU UNDERSTAND A PHRASE BEFORE YOU CHECK THE TRANSLATION If you want to maximize…

What do you need to know, while working or socialising with Russians? Are there any western habits that would seem strange or unattractive to Russians, and the other way round? Should you shake hands with Russian women in a business meeting? How formal or friendly should you be? These are the kind of questions that a Russian culture awareness course or a one-off presentation will be answering.  Who needs cultural awareness training?  Culture awareness courses or single presentations are usually booked by companies whose employees have regular contacts with Russian colleagues, partners or customers, in Russia or the UK. They are designed as a short and entertaining introduction to the Russian “modus operandi”, habits, way of life and way of thinking. They help someone completely unfamiliar with anything Russian to feel more comfortable dealing with Russians, travelling and doing business in Russian speaking countries.  Here are a just a few points that can be mentioned in a Russian culture awareness course.  Russia is a diverse multicultural country  Not everyone in Russia or from Russia is actually Russian. It’s a vast country – a federation of many republics, some of which have their own national languages and traditions. There are a lot of ethnic groups and more than 100 languages spoken in the Russian Federation. So we can make generalisations but any particular people from Russia may have their own set of cultural peculiarities.  When Russians smile Russians may seem gloomy and too serious at the first encounter but appearances are often deceptive. A polite formal smile is not the done thing, but once you have got to know someone better, smiles come out, and you will see the emotional side.  Friendship  Russians know how to be true friends, our concept of friendship includes sharing, helping, looking after each other. After all, we come from a place with a cold climate and many social upheavals where helping each other is very important. So having Russian friends would have a lot of benefits – help, support, being fed and treated to nice foods, home made psychoanalysis and collective problem solving! But it may have some down sides: invasion into your private space, with the best possible intentions, being one of them. Doing business with Russians  The principle “Nothing personal – just business” does not work in Russia. It is personal, and a good personal relationship with your business partners or clients can get you a long way. Also, Russians do not separate life and work, setting the boundaries between them, as much as Anglo-Saxons. So you can call someone you are working with at 10 pm and discuss business matters or make appointments. Russians do not like planning their lives long in advance (partly because of superstition), so making last minute appointments and agreements is the norm. When you work with people in Russia, being punctual and smartly dressed is seen as a sign of respect for the people you are dealing with. Russian superstitions Russians are a superstitious lot, even in this day and age, even in the business environment. It’s not so much about black cats and walking under ladders, but about whom you meet and what you see around you when you start on your way to an important meeting or event. Shaking hands over a threshold is to be avoided, as well as whistling in someone’s house or office. What happens if you do? Well, that would be telling…  In fact, Russians have superstitions for every life situation. Most people would not show you any serious adherence to them but deep down would feel uncomfortable when certain taboos are broken.  But interestingly, the number 13 is not a big deal for Russians – we are less scared of it than in the west. The lucky numbers are 3 and 7. So driving to a business meeting, some people look around for lucky car registration numbers around them – 777 is the best combination for good luck! Am happy to tell you more!  These and many more interesting facts will be included in the culture awareness course of your choice: business oriented, social or specifically dedicated to one aspect of Russian life (holidays, superstitions, family life, etc)  So let me know what you need to know about Russians, and I will be happy  to help. 

Key facts and figures • Russian is the most widespread language of Eurasia, and the most widely spoken Slavic language. In Europe, more people speak Russian as a mother tongue than any other language. • Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages (which means that it is related to all Western European languages) and is one of three modern East Slavic languages, together with Ukrainian and Belorussian.  • Written examples of Old East Slavonic, the predecessor of Russian, come from the 10th century. • Russian is the 6th most widely spoken language in the world. It is spoken by about 165 million people as a mother tongue and by about 114 million as a second language. • Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. • It is spoken in most of the ex-Soviet states, such as Byelorus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and the Baltic states, either as a native or a second language. • In some areas of Ukraine and Belarus, 2 languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas this resulted in a language mixture called Surzhyk in Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. Russian in Soviet times and after In Soviet times (1920s – 1991), each of the republics of the Soviet Union had its own official language, but the unifying role and superior status was given to Russian. Since the break-up of the USSR in 1991, the newly independent states have been encouraging and developing their native languages. However, the role of Russian as the post-Soviet language of international communication has continued. In Soviet times, Russian was mandatory for school children in the ex-USSR states and Soviet allies: Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Albania, Mongolia, Cuba. However, younger generations are not learning it any more, giving preference to English (with Mongolia being an exception). Russian is spoken in large Russian-speaking immigrant communities in Israel (about 750,000 people), the USA (about 700,000 people) and Canada. Russian is not the only language spoken in Russia Russian is the official language of the Russian Federation but it is not the only language spoken in the country. In some regions it shares official status with other languages belonging to ethnic autonomies within Russia, such as Bashkir, Tatar, Yakut. The history and the structure of the language • The Russian (Cyrillic) alphabet has 33 letters and is phonetic in principle, which makes it relatively easy to learn. It is called Cyrillic after St Cyril, a 9th century Greek monk who, together with his brother Methodius, devised this alphabet (or, rather, a much older version of it!), incorporating elements of Greek and Latin into it, as well as introducing a few new letters. • Russian grammar is close to Latin in structure, and is based on a system of noun cases (6) and verbal conjugations, which makes it relatively difficult to master. • The core of Russian vocabulary is Slavic, so native speakers of other Slavic languages will find it easy to learn, while native speakers of other languages would have to memorize large quantities of completely new words. There are, however, quite a lot of words borrowed from French, German and English in the last couple of centuries. • Russian punctuation rules are similar to French and German ones. • The modern Russian literary language traditionally dates from the time of Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), the most famous Russian poet and writer. Pushkin hugely influenced Russian literature by introducing a simpler style of writing based on the colloquial Russian of the time, as distinct from his predecessors who used very old-fashioned “literary” grammar and vocabulary.

How many words are there in the Russian language? The biggest dictionary of the Russian language (“The Contemporary Dictionary of the Russian Language” in 3 volumes) lists about 250 thousand words. The vocabulary of Pushkin (Russian equivalent of Shakespeare) is about 20 thousand words. An ordinary person needs a couple of thousand words to communicate successfully. Russian vocabulary vs English vocabulary  How does Russian everyday vocabulary compare with English? My personal observation is that in Russian there are more simple everyday words describing things and actions than in English. Thus, for example, what can be expressed in English with a simple verb “to clean”, in Russian would be rendered by different verbs, according to HOW you clean it (with water, or with a dry brush) and WHAT is being cleaned (cleaning a house is different from cleaning a car or cleaning your teeth etc). Some verbs are so narrow in meaning that they can only describe one particular action, for example, “umyvatsa” means to wash one’s face, and nothing else! Talking about many words describing one thing, our students like to ask – are there many words in Russian for snow? Interestingly, no! There is only one, “sneg – снег”. However, we do have several words for a snow storm… On the other hand, it looks like in English there are more “sophisticated” difficult words, often borrowed from foreign languages. And that is why the most comprehensive English dictionary (The Oxford English Dictionary, 291 thousand words) lists more words than the Russian one. The origins of Russian vocabulary  Where do all those words come from? Russian (as well as English) belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, which originates from Sanskrit. So very simple basic words are often similar to other European languages: names of relatives, numerals, common animals, simple words like “water”, or “sun”. But that won’t be a great help for an English speaker: there aren’t many of those simple words, and the similarity is often very vague. Following the language classification further, Russian is a Slavic language, so the main bulk of vocabulary is Slavic. For those who already speak a Slavic language, such as Polish, Czech or Bulgarian, learning Russian words is much easier than for a native speaker of a Western European language. That said, there are a lot of “false friends” in Russian for speakers of other Slavic languages. A classical (and a very amusing!) example is the word “uroda” which in Polish and Ukrainian means “beauty”, but in Russian – a complete opposite, “ugliness”! In Soviet times, among very few foreign magazines available, there was a Polish glossy called “Uroda”, dedicated to fashion and beauty. What were Russians supposed to think it was about?! Or another good one: a “sklep” in Polish is a shop, and in Russian – a crypt. You can see how these words developed – “uroda” is something extraordinary (good or bad!), and “sklep” is a place of storage (foods or bodies!) Russian words borrowed from foreign languages In the course of centuries, Slavic vocabulary in Russian was “diluted” by additions from other languages. With the Tartar invasion in the 13th century came Turkish words (they say all the worst swear words in Russian come from that period in history).With the epoch of Peter the Great, who loved all things European, and especially German and Dutch, came a lot of German words. The Russian for “potato”, for example, is “kartofel” and a sandwich is “buterbrod”. As time went by, and we developed connections with other cultures, more and more non-Slavic words entered the Russian vocabulary. Catherine the Great, Peter’s granddaughter, loved everything French and decided that all her courtiers should speak French to her and to each other. And what a Russian monarch says, Russian people do! As a result, from that time until the communist revolution in 1917, Russian aristocracy and all well-educated people were bilingual in Russian and French, brought up by French governors and tutors. They would talk French to each other, and Russian to commoners and servants (quite handy – the servants could not understand and then gossip!) As a result, a lot of French words became part of the Russian language – albeit often distorted in meaning. So in modern Russian a “planchette” is a tablet computer (an i-pad), and a “plafond” is a round glass lampshade (possibly attached to the ceiling but not the ceiling!). A “portefeuille” is a briefcase, and “manto” is more like a cape than a coat. The coat is “paletot” – a very old French word which is not used any more in French (so I’ve been told by my French students). Modern changes in Russian vocabulary In more recent times, with the advance of modern technology and the Internet, we have been borrowing more and more English words. Traditionally, English words in Russian are names of sports, some breeds of dogs, and more recently, all the computer terms and words related to the world of media and high technologies. Scholars complain that Russian is now littered by a host of completely unnecessary English words, that have a perfectly good Russian equivalents. But they sound “cooler” and more sophisticated, so journalists and politicians love to use them, and they spread around. Should that be regulated and restricted? Perhaps, but a language is a living organism created by its native speakers, and not by learned scholars. Despite what the French Academy might think, you can’t regulate it. It will regulate itself! So good luck in learning it all! maybe just a couple of hundred words to start with, and a couple of thousand to finish!

1. Learn the Russian Cyrillic alphabet If you’re planning to get around on your own, your life will be much easier if you learn the Cyrillic alphabet. Most street signs and signs in the public transport are not translated into English. However, in the recent couple of years, Moscow street names have been translated into the Latin script. Plus, the stops on the tube are now announced in both Russian and English. 2. Russian times There are ten time zones in Russia. Moscow and St. Petersburg are supposed to be three hours ahead of London. But Russia does not change from winter to summer time any more. So from the end of March till the end of October the time difference between the GMT and the European part of Russia is 2 hours. And in winter it is 3 hours. 3. You will need to get a visa Every westerner traveling to Russia needs a visa. Visit the website of the Russian Embassy in the UK for the necessary information. Visas can be obtained through the Russian Tourist Office in London. They are not cheap, unfortunately. If it’s any consolation, getting a British visa in Russia is more difficult and more expensive! 4. Have somewhere to stay When you arrive in Russia, you will need to fill in an immigration card, stating where you are going to stay, and for how long. 5. Carry your passport with you it’s a good idea to carry your passport with you at all times. There is no law that obliges everyone to do that, but random checks are carried out by the police occasionally, so having your passport with you will help avoid any questions. Following the terrorist attacks in Moscow and St Petersburg in the recent years, there is a lot of police presence in public places.  6. Currency to take to Russia Which currency to take? The best bet is to take roubles (you can get them in London now) or American dollars or Euros (to be changed into Euros when you are in Russia), if you prefer to take cash. You will find banks and small bureaux de change everywhere in big cities where you can exchange dollars or Euros into roubles and vice versa. However, British pounds are not easy to change, as only certain big banks can do it. Do not change money at airports, as the rates of exchange there are much lower than in town. In big cities you will find cash machines that accept all major credit and debit cards. Practically all shops and restaurants will accept credit cards. 7. Taxis in Moscow Moscow taxies look like New York ones, they are yellow/orange. There are a lot of taxi companies, including Uber, Yandex taxi (24-12) and others. In Moscow you can get a taxi using a mobile app, or more conventionally call them on the phone. There is a lot of competition in this market at the moment, so the prices have gone down a lot in the last couple of years. If you need to take a taxi from the airport on arrival, call one in advance (or ask a Russian friend/colleague to do it for you), and they will meet you. There are a lot of taxi drivers offering their services at the airport, but I would not advise using them. They are likely not to be a proper licensed taxi.  The taxi fare from central Moscow to either Domodedovo or Sheremetyevo airport should be around 1500 roubles. (2018) That said, if you do not have much luggage, there is an excellent train service from both international airports to the city centre in Moscow. It’s a red train called Aeroexpress. A single ticket costs 500 roubles. (2018) 8. The Moscow Metro The best way to get around Moscow is by metro. It’s big, fast, reliable and cheap. The price of one journey is 55 roubles (1 pound sterling is 80 roubles – 2018). You can buy tickets for 1, 2, 5, 10 or 20 journeys. It’s a bit cheaper to buy a card for several journeys in advance. The price does not depend on your destination, it’s fixed for the whole metro system. Alternatively, you can get the Troika card (the Moscow equivalent of Oyster) and put as much money as you wish on it. You can use Troika on all public transport. On the tube in Moscow, avoid the rush hours (8.30 till 9.30 am and 5.30 till 7.00 pm) because some lines are very crowded, and the concept of personal space is not a Russian thing!  The Moscow metro doesn’t work quite like others you may be familiar with. Instead of having stations that have platforms serving several different train lines, every platform on the Russian metro is regarded as a station in itself. Thus when you transfer from one line to another, you’ll find yourself following signs not for another train line, but for another station! Don’t worry: this may sound confusing, but it’s actually very logical and you’ll get the hang of it. If you do get lost, try to enjoy it – the Moscow metro is one of the great engineering marvels of the world and is extremely beautiful. The system opens at 6 am and closes at 1 am. 9. Crowds and comfort zone  Russians do not have a comfort zone like the Brits or Americans do. So people will get very close to you on a crowded train or bus. Don’t take it personally! But if you do mind being pressed against someone’s chest or back, avoid taking public transport in rush hour. 10. Traffic jams in Moscow Traffic jams can be horrendous in the centre of Moscow at any time of the day. You have been warned. Try to use the tube whenever possible, and you will get there faster, and will see some pretty tube stations! 11. Museum tickets in Russia Museum tickets are much more expensive for foreigners than for Russian people,…

What should you know about learning Russian grammar if you are considering taking a Russian course? Here are the main features of Russian grammar that you need to be aware of, if you are about to start learning Russian. Russian grammar at the beginner level  Most English speakers who have never learned a Slavic language before underestimate the complexity of Russian grammar. The reason is that in a beginner Russian course grammar is usually presented in a simplified way while the course is centered around vocabulary, useful phrases and reading skills. This is a totally justified approach because for a beginner it is more important to get to grips with the alphabet and basic vocabulary than to tackle grammatical complexities. Also, at the beginner level in Russian some grammar aspects are actually easier than in Western European languages. For example: • The verb “to be” is not used in the present tense, which makes a learner’s life much easier. So if you want to say “This is a table”, all you have to say is “This table” – as simple as that. Or, “I am a student” equals to “I student”. All you have to do is FORGET about “am”, “is”, and “are”, rather than learning those forms. How good is that?! • There are no articles “a” and “the”, so again, all you have to do is forget about them. Unlike Western European languages, Slavic ones do not have articles. The whole concept is completely alien to us, and Russians who are learning English always struggle with using “a” and “the” correctly. If you listen carefully to a native Russian speaker talking English (especially someone whose English is not very advanced!) you will notice that some articles are missing, and some will probably be used incorrectly and inconsistently. • There are very few irregular verbs. The overwhelming majority of verbs conjugate in a regular way, sometimes with small variations. For comparison, while learning English as a foreign language, you have to learn about 120 irregular verbs (3 forms) by heart! What kind of language is Russian? Russian belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, the same one as all Western European languages, so all the grammar concepts are familiar and easy to understand. In fact, its grammatical composition is very similar to Latin. So for those students who are familiar with Latin grammar, Russian grammar will be nothing new. The complexity of Russian grammar lies in the fact that grammatical forms are incorporated in the word itself, unlike in English where a lot of auxiliary words are used and grammar forms consist of several words rather than one. So as a result, the minute you reach an intermediate level, you will have to learn a lot of endings for different parts of speech and operate little logical sequences in your mind, of the type: this is a noun, it’s masculine, it’s singular, it must be the genitive case, so the ending is – “A”! It means that you’ll be doing a lot of memorizing and a lot of practice. On a positive side, it’s a great exercise for your brain and memory! After a while, once you’ve said the same thing a hundred times, it becomes automatic, and you don’t have to strain your brain any more. As the saying goes: “Repetitio est mater studiorum – Repetition is the mother of learning”. The key features of Russian grammar • Gender, which is very important for Russian grammar. There are 3 genders – masculine, feminine and neuter. Masculine and neuter words have the same endings in most cases, and feminine ones have different endings. • Case: there are 6 cases: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Instrumental and Prepositional (Locative). Each case has certain meanings attributed to it, which are quite logical and correspond to the Latin case system (for example, Genitive is the same as possessive, and Accusative is for direct object etc). Changing the word ending for case is called declension. In Russian, practically all parts of speech decline: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and even numerals. They all have their own endings in different cases. The only part of speech that does not change is the adverb. • There are 3 types of declension for nouns, depending on their gender and the type of ending in the nominative. • Adjectives do not have their own gender or type of declension. They follow those of the noun they “belong to”. • Verb categories include the 3 tenses – present, past and future, and 2 aspects – perfective and imperfective. In the present tense, verbs conjugate (that is, change their endings according to the person of the subject – I, you, he, etc), and you will have to learn 6 personal endings in the present tense. There are 2 types of conjugation but they are very similar. Most verbs are regular, which is good news! The past tense is really simple: there is no conjugation. Instead, there is a very simple set of endings for masculine, feminine, neuter and plural. In the past and the future, there is a choice of 2 aspects: imperfective for regular or long actions, and perfective for short and completed ones. The future tense is the most complicated one: there are 2 kinds of future, depending on whether you need to use an imperfective or perfective verb. The easy things All this may sound complicated, but it’s logical and generally the verb system is easier than in English! The only down side is that every time you learn a new verb you will have to learn “two for the price of one” – the imperfective and perfective infinitive forms. • Conditional mood is very simple. It is basically the same as the past tense, with the addition of one little word БЫ that stays the same. And there is no subjunctive! The difficult things The most grammatically complex part of speech is the participle. Participles have every conceivable grammatical category: they can be perfective or imperfective, past…

Are Russians superstitious?  Sometimes students ask – are Russians superstitious? And if so, are Russian superstitions similar to English ones? The answer is, yes and yes. Russians are superstitious. Most people will laugh if you ask them about superstitions, but… we do not like it when a black cat crosses our path, or when the first person we meet after leaving the house is somebody carrying an empty bucket. And a woman may be quite shocked if you give her a dozen roses! It’s quite odd to believe this stuff at the time of high technology and globalisation but these things are so deeply rooted in our subconscious mind that they are hard to ignore. Some superstitions are as old as Time itself, going back to Pagan Slavic beliefs. They say that the tradition of touching wood for luck comes from our ancestors worshipping tree spirits, for example.  So, here is a list of common Russian superstitions. Hope some of them will make you smile! For Good Luck It’s good luck to break a dish. If a fly gets into your soup, you’ll get a gift or a treat. It’s good luck to see a pig in the street. (but when did you last see a pig in the street, in the literal sense of the word?!) It’s good luck to meet a funeral on your way. These are all clearly the so called “consolation” superstitions, trying to turn an unpleasant situation into something more positive! For Bad Luck If a black cat crosses your way, it’s bad luck. If the first person you meet  after leaving your house (especially if you are going to some important meeting or job) is a woman carrying an empty bucket, it’s bad luck. You will not have a successful day. If you spill salt, there will be a row in the house. If you break a mirror, it’s bad luck. Do not look into a broken mirror, if you don’t want to have a broken life. Do’s and don’t’s Do not whistle in your own or someone else’s house. If you do, you (or the owner of the house) won’t have any money. Do not give sharp things (knives, scissors) as gifts. (You can see where this superstition comes from – these items can be used to injure someone.) If you get an animal (a kitten, etc) as a present, you should give a kopeck (a penny – token sum of money) for it. Do not greet anyone, shake hands, hug or say good-bye to anyone across the threshold. If you do, you will fall out with this person. I must say, this one is always observed. Even in the business environment, people do not shake hands over a threshold. As an addition to the previous one: Do not accept or give anything across the threshold.  If you give flowers to someone, always give an odd number (i.e. three, five, seven, etc) An even number of flowers (i.e. four, six, etc) is given to a dead person at the funeral. Do not celebrate your birthday in advance of the actual date. You may not make it!  Do not return into the house once you’ve started on the way. But if you do have to, then look into the mirror. Otherwise you’ll have a bad luck on the way. Starting on a long journey (an international flight, for example), you should always have a sit for a few seconds silently, just before leaving the house. Then say something like “В час добрый! – Let this be at a good time!” or “С богом! – God be with us!”, and go. I like this one: it allows you to concentrate your mind before the journey and remember anything that you might have forgotten. Also, sitting quietly for a minute makes you less stressed. Unmarried people should not sit at the corner of the table – if they do, they will never get married. General superstitions – “if” If you sneeze while saying something, you are telling the truth. If a fork or a spoon falls on the floor, you’ll shortly be visited by a woman (because in Russian a fork and a spoon are feminine). If a knife falls down, you’ll be visited by a man. (A knife is masculine). If your cat persistently washes his/her face, you’ll have guests soon. If the right eye is itching, you’ll be laughing, the left one – you’ll be crying. An eyelash coming out – you’ll have a gift. If your lips are itching, you’ll be kissing. If your right palm is itching, you’ll receive some money, and if the left one is itching, you’ll have to give money away. If your nose is itching, you’ll be drinking. If your ears or cheeks are burning, somebody is talking or thinking about you. If you have an attack of hiccups, somebody is talking about you or cursing you. If you do not recognise someone when you see them or call them on the phone, this person will get rich. If your parents are alive, do not walk around in one shoe – you’ll lose a parent. Jokes about superstitions  Russians like to make fun of themselves and their way of life. So here are a couple of jokes about superstitions. A Hedgehog comes to an Owl, saying, “Owl, you are a wise and well-educated bird, please tell me, a simple little animal, why is my nose itching all the time?” The Owl says, “It means you’ll go to a party and drink a lot tonight.” “And why are my eyes itching?” “That’s bad news! You’ll be crying.” “And why is my tummy itching?” “Listen, Hedgehog, go and wash yourself!” A hundred-year old man has broken a mirror and looks very pleased about it. “Why are you so pleased?” people ask him. “You’ll have seven years of bad luck!” “But it means I’ll live another seven years!” When you need to knock on the wood you suddenly discover that…

Язык мой – враг мой. Эта сентенция невольно приходит на ум, когда двадцать раз на дню слышишь от самых разных людей вроде бы обыденные, привычные слова, от которых, тем не менее, дрожь пробирает. Причем дрожь вовсе не приятная, а совсем даже наоборот. Ниже приведем список из 10 слов современного русского языка, без которых он, увы, уже непредставим – но тем хуже для него и для нас. Бесит  Этот глагол (правда, в форме «беситься») существовал в русском давным-давно и имел вполне определенный смысл: «бесились» те, в кого вселился бес. Потом, со временем, суровое церковное значение забылось, слово стало полушутливым: бесились, к примеру, дети во дворе во время каникул или жеребята на поле. А вот теперь бесятся все, причем по любому поводу. Особенно активизировалась форма «бесит», «бесят» — так говорят о том, что вызывает активное отторжение, крайне не нравится. Вот только почему современные люди так часто стали поминать беса по любому поводу – вопрос открытый. Баксы  Если в полубандитские 90-е это слово было «крутым», в смысле модным, и подчеркивало «современность» его носителя, то сейчас звучит как безнадежная, и притом пошлейшая, архаика. Ребята, ну научитесь вы уже называть доллары – долларами, а не говорить английское слово «олень» в русифицированном множественном числе (buck – один олень, также один доллар; bucks – олени, они же доллары. Т.е. правильнее по-русски было бы говорить «баки», если уж на то пошло. Например, «забьем Мике баки»…) Кушать  Одна из самых неубиваемых пошлостей русского языка: тем, что взрослые люди «кушают», возмущались и Корней Чуковский, и Виталий Бианки, и Константин Симонов. Слово называли «сюсюкающим», «жеманным», «нелепым», «нескромным», «заносчивым»… Все правильно, оно такое и есть – если употребляется с глубоким уважением в отношении себя любимого. Совершенно спокойно могут кушать только маленькие дети. Да еще хозяйка может вас попотчевать ласковым «Вы кушайте, не стесняйтесь». Все остальные нормальные люди (а также животные) всегда и при всех обстоятельствах едят. И только. Убираться  Не в смысле «убираться из комнаты», а в смысле «убираться в комнате». Почему абсолютно нормальный глагол «убирать» упорно обзаводится бессмысленным приложением «-ся» — решительно неясно. Значение фразы «Убираю комнату» в современном русском языке понятно всем, но почему-то дикое «Убираюсь в комнате» звучит на каждом шагу. Впрочем, эта неправильность привилась настолько, что уже практически не режет слух. К сожалению. «На» (в смысле «в») Сплошь и рядом можно слышать всяческие «Выйду на коридор», «Поеду на офис». Да, неправильно, но за этим стоит большая и серьезная борьба «на» и «в» в русском языке – век от века «в» сдает свои позиции. Двести лет назад люди еще жили в улицах и в переулках; сто лет назад – уже на улицах, однако в таком-то этаже. Со временем появились уже и «выйти на коридор». Смысл понятен: в означает нечто замкнутое и закрытое, на – наоборот, распахнутое, доступное всем (на площади, на балконе). Пока что держится «в квартире», но, впрочем, «поеду на квартиру» тоже можно услышать – допустим, если речь идет о съемной квартире. Сорокет. А также его братцы триццон и полтос. Одни из самых мерзких слов современного русского, даже при их написании сразу возникает образ приблатненного пацанчика или его подружки. Которая, конечно же, любит Шампусик. Как и ее кавалер – пивасик. Няша, няшный.  Филологи хором отмечают инфантильность современного русского, и даже указывают пальцем туда, откуда все взялось: с «мамских» интернет-форумов. Вообще женщины всегда были склонны очеловечивать суровые мужские вещи ласковыми суффиксами: так миса некогда стала миской, чаша – чашкой, а вила – вилкой. Но сейчас няшки, вкусняшки, девчули-красотули и прочие мимимишки маршируют по языку такими стройными рядами, что впору пугаться. Особенно тяжко слышать эти слова из уст брутальных мужчин. Сига  К счастью, мода на курение с каждым годом меньше, и человек с сигаретой на улице уже вызывает легкое изумление, как некий персонаж из прошлого. Соответственно, и «сиги» слышны нечасто. Но когда слышны – дергает. Как от всякого подросткового сокращения, проникшего во взрослый язык. Сфоткаться  Конечно, это производное от «фотик» (фотоаппарат), а поскольку фотики из повседневной жизни практически ушли, будучи съедены телефонами, на память остался корявейший глагол «сфоткаться». Согласен, «сфотографироваться» — длинно, но был ведь вполне нормальный разговорный глагол «сняться». Впрочем, сейчас «снять» употребляется разве что в значении «познакомиться с девушкой и развести ее на секс», так что фоткаться, боюсь, нам предстоит еще долго.

By Jeff Ryder Dark, dirty … and brown, all brown. The last time I’d seen so many brown buildings and brown upholstery was during my childhood in Britain in the 1970s. I half expected the customs officers at the airport to be wearing bell-bottom jeans and bandanas. That was my impression of Moscow in 1998, when I first visited. Twenty years later, although I can’t say that the overall tinge of brown has entirely disappeared (Moscow is a brown city, in my mind, whereas London is grey), pretty much everything else has changed beyond recognition. Let’s start with the ‘dark’ thing. The darkness in 1998 wasn’t imaginary; it really was dim and overcast back then, as if a giant parasol was hovering over the city. I came in early spring, when the nights are still long in Moscow. In daytime, of course, the sun was still shrouded in wintry cloud. At night, the wattage of the street lighting was ungenerous. Even with snow underfoot reflecting it back, there was little light available in the outer city, away from the brightness of the centre. It felt gloomy, frankly.  And dirty. Most buildings, including the touristy ones, looked as if they’d not been cleaned in a long time, if ever. Many were dilapidated, some seriously. There were ‘graceful ruins’ all over the city. I was shocked by the state of one old church, whose tatty zinc roof (itself an eyesore) was visibly cracked and holed. Its bricks were crumbling, its doors hanging off their hinges. Even the ruins of historic churches are preserved and venerated in the UK – seeing this one entirely neglected and gently crumbling was appalling, somehow. Many other buildings were worse. Cars and trucks belched noxious fumes unashamedly, covering everything in a fine film of sepia dust and gunge. On top of that, one’s very existence in Moscow felt vaguely imperilled. Not by other people – I saw police officers everywhere, far more in 10 minutes than I would have seen in years living in London. Rather, the danger was the environment itself: homicidal car drivers (pedestrian crossings meant nothing), huge potholes in roads and pavements, massive and menacingly pointed icicles hanging from the eaves of houses overhead. Worse than all this, though, was that the city elders had paved large tracts of town with granite, a stone that is undeniably handsome to look at, but which in icy weather acquires the friction co-efficient of the Cresta Run. A broken leg was a real and present danger on every trip outdoors, and I had several narrow escapes. That was then. How different the city felt at my last visit, in autumn of this year.  The traffic and pollution are still, unfortunately, a problem. The ‘brown’ feeling hasn’t fully gone. But there has been a huge and visible effort to tidy up the city. The old church has been fully renovated. Most buildings have been mended and painted. Pavements have been fixed, much of the lethal granite is gone, efforts have been made to tidy up the common and outside areas of blocks of flats – failing that, the railings and border markers have at least been painted and brightened up in most places. There are even – get this – public flower arrangements. Obviously on nothing like the same scale as, say, London (where horticulture is in any event a national obsession), but they’re dotted here and there, running alongside pedestrian walkways or making a cheery display outside restaurants and public buildings. Since 2011, the city has improved more than 20,000 courtyards, 450 parks and nature areas. You get a sense that Moscow has found (or rediscovered?) a bit of civic pride in its appearance. It’s not so dark, either. I’m not aware of new or additional lights in the parts I’ve seen most over the last 20 years, but somehow the streets seem brighter these days. Maybe they just turned up the power. Or maybe it’s a psychological effect; because everything else in Moscow seems brighter, so does the lux rating. Certainly there is more light – real, measurable light – in the more commercial districts of the city. Moscow was barely out of the Soviet era in 1998, and commerce was still a faintly suspect notion for many. While there were shops, they were rather reserved; their frontages and hoardings were modest and diffident, as if embarrassed to announce themselves to the world. My, has that changed. Moscow is now a pulsating centre of shrill and shameless commerce (the biggest shopping mall in Europe, anyone?), with everything that brings – good and bad – and with consumer attitudes/expectations to match. If you want it, somebody’s selling it – probably even at 2am, if that’s when shopping rocks your boat. Moscow’s also bigger, by the hour. Moscow and the Moscow region is the largest conurbation in Europe, with 20 million inhabitants. That’s 14% of the Russia’s population, responsible for 26% of the whole country’s GDP. In the 20 years since I first visited, Moscow’s economic output has grown 15% faster, on average, than the Russian economy overall. You see the evidence everywhere. Moscow is essentially an enormous building site, with cranes and concrete mixers in ceaseless operation. Old blocks of tiny flats are being demolished, their inhabitants moved to larger apartments in brand new blocks built in an ever-expanding metropolis. Everywhere you look, things are being expanded, enlarged, renovated, rebuilt – metro stations, flyovers, railways, airports, hotels, car parks, concert halls. Moscow is building its own ‘Canary Wharf’ in the centre of the city, a downtown commercial complex that befits the city’s international stature.  The speed and scale of change is dizzying. It will bring its own growing pains, of course, as it has done and still does in every major city of the world. But Moscow has taken some very big steps away from the rather drear and downtrodden place I first saw 20 years ago. Here’s to the next 20.

By Jeff Ryder London, UK: Fog. Seattle, USA: Rain. Mecca, Saudi Arabia: Pitiless sunshine. Rostov-on-Don, Russia: ? If this were a sequence on the UK gameshow ‘Only Connect’, you’d get short odds on ‘Snow’ for the missing word. It’s a shoo-in for the answer. Stop folks in the street and ask them what weather they associate with major cities of the Russian Federation, and none will answer: “38C, blazing sun and high humidity”. But here’s the thing: they really should.  It’s one of the striking anomalies about Russia that blows most people’s minds when they actually visit: it is not, contrary to popular belief, a kind of Narnian hellhole, a country totally plunged into permafrost for 8 months of the year, its bleak, windswept, treeless, snowbound, tooth-chattering steppe stretching grimly to the horizon in all directions.  Well, to be fair, some of it is, sometimes. But actually quite a lot of that vast expanse of land between the Belorussian border and Sakhalin is really rather nice. And swelteringly, bakingly hot – more than a bit of the time.  Don’t take my word for it. Check out the figures. Volgograd and Rostov-on-Don regularly top the league of Europe’s daytime city summer temperatures. The former (probably still better known to non-Russians by its old name, Stalingrad) is very often in the high 30s, or higher. On paper, at least, Sochi was a wildly inappropriate host for the 2014 Winter Olympics: its December average temperature is little different from London’s (and its summer temperature soars to Mediterranean heights). Moscow, two hours by air to the north, hits the mid-30s in high summer. St Petersburg, on the gulf of Finland, isn’t far behind. In short, Russia has a continental climate on steroids – cold in winter, sure, but damnably hot the rest of the time.  In light of this stark reality, the world’s unshakeable belief in Russian’s perennial iciness is up there with its fond attachment to Santa Claus and the Loch Ness monster: It’s a bonkers notion that shouldn’t persist beyond a moment’s examination of the evidence… but persist it does.  It would be easy to blame Hollywood – and I shall (see below) – but not altogether fair. Russia’s cultural iconography, indeed its sense of self, is powerfully bound up with winter – at least as much for Russians themselves as for outsiders. Visit a Russian art exhibition – the Tretyakov in Moscow, for instance (the finest collection of art anywhere in the world, in this writer’s humble opinion) – and you will be struck by the preponderance of winter themes and winter images. Frost, ice and snow dominate the Russian psyche (although that’s not to say that Russian paintings of other seasons aren’t astounding). Winter is not just a season in Russia: it’s the season, the Russian reality. This is peculiarly Russian, I should point out: Canada and the northern US states have winters at least as bad (possibly worse), but all else being equal Canada brings to mind maple leaves and maple syrup, cheery Mounties and cuddly beavers – not frostbitten peasants dragging a coffin on a horse-drawn sleigh (even Perov’s horse looks miserable).  There are plenty of rather obvious conjectural reasons for the domination of winter in Russian culture, notably the Russian character itself (gloomy, prone to look on the dark side) and Russian history (endless invasions, ghastly sacrifices etc). My personal favourite explanation, though, is the introspection bred by isolation. Despite its mind-boggling size and breadth (it’s 11 time zones wide), for much of its history – mirabile dictu – Russia was cut off from the rest of the world and largely unknown beyond its borders. It has minimal sea access (in the ‘wrong’ places, trade-wise) and its rivers mostly run north-south, so it didn’t develop the early international relationships that would have come with water-borne trade in the pre-industrial period.  Russians were also cut off from themselves. Most lived in small or smallish forest settlements literally in the middle of nowhere – hundreds, possibly thousands of miles from their neighbours. In such a wilderness, roads were effectively useless even when they were passable. In high summer, you were merely too far from anywhere else to actually go there. In winter, you were entirely cut off from the rest of humanity,  dependent for your survival over five months of savage frosts on the food you had harvested in autum (barely sufficient, if at all) and such primitive medical amenities as your small community could muster. No human beings alive today, not even remote Pacific islanders, are so isolated and self-reliant. Even (especially?) from our own pampered, globalised, inter-connected perspective, it’s not hard to see how this annual ordeal must have loomed large in the individual and collective consciousness. Even in the sunlit, scorching paradise of July, it would have been an omnipresent cloud in the sky, a memento mori that has come down to modern Russians as a cultural legacy. And if that weren’t enough to scar them, and us, with winter terrors, there are of course the bloody books and movies. The images that get top billing are, of course, the military ones – German sentries frozen to death in Stalingrad’s trenches, Napoleon’s miserable troops shuffling barefoot along the denuded Smolensk road wrapped in blankets and towels. The one that sticks with me is the scene from Ridley Scott’s otherwise excellent film The Duellists, in which French cavalry officers Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel fight off a troupe of Cossacks in a penumbral hell of swirling snow, frowning mountains and scudding black clouds. It looks nothing like real Russian countryside, but of course it perfectly fits and reinforces everyone’s geopolitical prejudices. Don’t even get me started on Doctor Zhivago.Napoleon’s 1812 ordeal in part sprang from another peculiarly Russian phenomenon that feeds into the general fear and dread of winter: the impossibility of it. Stick with me here, because this is going to get a little weird. I don’t of course mean that Russian winter is either impossible or unpredictable (both demonstrably untrue). Rather, I’m suggesting that it can appear that way. This is alien to people from western Europe, where spring and autumn are…