About 10% of Russian words resemble their English counterparts. But don’t get too comfortable with guessing. These are also many words that look or sound the same but have different meanings between the two languages. For example, in English, “angina” means chest pain. But the Russian word Ангина means tonsillitis, a much less severe affliction…
Russian courses and 1:1 lessons at all levels for corporate clients, on company premises in Cyprus. In a group course you will feel part of the team, practise your language skills and exchange ideas with other learners at the same level, so it can be more fun as well as more profitable! 30 lessons initial…
Russian, as a part of the Slavic language group, has a reputation for being difficult to learn. The question is, how difficult is it to learn Russian, really? Is Russian hard to learn? In this article, you’re going to find out how difficult Russian is for English speakers and what you should focus on if…
What kind of a language learner are you? To answer this question, you need to know the person who is doing the lessons, at least a little bit. Here are the factors to consider: Are they good linguists naturally, that is – do they have a good memory, can they retain words in their memory,…
Parts of sentence – why do we need to know them in Russian For example, someone who does not know what a direct object is, will not be able to use the Accusative case correctly. And without understanding what the subject of a sentence is, it would be impossible to use the correct gender of…
Business Russian is a vast field I often have requests for teaching business Russian, and often people who want to do it are very vague about what aspect of Business Russian they are interested in. The fact is that business Russian is a very broad term, covering a vast range of vocabulary and functions: from…
Discovering the handwritten version of the Russian alphabet usually causes either a slight shock (oh my God, I’ve just learned the alphabet, and now there is another one to learn) or curiosity and desire to start using it. Either reaction is fine: these days you, the learner, have a choice – to use or not…
If reading War and Peace in the original is your goal to be achieved at the end of your Russian course, prepare to be patient and learn some French as well as Russian… As your Russian tutor will tell you, Leo Tolstoy wrote the longest sentences ever, and his texts are often used to test…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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,…
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…
Did you know that Vladimir means “owning the world” and Svetlana – a “woman of light”? Here is some interesting info that you may not learn in your Russian lessons but can impress your Russian friends with! Three components of Russian names I have written about Russian names in this blog explaining their structure –…
When do we use surnames? In Russian, someone’s surname is one of three components of a person’s full name, the other two being the Christian name and the patronymic. Surnames are used only in formal situations, mostly in writing, often preceded by “Господин” (Mister) or “Госпожа” (Miss/Mrs). Generally, calling someone by their surname is not…
The first question that students ask in the very first lesson is – what do you know about the Russian Cyrillic script? The usual answer is – all we know is that it’s different, and we have to learn it! So, are there any tricks that would help learning it? What do we know about…
