Perfective or imperfective? Part 3 - What else you may need to know

Hello, last time we were talking about how different aspect verbs can be used in complex and compound sentences, and today we will be discussing some special cases of their usage, as I promissed you before. So, let's start! :)

1) The first interesting question is how to use the verbs "мочь" (which is imperfective) and "смочь" (which is perfective). They are often mixed up with each other in the Past Tense and the Future Tense, where the forms of both exist. That's because both can be in principle translated to English with one and the same word or construction ('could' in the past, 'will be able' in the future). However, the forms of "смочь" are rather  equivalents to English 'managed/will manage to'. So, when talking about someone's general capability to do something, we normally use the verb "мочь". To highlight that this or that action was/will be really taken, we're likely to use "смочь". The verbs "уметь" (imperfective) and "суметь" (perfective) are quite similar to ones we have just discussed.

2) When talking about the past, we can use both perfective and imperfective aspect verbs with negative particle "не", but the meaning of the whole (negative) sentence will be slightly different in these two cases. We use "не" + an imperfective aspect verb just to state someone didn't do something. When we use a perfective aspect verb instead of the imperfective one, we imply that they wanted to (or was about to) do something, but in the end did not do that. Just compare: "Сегодня Аня не ходила в университет" - "Сегодня Аня заболела и не пошла в университет", "Аня собиралась/хотела пойти сегодня в университет, но не пошла".

3) Have you noticed that after "не нужно", "не надо" only imperfective verbs can be used? On the contrary, after "нельзя" you can find either imperfective or perfective one, but there is a difference alright. An imperfective aspect verb after "нельзя" normally means something is not allowed (to someone in particular or to everybody): "Вам нельзя пить спиртное, пока вы принимаете это лекарство", "Здесь нельзя купаться". The combination of "нельзя" and a perfective verb usually states something is impossible: "Эту сумку нельзя поднять. Она слишком тяжелая!"

4) Finally, let's talk about the imperative. Imperatives are often used in Russian, actually, much more often than in English. We use them not only in requests and orders, but also to ask politely, to warn, to invite etc. How to tell one case from another? The verb aspect is the key point here. In short, in requests and orders (or when giving advice) imperative forms of perfective aspect verbs are normally used (in positive statements) and those of imperfective aspect verbs (in negative statements). Imperative forms of perfective aspect verbs in negative statements may be used to warn someone: "(Смотри) не забудь, мы выезжаем в восемь", "Смотри не упади, сегодня гололёд". Imperfective aspect verbs (we're still talking about imperatives :)) in positive statements may mean different things, but one of the most important cases is an invitation: "заходи (ко мне) на выходных - посмотрим мою коллекцию старинных книг", "угощайтесь", "проходи, не стесняйся".

Here are the main things to keep in mind. If you still have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me!

Perfective or imperfective? Part 2 - Parallel and sequential actions

In the first post devoted to the verb aspect we discussed the basics of its usage. Of course, there are some special cases, as well as some exceptions, which we will discuss in detail in the following post. Today we will focus on one specific set of examples demonstrating how verbs of the definite and indefinite aspect may be used when we describe two or more actions that took/will take place at the same time or one action that took/will take place after another. Since there are a lot of different situations of this kind, let's start from the simplest ones.

1) If there are two actions that took place in the past (or will take place in the future), and they are absolutely parallel (both started/will start at the same moment and finished/will finish at another, but also the same moment), then we normally use two imperfective aspect verbs: Когда/пока я принимал душ, Наташа читала книгу. - When I taking a shower, Natasha was reading a book.

2) If something happened/will happen at one particular moment (or within a particular period of time) while the second action was/will be performing (in fact, it started/will start earlier, and finished/will finish when the first one had/will have been completed), we normally use the imperfective aspect for the second ('background') action, and the perfective aspect for the first action: Пока я принимал душ, Наташа полила цветы. - When I was reading a book, Natasha watered the flowers. There is a trick here, though: there are some verbs of the imperfected aspect which can describe a completed action. The meaning of the whole sentence is in this case different from that of the sentence where the corresponding perfective aspect verb is used. These verbs are mainly those of motion, also verbs like приходить, уходить; брать, давать; класть, вешать, ставить; надевать, снимать; просыпаться; садиться, ложиться, вставать; подниматься, спускаться etc. Just compare: "он ушел" means that he has left; he isn't here anymore. At the same time, "он уходил" may mean that he left for some time, but came back; so he is here now. In the compound sentences where one of the verbs describe a 'background' action, the difference is even more pronounced: "Пока я принимал душ, приходила Наташа" - I missed her, "Пока я принимал душ, пришла Наташа" - she came and stayed, so she is at my home now, we can have some tea and chat.   

Are there any other cases when indefinite aspect verbs describe completed actions? Definitely, yes. For example, verbs like есть, пить, видеть, слышать, смотреть, слушать, знать, писать, читать, звонить (and their synonims) can be used in the context like "Спасибо, я уже обедал сегодня" (declining an invitation for a lunch) or "Я уже смотрел этот фильм, давайте пойдем на что-нибудь другое" (explaining why you don't want to watch the film your friends suggest watching in the cinema). 

3) Before describing the next point, I need to make some introductory notes. As you may already know, the verbs "начать" and "кончить" ("закончить") are used with imperfective aspect verbs only: "начать считать", "кончить работать". At the same time, there are some perfective aspect verbs which mean the same, so they can be replaced by "начать/кончить + imperfective aspect verb": засмеяться - начать смеяться, доделать - кончить делать (many verbs with the prefix "до-" are of this kind). So if one action started/finished (will start/finish) while the other lasted (will last), we use the perfective aspect verb for the former one, and the imperfective aspect verb for the second one: "Пока я спал, Наташа домыла (кончила мыть) посуду".

There are also the verbs "начинать" и "кончать" ("заканчивать") which are also used with imperfective aspect verbs. The difference between "начать + imperfective aspect verb" and "начинать + imperfective aspect verb" may be described using the information from the previous post.

4) Let's now discuss which verbs are used when one is talking about two actions in the past or future that follows one another, so that there is a sequence of those two. If both actions are supposed to be completed, than we're likely to use two perfective aspect verbs. For example, "Когда/после того как я получу электронное письмо (e-mail), я (сразу же) напишу ответ"; here it's supposed that you will complete both actions up to some moment in the future.

5) When you don't want to emphasize the fact that the second action will be finished up to some moment (for example, if you describe the relaxation after work :)) than you may use the following combination: a perfective aspect verb for the first action and the imperfective aspect verb for the second one: "Когда/после того как я допишу статью, я буду отдыхать". Of course, you may replace the perfective aspect verb by the combination of "(за)кончить" in the required form and the imperfective aspect verb: "Когда я закончу писать статью, я буду отдыхать". These constructions are normally refer to the future. Talking about the past, we normally use the combination of "начал(а, о)" (or - in some cases - "стал (а, о)") with the imperfective aspect verb in the second part: "Когда Наташа дочитала книгу, она начала рисовать".

Now the main cases, when the verbs of different aspect are used, have been described, I hope, so there are only few additional tips to cover in the next post, which is coming soon. Until then you may practice a bit. Hope, the figure below will help you! :)

Perfective or imperfective? Part 1 - Some aspects of verb usage

Hello, I'm back! Recently I've received an email from a Russian language learner (thank you, Robert! :)) that motivated me to proceed with giving some grammar tips. So today we will be discussing a very interesting but pretty difficult topic, namely, the grammatical aspect of verbs. This is the category many languages including English lack, so even if you're an advanced learner, you may still have some questions about it. Today we'll talk about how to use verbs of different aspects in a simple sentence, next time we'll be talking about compound and complex sentences, since there are additional tricks there. We'll also won't touch upon verbs of motion - they deserve a separate post.

In general, there are several cases when we need either a perfective or an imperfective aspect verb. For the imperfective aspect they are: a) description of the process, not the result, b) description of a long (especially when you mention how long it took) or regular action and c) just mentioning the action; for the perfective case: a) description of a result, not the process itself and b) description of the action that took (or will take) place once. Let's now see how these principles work.

First, let's talk about duration of an action. Normally, if we mention duration, we use imperfective aspect verbs. But if you're talking about time the action was/will be completed within (if you think the fact that it was/will be completed is the main thing you address), please use perfective aspect verbs (have you already noticed that there is no Present Tense form for this type of verbs?). Interestingly, if the action wasn't completed (or the result wasn't achieved), we normally use imperfective aspect verbs. For example, "Я сварил рис за пятнадцать минут" is used when you'd like to emphasize that it was cooked after this time. One can say, "Посмотри! Я сварил рис всего за пятнадцать минут!" - to highlight that it took them just 15 minutes to complete. At the same time, you may say "Я варил рис пятнадцать минут" just to mention how (how long) you cooked it, or if you didn't achieved any result: "Представляешь, я варил рис целых пятнадцать минут, но он так и не сварился!" If you think that the action took a long time (and want to emphasize it), you're also likely to use verbs of imperfective aspect: "Я весь/целый вечер простоял у плиты!" (that means you spent the whole evening cooking). 

As you could notice, we often use imperfective aspect verbs with the words "целый", "весь", describing the period of time. Another hint for test takers: mentioning duration, we need the preposition "за" with the period of time only when  a perfective aspect verb is used (you can see it from the examples above). 

The second point is regularity. Here it is more or less clear: if you're talking about regular actions (especially using the adverbs "часто", "иногда", "редко" or mentioning that the action took/takes/will take place каждый час/день/год etc., ежедневно, ежегодно etc., or раз в час/день/год etc.), then use the imperfective verb. 

I also have a couple of examples illustrating the last trend, which is the description of the process or result of an action. My parents call me nearly every day; mostly they're interested in what I was doing during the day, so they ask: "Что ты сегодня делала?" However, when my boss wants to know what I've done (generally, she doesn't care what I spend my time for; the only thing she is interested in is the result), she asks: "Что ты (за) сегодня сделала?"

There are also some special cases of verb usage. More sophisticated ones will be described later (in one of the following posts), so here I'll just list the basic meanings: if we describe the condition or location of someone or something, or talk about someone's talent or general capability to do something, we normally use imperfective aspect verbs. If we describe an action that was completed in a single moment, or something that happened suddenly, we use perfective aspect verbs. Sounds logical, doesn't it?

Ok, that's it for today, in a couple of days we'll be looking at what's going on when there are two actions which are simultaneous (or in the case one of them is a background action, so actions are 'partially simultaneous'), or one action follows another.

Со светлым праздником Пасхи!

Today is Russian Easter (Пасха, Paskha). What do we do today? Many people go to the church (some even for the whole night) and other stay at home. But many and many Russians (even atheists) greet each other with "Христос воскрес!" (Christ has risen!) and get as an answer "Воистину воскрес!" (Indeed risen!). And of course, almost all Russians have a special menu today. Well, since it's traditional. you can see all the main elements at the picture, though it was painted by Russian artist Boris Kustodiev (Борис Кустодиев) about 100 years ago. So, which are they? 

First, these are painted eggs, as in many European countries. Traditionally, they're red to symbolize the Blood of Christ, but nowadays they can be of all colors you can imagine and even have some funny design. People present the eggs to each other ("Христос воскрес!" - "Воистину воскрес!") kissing each other on the cheek three times (it's called "христосоваться"). That's actually what the lady and the priest on the picture do. Egg tapping also takes place. 

Behind the plate with the eggs you can see a white pyramid. It's the paskha (пасха), as we call it, a sweet dish made out of quark (sometimes with some eggs, vanilla, raisins or candied fruits). It is supposed to be eaten along with the kulich (кулич), a traditional Easter cake (normally, cylindrical, decorated with sugar glaze - and whatever). In good old times, every family used to have their own recipe of it, though now many people prefer to buy it - just to save time. I didn't cook anything this year (as I used to do), just decorated eggs. As I promised, I publish a photo here:

P.S. By the way, there is a very good page about Paskha on Wikipedia. Check it!

WOR(L)DS

It is believed that the language one speaks and the way they think are interconnected, so the words and grammar constructions you use reflect not only your own worldview but the one which is typical for all (or at least many) of the native speakers of your mother tongue. Wanna immerse into how Russians see the world? Then you can find a funny (some find it pretty controversial) article about what is called Russian linguistic worldview (in fact, about some typical words) written by a Russian linguist  (Алексей Шмелёв)  here (in Russian). For advanced students! :)

"Что" and "чтобы" - what are they for?

Hi, I'm here again. :) At first I planned to devote this post to the next grammar case (as you remember, we have six of them), but I changed my mind when I got an interesting question from one of the students of Russian. The question was, what is the difference between "что" and "чтобы" in complex sentences. It's actually not that obvious, really. But what is particularly valuable, this question gives rise to other questions. So, let's begin.

The conjunction "что" is basically used in two types of situations. In the first case it's translated by 'what': "Я знаю, что Анна читает" is 'I know what (which book) Anna's reading'. The trick is, that this conjunction can also mean 'that': 'I know that Anna's reading (not jogging and not watching TV)' is also "Я знаю, что Анна читает". How do we manage to understand what our partners mean? Entirely from their intonation (I'll cover it in one of my posts later on, don't worry). 

The conjunction "чтобы" can also be used in quite different situations. For example, in the context like "Я приехал в Париж, чтобы увидеть Мону Лизу" ('I came to Paris to see Mona Lisa') or "Анна дала мне книгу, чтобы я её прочитал" ('Anna gave me a book to read') to give the reason for an action. Here there is one trick: if the subject of two parts of the sentence is the same, we normally use the infinitive in the second one (after "чтобы") without mentioning the subject, otherwise we need the Past Tense form of a verb and the subject (see the examples). There is another case when you need this conjunction, namely, when you' like to say that some action is necessary to achieve the result. For this we use expressions like "Нужно много работать, чтобы достичь успеха" (or "Чтобы достичь успеха, нужно много работать"), so in the ''first' part (one we describe the result in) we use words like нужно, необходимо etc. + an infinitive, and in the second part just an infinitive. Please notice that we don't mention the subject in the first part, nor in the second one, since we're talking somehow of all the possible subjects. However, if you'd like to state that it's true only for one subject, you can use the subject in the dative as usual in the constructions like "кому нужно что (что делать/сделать)": "Тебе нужно много заниматься, чтобы сдать экзамен" (so you have to work hard, and I probably not :)).

This conjunction "чтобы" is also used in the phrases like "Моя жена сказала, чтобы я купил хлеба". In this case it can be also translated with 'to', but the meaning is different ('My wife told me to buy some bread', so she wanted me to buy it). Of course, you can just an infinitive in this context: "Моя жена сказала мне купить хлеба". However, this infinitive construction is a bit more demanding with regard to grammar cases. For example, we say "она сказала мне (dative) принести воды", but "она попросила меня (accusative) принести меня". We'll be talking about this in some days, though up to that point you can just use the construction with "чтобы", which is much simpler: you just use after "чтобы" a noun or a pronoun in the nominative case. :) However, you need to remember that not all the verbs can be used adequately with both infinitive and "чтобы". So the verb просить/попросить (and in some cases сказать, требовать/потребовать) can be use with either, while, for example, the verb помочь/помогать is never used with "чтобы", it requires an infinitive.

Hope, I didn't confuse you too much. :) If you have any questions or corrections, please let me know. See you next time, and let's switch then to our main topic: Russian grammar cases.                                                                                                                                                                                             

Contact me!

If you'd like to ask me a question, correct me or just say hello, you can always leave a comment here or mail to: elena.rus.online@gmail.com. I'll be glad to here from you!

P.S. The picture portrays a Russian Empire postman. The inscription would be "Привет из Харькова!" in modern Russian.

How to say 'On the 1st floor' in Russian?

Last time we were talking about the prepositional case. One of the cases when we need it - when talking about the floor we live on. Do you remember? "Я живу на втором этаже. На первом этаже находится магазин". If you're going to Russia, you might find useful the fact that unlike people in many countries, we start counting floors from the ground (see the picture); so it's like in the USA (to the best of my knowledge, please correct me if I'm mistaken). So be careful! Я живу на четвертом этаже. На каком этаже вы живете? :)

Happy Easter!

A Happy Easter to all who celebrate Easter today!

P.S. This picture is from Wikimedia; I'll be celebrating Easter, which is Пасха in Russian, in five weeks :))

The Prepositional Case: Part 2

Nice to see you again! Let's proceed with the topic we started with last time. Today we will be talking about the prepositions that require this grammar case, the first one of which is the preposition "o".

Notionally, this preposition is connected with one of the main 'meanings' of the prepositional case - the topic, or an object, of something. That's why we use it (here it means 'about') with verbs like думать, размышлять, мечтать, помнить, вспоминать, говорить, рассказывать, объявлять, сообщать, писать, читать, спрашивать, петь, [у]слышать, узнать (as well as the corresponding nouns like мечта, воспоминание, разговор, рассказ, объявление, сообщение, письмо, вопрос, песня). We also use it with nouns which mean the object of one of those actions, like книга ("Я читаю/пишу книгу о Великой Отечественной войне"; by the way, the part of the World War II the USSR took part in is usually referred to as "Великая Отечественная война" in Russian literature and press) or мысль. There is at least one verb (and the corresponding noun) which you likely need and which has absolutely different meaning, though it's also used with the preposition "o" and the prepositional case ("Я забочусь о своём ребёнке, а Настя заботится о своих родителях".)

Another 'meaning' of the prepositional case, which is the location of something, can be expressed by either "в" or "на".  Dictionaries often give the following translation for them: "в" - in, "на" - "on". It's exact in obvious cases: "на коробке" is 'on the box', "в коробке" is 'in the box'. There are, however, some tricks here. The thing is, these prepositions are used not only in the cases when you'll use 'in' and 'on' speaking English. They're also used for 'at' in the meaning of location where someone or something is (was) or does (did) something (for example, 'at the university' will be translated as "в университете"). Here there is the exception alright. The exception is, if you're talking about a person you're at, you need a preposition "y" with the genitive (we'll be talking about this in several days). Here I'll just give you an example: 'at the doctor's' is "у доктора (у врача)".

So, let's get back to the prepositions "в" and "на". If we're talking about city objects, we normally use "в" with nouns meaning buildings (в доме, в школе, в университете etc.). The exceptions here are почта, завод, предприятие, фабрика, телевидение. We also say "на работе", that's the way you can remember the latter sequence. :) There is another funny thing: we say "в доме" for 'in the house', but "дома" for "[at] home".

The preposition "в" is also used (with some exceptions, though) with continents, lands (remember: на Украине), regions, cities and towns, districts etc. It's also used in the following combinations:

1) В пустыне, в джунглях, в поле, в лесу, в саду (but "на лугу");

2) В школе, в колледже, в университете, в классе (but "на факультете", "на пятом курсе");

3) В книге, в статье, в тетради, в блокноте (but "на странице").

You'll (likely) need the preposition "на" talking about planets, floors, islands, events ("на концерте", "на спектакле", but "в кино" - here we're talking about the cinema theater, also "на лекции", "на занятии", "на рыбалке", but "в экспедиции", that's the exception) as well as in the case of an image ("на картине", "на фотографии", "на снимке", "на рисунке", "на портрете"). A couple of  worlds from the IT world also requires "на": "работать на компьютере", "фотографии размещены на сайте/веб-странице", "на экране/мониторе".

Another funny story is water objects: rivers, lakes etc. So, we say "мы отдыхали на реке", but "в реке много рыбы". So, when we're talking about something that is directly in the water of it, we use "в". In other cases - "на". The same logic works also with vehicles: we say "я еду на машине", "я часто летаю на самолете", but "в автобусе я встретил Ольгу". So, if the main idea is that something happened inside the vehicle, we use "в", otherwise (normally, when someone is going by the vehicle) - "на".

Looks like it's all I wanted to tell you about the prepositional case (if I remember something else, I'll write about it, don't worry). До скорой встречи!

The Prepositional Case: Part 1

So, today we're talking about the prepositional case. The number of situations where this case may be used is limited, as you can guess from its name: we always use nouns in this case with prepositions. The most important are three of them: "o", "в" and "на" (though it's also used with the prepositions "при" and "по" - with the latter when it means "after').

As we were talking before, when you need a noun in one of the oblique cases, you have to change its ending. Which ending do we need in this case? 

First, we need to find out what is the gender and the number of the noun we use. Second, we need to take into account what the singular noun ends by in the nominative case. 

Most of words have the ending -e in the singular form of the prepositional case. They are: masculine nouns, which end by a hard or a soft consonant (except for ones ending by -ий); feminine nouns which end by -a and -я (except for ones ending by -ия); neuter nouns which end by -o, -e (except for ones ending by -иe). Masculine nouns which end by -ий, feminine ones which end by -ия and neuter ones which end by -ие in the nominative will have the ending -ии in the prepositional case. Feminine nouns ending by a soft consonant (i.e. the ones which have "ь" in the end) will have the ending -и in the prepositional case. 

The rule describing the plural nouns is actually much simpler. Here you need to consider just two cases. If the last consonant in a word (in the singular form, the nominative case) is hard, then you will have the ending -ах, if it's soft, then -ях (please, remember: consonants followed by "ь" or "и" are always soft).

There are, however, several exceptions (it wouldn't be Russian, if there were none :)). The following nouns have the ending -у in the prepositional case when they follow the prepositions "в", "на" (be careful: in the combination with the preposition "o" they still end by "e"): в шкафу, в лесу, в углу, в саду, в носу, в году, в порту, в аэропорту, в снегу, в дыму, в раю, на полу, на мосту, на берегу, на носу, на боку, на краю, на дому (in the phrase "работать на дому") and some other ones. If you'd like to check if a word has this form (it's called 'locative'), you may use Wiktionary: just find a word you're going to use and look if there is a form after the prepositional case form in the case table (it's marked with Russian "М.", which stands for "местный падеж", the locative).

You may also ask, in which cases we use these prepositions (the prepositions "в" and "на" are especially confusing, for it may seem hard to distinguish between the situations when you need the former one and the situations when you need the latter one). We we'll be talking about this next time. See you! 

How to learn them?

...Yes, they are six. Is it many? Yes, pretty many. Two more than in German, for example, and many more than in English. So it is not a surprise that one of the most common questions students of Russian ask is the following one: "How to tackle them?" In this post  (as well as some following ones labelled as 'learning tips') I would like to share some tips which you may find useful. Some of them my students found to be such, and some came from my own language learning experience. Have fun!

1) Read and listen to native speakers as many as you can. Here I must notice, there are different kinds of reading. Let's skip scanning and skimming, they're of little help if our aim is to learn grammar cases (we will talk about these two kinds later on). The most helpful here is intensive reading. When reading intensively, you focus on grammar forms (and sometimes vocabulary). It's the slowest type of reading and it may be not such exciting as extensive reading, which will be talking about in the next paragraph. However, it might be fun, too. Just remember: to read a many-page tome intensively may be not such a good idea - you're likely to get bored. Instead, try to read intensively short messages, like ads or news headlines. Where to get them? If you're living in Russia, you're likely to find a lot of information of this kind just wandering around the city - you will see a lot of advertisement posters, promo flyers etc. Alternatively, you may go to a cafe or a small restaurant - in addition to the menu (which may be a good source of grammar information itself) you can find free papers there. What to do if not? I may suggest you to use Russian search engine Yandex: you may find news headlines, TV program etc. just on the first page of the site! So use everything you see to learn: if you see a new verb-noun, a preposition-noun or a noun-noun combination, pay your attention to which cases are used. Try to learn some phrases - ones which you like or find useful - by heart (you may want to write it down, it'll help a lot), and then... just use it!

Extensive reading, which I promised to devote a couple of lines to, is reading for general understanding of the text and, in the end, for pleasure. If you're an advanced student, you may read Russian papers or books just for pleasure. Here, however, you may use the same technique: whenever you see a construction which draws your attention (perhaps, you like what it means and want to remember it, and perhaps you've never seen this word combination before), take a minute to it, it won't be a waste of time.

A couple of words about listening.  The same method works here: just try to listen to native speakers as much as you can (you may see movies, for example), and try to remember the grammar cases used in this or that context. Write something down. It may seem complicated for beginners, but the more you listen, the better you understand. There is no other way to learn to understand, but this one is a great one - just find movies (at first, you may read subtitles, as you see, if you have a DVD) and music you like. 

2) Learn the questions. It can save you a great deal of time if you learn the questions to the nouns in each case. Not only you'll be using them naturally, but you will also learn the constructions we have talked about more easily. For example, in the coffee shop menu you can see  "Кофе со сливками" (sometimes we use "со" instead of "c", for example, when the following word begins with "c" + another consonant). Instead of learning something like "a noun in the nominative case + the preposition "c" + a noun in the instrumental case" you can just learn "что с чем", so you will know which form is used after the preposition "c" (so you will be able to say, for example, "чай с сахаром"). Later you can always remember the case. The funny thing is, Russian people use the cases naturally (as all the native speakers of whatever language do with their grammar features), so we don't remember the case table. However, in some complicated cases when we don't know exactly which case we need, we always ask the questions. Here they are:

Cases	Questions to animate nouns*	Questions to inanimate nouns*
Nominative	Кто?	Что?
Genitive	Кого?	Чего?
Dative	Кому?	Чему?
Accusative	Кого?	Что?
Instrumental case	Кем?	Чем?
Prepositional case	Ком?	Чём?

*animate nouns normally refer to people, animals or other creatures, while inanimate one refer to ideas, places, things.

3) '3R-rule': read, remember, repeat. This is what I call '3Rs'. After you read a thing you'd like to learn (for example, a construction including a noun in one of the oblique cases), you need to remember it. If you write it down and repeat in immediately, you will remember it for some time. For example, in a cafe you can order "что-то с чем-то", for example, кофе со сливками, суп с шампиньонами, сэндвич с сыром. Later you can ask your friend to make you some tea with sugar (чай с сахаром). So try to use it whenever you can. Some teachers suggest you repeat the word or construction you want to learn at least three times: immediately after you read or heard it, the day after this, and one week after. If you managed to do this, you're likely to remember it forever. If not... well, you still have it written down, so just refresh your knowledge! Personally I suggest you use it as many time as you can. After some time you'll be able so see, how much times you need to learn it.

The only difficulty here is, if you're a beginner please try to use the words in more or less the same context as you read or heard them. As you learn, you will find out in which contexts this or that word may be used.

So, that's it for today. Looks like, we finished the 'preparation stage', so now we can move on to learn each case in particular, keeping in mind these learning tips. See you next time!

How to say "I was/am/will be a businessman"? Noun predicates

Today we're dealing with an interesting topic. In the last paragraph of this post I mentioned, that a noun in the nominative can be a subject (actually, the subject of a sentence is always in the nominative) or a part of a noun predicate. However, the noun part of the predicate is not necessarily in the nominative. Let's see how it works.

If you're a businessman, you can just say "Я бизнесмен" (as you may remember, in such case we usually drop the linking verb "есть"), so both the subject (the personal pronoun "я") and the noun part of the predicate ("бизнесмен"). However, if you were a businessman (and now you're not), you need the instrumental case: "Я был бизнесменом". Also, let's imagine you have a son who wants to be a businessman too. He will then say, "Я буду бизнесменом". Alternatively, he may say, "Когда я вырасту, я стану бизнесменом" (here we also use the instrumental case).

When writing, let's say, a scientific paper or an article for a magazine, you may also use one of the following constructions:

"Глобальное потепление является серьёзной проблемой" (Nominative является instrumental).

"Глобальное потепление представляет собой серьёзную проблему" (Nominative представляет собой accusative).

What else can we learn using these two examples? Well, here I will just briefly mention one of the most important rules (later on we will discuss it in more detail): an adjective should be in the same case, gender and number as the noun this adjective is related to. Sounds simple, doesn't it? For example, here  the noun "потепление" is singular, neuter and (in both cases) in the nominative case, so the adjective "глобальное" has the same parameters.

So, that's all for today. Next time we will be talking about the questions the nouns in different cases answer to. I will also give you some learning tips which you may use learning the cases or any other material. Не пропустите! ;)

Cases and prepositions

As we discussed before, if a noun is used after a preposition, it must be either in accusative, or one of the oblique cases (genitive, dative, instrumental or prepositional case). At first, I intended to include the following information in the descriptions of each case, however, I made up my mind to make a special chapter out of that, because some tricks get visible only when you compare the cases.

So, let's start from a simple thing - table of cases and preposition. You can find it everywhere. Here I publish a variant that seems to me full and not so much confusing at the same time.

Cases	Prepositions
Genitive	без, ввиду, вдоль, вместо, вне, внутри, внутрь, возле, впереди, вследствие, вокруг, для, до, из-за, из-под, кроме, между, мимо, напротив, насчет, около, от, от, относительно, помимо, после, посреди, посредством, позади, после, против, ради, с, сверх, свыше, снаружи, среди, у
Dative	благодаря, вопреки, к, по
Accusative	в, за, на, про, сквозь, через
Instrumental case	за, между, над, перед, под, с
Prepositional case	в, на, о, по, при

However, I feel, some points need to be clarified. For example, several prepositions (в, за, на, с) may be used with different cases. How to choose the right one? In a moment we'll be discussing that.

We can start with two prepositions - "в" and "на". They are pretty similar. So, "в" and "на" with accusative are used when you describe the direction ("утром я иду на работу, мой сын идет в школу, а жена - на почту"). They are used with the prepositional case when you describe a location ("я на работе, моя жена на почте, а мой сын - в школе").  Does it mean that every time we use a verb of movement, we need the accusative? Not necessarily. We'll be discussing this later (when talking about verbs of movement), but I would like to emphasize it now, it's pretty important. This cases with the accusative are used when you cross some (real or imaginary) border. It may be a door of your home or any other building, square boundary etc. This also can be an edge of something (if you put something somewhere): "я кладу книгу в/на коробку", but "книга лежит в/на коробке". The main point here is, someone goes from one place to another (or puts something somewhere) intentionally. In most of other cases we use the prepositional case. Using the concepts of 'location' and 'direction', you can also understand such expressions as "я прочел в книге, что..." (prepositional case), "я заглянул в словарь" (accusative). 

The preposition "за" follows the same concept: it requires a noun in the instrumental case, when the situation can be described using the concept of 'location', and the accusative, when the appropriate concept is 'direction'. However, here we face one more problem: the preposition "за" has one more meaning. You can find it in the expressions like "я пришёл за деньгами", "моя жена поехала за сыном", "я заеду за тобой в пять", "пожалуйста, сходи в магазин за кока-колой". I cannot find a better translation than 'to pick someone or something up/to buy or to get something" (perhaps, you can?). In this case, as you may have been noticed, we use the instrumental case.

The preposition "с" has quite a spectrum of meanings. Don't be afraid - we'll learn them step by step. First, the preposition "с" may be translated as 'with'. Be careful here - 'with' is not always translated as "c". If you mention a tool you do or make something with, you do not need a preposition at all, the best option here is just to use a noun in the instrumental case ("я режу хлеб ножом, а моя подруга рисует картину кистью"). Sometimes you also need a noun in the instrumental case when you mention materials etc. ("мой друг художник; он пишет картины маслом"). We'll discuss it one more time later, though. In the contexts like "я иду гулять с собакой", "я давно дружу с Джоном", "я иду из магазина с большой сумкой", "мы жили с Юлей в одной комнате в общежитии", "я говорил с Андреем Павловичем по телефону", "вчера я встречалась с Энтони" when you highlight that you have (had, will have) something or someone with you or have someone as a speaking partner, as a friend etc., the preposition 'with' can be translated by "с", and in this case you need a noun in the instrumental case.

However, this preposition can be also translated to Russian as 'from'/'off' ("мой сын катается с горки на санках", "я возвращаюсь с выставки", "я вернусь с дачи в воскресенье", "я прихожу с работы в восемь часов вечера") and even since ("моя жена работает в крупной компании с прошлого года"). Though we're talking about nouns here, I can't help mentioning that the preposition "c" may be used in the this sense also with numbers ("я живу в этом доме с две тысячи первого [года]"). Here we use a noun in the genitive case.

So, these are the main and the most useful combinations of a preposition and a noun in the accusative and oblique cases. There are some other combinations, though, which may be discussed from time to time in my blog. So stay tuned!

A quick note on Russian grammar cases

One of the nightmarish topics for almost any student of Russian (at least for ones whose first language is not a Slavic one), is Russian grammar cases. Here I would like to share with you the tips I wrote for  my students in order to give you some hints on where and how each case may be used. So, the upcoming series of posts will be entirely devoted to grammar cases. This is not intended to substitute a grammar book, though - likely you will need one (or at least some knowledge about the case system). My main intention is to give you a sort of feeling of how to use the cases and how to learn them more effectively.

So, let's start from the beginning, which means - from nouns. As you may already know, a noun in a sentence may be in one of the following six cases:  nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and prepositional, or in Russian - именительный, родительный, дательный, винительный, творительный, предложный (there are some additional ones, see Wikipedia, if curious). What are they for? In simple words, they are to show how one word is related to the other, what role it plays in a sentence. While in English they are mainly prepositions (sometimes also word order etc.) which are responsible for this, in Russian we may change the case of a noun or use a preposition with a noun in one of the cases (we will see how it works later). So, every time a noun follows a preposition, a verb or another noun, we need to use the noun in some particular case, which practically means that we need to change its ending.

The first case is the nominative, the easiest one. You see nouns in this case when you open your dictionary. Outside dictionaries, nouns in the nominative are used as the subjects or predicates of sentences. These are their main functions. So please check if your noun is either the subject or a [part of] the predicate of a sentence (for example, "я художник", "мой любимый фрукт - манго", "Волга - это самая длинная река в Европе"). If yes, just use a noun-from-the-dictionary (please remember: only the subject is always in the nominative). If not... wait for the next post! :)

Hello world!

Hello, my name is Elena, I am originally from Russia. I am a great language lover, and I adore teaching and learning languages (I am currently studying English and German). This blog is aimed at students of Russian whose first or second language is English (since I intend to give most tips and instructions in English), in particular, my students, friends and mates who inspired me to launch this blog (thank you Daniel!). Please forgive my imperfections in English, which is my second language. I hope, you'll find my tips useful. Enjoy! :)