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!