Russian Tutorial

1. Basic Phrases

Bold syllables indicate stress in the English pronunciation. The accute accent mark shows the stress in the Russian word.

2. Pronunciation & Alphabet

The Russian Alphabet, known as Cyrillic or Кири́ллица (Ki-reel-lee-tsa) has 33 letters; 21 consonants, 10 vowels and two signs. The letters are: А Б В Г Д Е Ё Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ ъ ы ь Э Ю and Я. In order to make this explanation easier, the letters are broken down into specific groups. While many who are unfamiliar with the alphabet dismiss it as being too hard, the alphabet is deceptively simple, as the phonetic principle is very prominent, and successive reforms have removed excess letters and greatly simplified the spelling system.

While most Cyrillic typefaces' letter forms may look only slightly different than the one used on this page, the letter forms of handwritten Russian are decidedly different, and can be easily comfused to those unfamiliar with them. My own handwriting being as terrible as it is, I would recommend downloading OdessaScript to get an idea of what the letter forms should look like, and Pushkin for a more stylized and "realistic" example. The key to learning the written script is practice; start by mimicking the OdessaScript letters individually, copying them out 20-30 times in a row before moving onto the next one. Then move on to words of 3-5 letters, and finally onto longer words. Copying out poems, newspaper articles and other short texts can be the final step, and aid greatly in keeping your skills up to par.

3. Further Notes on Pronunciation

The ь, or мя́гкий знак ("soft sign,") as noted before, denotes a soft consonant when there is no vowel present to perform that function. However, when placed in front of a soft vowel, it not only shows a soft consonant, indicates a more strongly pronounced y (as in yoke) sound in the vowel following.

    The ъ, or твёрдый знак ("hard sign,")  fulfills the same latter function of the soft sign, but also indicates that the preceding consonant is hard, despite the soft vowel following it. This is, however, a rarely used letter and is seen mostly in verb prefixes, as in Съездить, Отъездить and the like, and can also be marked with a single quotation, but this is rarely used nowadays.

Whenever you learn a new word, be sure to remember the stress patterns, as unlike Polish, Czech, and some other Slavic languages, syllable stress in Russian is free, unpredictable, and sometimes mobile; two-syllable neuter words, for instance, almost always change stress in the plural. For a graphic example of the importance of stress, the verb писа́ть (stressed on a) which means "to write," can have its meaning suddenly and easily changed to пи́сать, (stress on и) which means "to piss," so be careful!

--The E rule: at the beginning of a word, e is always pronounced as "ye," regardless of stress. An unstressed e, unless preceded by a vowel is pronounced  like a "schwa", though any preceding consonant is still softened.

    In virtually all spoken forms, all final consonants are devoiced.

4. Spelling & Combination Rules

There are three main spelling rules that you have to know in Russian; they are fairly simple and easy to remember, so don't forget them!

Note that the letters Щ, and Ч are always soft, and Ж, Ш, and Ц are always considered hard; this means that after the former two, a is always pronounced as я, у is always pronounced like ю, and so on, while after the latter three, и sounds like ы, е and sounds like э.

Rules of Combination

    Once you start changing words as required by inflection (nouns, adjectives, pronouns) or conjugation (verbs) you not only have to apply the three rules above, but also the rules of vowel combination. Don't worry though; once you understand hard and soft consonants and the vowels/signs that reflect them, this makes absolute sense.

Rule # 1: After й or ь, of there is a hard vowel, the two "blend" to form the soft variant

To illustrate this, I will use the adjective Си́ний (Dark Blue) Notice the soft H.

Say I want to make the feminine-nominative form:
Take Си́ний, and add the proper adjective ending, -ая. Thus we get Синь+ая  or Синьая. However, ь+а=я, so we get Си́няя

Or say I want the neuter-genitive:
Take Си́ний and the proper ending, ого. Thus we get Синього. However ь+о when unstressed as here =е, so we get Си́него

Rule # 2: After й or ь, if there is a soft vowel, the former is removed and the latter left on its own.
Take for instance часть. Want the plural? Add -и, and you get частьи, but the soft sign gets absorbed, so we end up with части

Keep in mind, however, that if there is a soft sign in front of a soft vowel already in the singular-nominative form, leave it alone, as it performs a phonetic, rather than grammatical, function. For instance: The singular-nominative Семья (family) becomes Семьи in the plural; the soft sign was in front of the vowel already and so it stays there.

If you need some more help with this, I would suggest checking out this page.

5. The Fleeting Vowel

Every once in a while you'll notice how sometimes words gain or lose a penultimate e or o outside of regular declension or conjugation. For instance, if I wanted the genitive plural of the word "Письмо" (letter,) the standard is to remove the finial o, leaving us with "письм." However, the actual form in the genitive plural is "писем." Where did that e come from? The e is actually an unstressed, softened o; the o is added based on an alternating paradigm left over from ancient Russian. However in this case, because of the soft sign, and because the stress is on the first syllable and not the new letter, we end up with an e.

    One little trick is usually right: if you get an awkward consonant cluster, say the word out loud; if you find yourself adding an "uh" sound, chances are, an o is needed, so add it in and go through the spelling rules checklist and the word should now be spelled correctly, though one common exception is words that end in -ство; the genitive plural is -ств. Also, sometimes it is an e, even when there is no soft sign present. For those a little more confident or curious, you can apply the alternation rule, which is best explained here.

    These "fleeting vowels" also disappear in declension. Take for instance отец (father,) in the genitive singular: отца; the dative singular: отцу; and the genitive plural: отцов.  Normally when a word ends with an e or o plus consonant, the e/o is dropped and the new ending placed after the consonant. These seem unpredictable at first, but with patience, they are not a problem.

6. Nouns and Gender

    Russian nouns belong to one of three genders: Masculine, (мужской род) Feminine (женской род) and Neuter (средний род). Unlike German and some of the Romance languages, the gender of a noun can be easily assessed, simply by looking at the ending in the nominative case.

Masculine nouns end in consonants or й
Feminine nouns end in -а, -я, or -ия
Neuter nouns end in -е, -о, or -ие

There are a few exceptions to this rule, but they are easy to spot:

-There are a few masculine nouns that end in a; these are usually associated exclusvely with males, such as мужчи́на (man,) дя́дя (uncle,) де́душка (grandfather,) and the like, or "familiar" forms of masculine names, like Воло́дя, Бо́ря, and so on. These nouns have one attribute that is easy to remember: they decline like feminine nouns, but any demonstratives, adjectives and the like decline like masculine nouns.

-There are 10 words which are neuter, yet end in -я. These have their own unique declension class, which is shown below, and all demonstratives, adjectives and the like use the standard neuter endings. The words are: бре́мя (burden,) вре́мя (time,) вы́мя (udder,) зна́мя (banner,) и́мя (given name,) пла́мя (flame,) пле́мя (tribe,) се́мя (seed,) стре́мя (stirrup) and те́мя (crown.)

-Neuter nouns ending in -о or -и that are direct imports from foreign languages, such as кафе́, кино́, or такси́ do not decline at all, regardless of what case they ought ot be in, however any adjectives or demonstratives tied to them do.

-And finally, there are a number of nouns, which end in -ь and can be either masculine or feminine. There are generally few ways to predict this, however, if a noun ends in -сть, such as кре́пость (fortress,) or it ends in a hush-plus-soft-sign, (-шь, -щь, -жь, -чь) it is feminine. Masculine nouns with a -ь ending decline like those ending with й. The feminine ones have their own declension class, detailed below.

7. Personal Pronouns

11. The Case System: Introduction to Inflection

    To those who have studied languages such as German, Greek, Latin or another Slavic Language, you are already familiar with the concepts of inflection and can likely skip this introduction, but if you haven't, it helps to receive a quick introduction.

    To give a dictionary style answer, inflection is the process where a word is changed (declined) relative to its role as a part of speech in a sentence. Thus in Russian, nouns and other declining words have different forms depending on whether they are the subject, direct object, indirect object, or possessor. English has lost most of its ancient inflection system, but there are a few remnants to build off of. Let's start with a common, and often ignored, mistake in English: "Me and my friend went to a movie." We are often told that this is properly written as "My friend and I went to a movie," but rarely told why. The answer is that the pronoun I is in the subjective (or nomnative) form, or case, while me is in the objective (accusative/dative) case; that is, marking the subject and object (direct or indirect) respectively. "Me," thus, cannot be used as the subject of a sentence! Here is a quick summary of the personal pronouns in English:

If a pronoun is the subject, it must be in the subjective case, and when it is an object, it must be in the objective case; sounds simple enough. Unfortunately, English does not have separate pronouns to disambiguate the direct and indirect objects, thus relying on prepositions and word order to do the job instead. The direct and indirect objects can be written one of two ways:
-"He gave her it."
-"He have it to her."
(The direct object is bold, the indirect is italic)

In Russian, the word break-down for the same sentence would look like this:
Он - "he;" subject; nominative case
Дал - "to give" past tense, masculine
Его́ - "it;" direct object; accusative case
Ей - "her;" indirect object; dative case

It would then be written as "Он дал его́ ей" or any combination of those words, so long as they remain in their proper case.

    If you are translating from Russian, the subject and objects are easy to see, as the case is evident, but when trying to translate into Russian, it is often difficult at first due to the ambiguities of English grammar. Until you are familiar with these concepts enough to feel confident, it helps to use this methodology: when you come across a sentence, the first thing you should look at is the verb, which is key to finding the subject/object. Let's say the verb is "to take." Ask yourself the following questions:

--For the Subject: "Who or what did or is doing the taking?"
--For the Direct Object: "Who or what was/is being taken?"
--For the Indirect Object: "To whom or to what was the direct object taken?"

    Keep these questions in mind as you practice and learn and adapt them to the specific verb and subject/objects you are using at the time and you should not have too many problems.

   However, as you have seen form the tables just above this section, Russian has cases for more than just subjects and objects, for a total of six, and unlike English, not only pronouns, but also nouns and adjectives all change by case. The concept of case usage can be overwhelming if you are unfamiliar with the idea, so it helps to learn just one or two at the most at one time, and only moving on when you are comfortable in your knowledge, as learning all of them in one stretch can complicate matters greatly. Also, keep this in mind: if you were never taught these grammatical concepts before, it will take a little extra effort to fully comprehend it all, but there is a plethora of additional resources, both on-line and in print to help you understand, all of which are usually easy to find, so it is far from impossible; this site's webmaster's English grammar overview can help in this regard.

    In this tutorial, each of the six cases used in Russian is given an individual treatment with nouns of all genders, as they are more complicated than pronouns. For the examples, I have used the same series of words to show the patterns in inflection. They are: телеви́зор (television), музе́й (museum), коро́ль (king), маши́на (car), земля́ (land, earth), фами́лия (surname), ми́лость (kindness), о́зеро (lake), пла́тье (dress), мне́ние (opinion), and вре́мя (time).

12. The Nominative Case (Имени́тельный Паде́ж)

    This case is used to indicate the subject of the sentence, as well as in comparisons following чем, and a few other instances, discussed later. If you look up a word in the dictionary, it is always in the nominative case unless stated otherwise.

    There are a few exceptions for masculine nouns ending in a consonant; rather than ending in ы, they take a stressed a. There is no real way of predicting them, so the easiest way to memorize them, in my opinion, is to say the singular and plural forms out loud; you'll remember the different forms as you remember the pronunciation of the word. Be careful, however, not to confuse them with the gentive-singular forms, which often look exactly the same.

Examples:
Мост -Bridge - Мосты́ - Bridges
Го́род -City - Города́ - Cities

In addition, there are a number of words that end in -нин; these decline regularly except in the nominative plural, where it becomes -не, and in the genintive plural, where it becomes -н

13. The Accusative Case (Вини́тельный Паде́ж)

    The Accusative is used to indicate the direct object of a sentence or phrase, that is the noun on which the action was performed. Simple as this may sound, this case is complicated by the fact that it is, in effect, five cases; masculine nouns are the same as the nominative form, unless they are animate, in which case t takes the noun takes the genitive case endings; neuter nouns are always the same as the nominative; and feminine nouns ending in -а or -я become -у and -ю, while those ending in -ь  stay the same, all regardless of animacy, while in the plural, they are like the nominative plural, unless it is animate, in which case it takes the genitive.

14. The Dative Case (Да́тельный Паде́ж)

    The Dative is used to mark the indirect object in the sentence or phrase, that is, the recipient or "benefactor" of the action. It can also represent the opinion statements "to me..." or "for me..." Forming the Dative in Russian is very easy; Masculine and neuter nouns take -у or -ю as the ending, depending on whether or not it is hard or soft, and Feminine nouns take -е regardless. There is a caveat here: if the (feminine) word ends in -ь, it takes -и in the dative, and if it ends in -ия, it takes -ии. The plural is even easier: all nouns take -ам or -ям, depending on a hard or soft ending .

15. The Genitive Case (Роди́тельный Паде́ж)

   
    The Genitive is perhaps the most versatile of all of the cases in Russian; it shows ownership or possession (комната моей сестры -- my sister's room,) construction involving "of" (фотогра́фия но́вого до́ма -- A photo of the new house,) amounts of things (много людей -- many people,) in conjunction with numbers (пять братьев -- five brothers,) and more. It's formation in the singular is highly regular; masculine and neuter nouns take -а or -я depending on whether it is hard or soft; feminine nouns take the letter -ы or- и, again depending on whether it's hard o soft.
   
    The genitive plural, however, is probably the most difficult aspect of noun declension; there are even jokes about it in Russian. Masculine nouns ending in consonants take -ов and those ending in й take -ев or -ёв, but masculine nouns ending in -ь, -ш, -щ, -ж, and -ч, all take the ending -ей. Feminine and neuter nouns ending in -а and -о lose that letter, -я and -е take- ь, and feminine and neuter nouns ending in-ия and -ие both take the -ий. Finally, feminine nouns ending in -ь, as well as neuter and feminine nouns with -ь just prior to the final vowel mostly take the ending ей.

16. The Prepositional Case (Предло́жный Паде́ж)

    This is probably the easiest case to learn other than the nominative. It is used purely with prepositions; it is never used on its own, hence its name. The prepositions are в (in/at) на (on/at/in) о (about) при (near/next to/in the time of/on one's person). To form it, masculine neuter and feminine nouns take -e in the singular, unless it is feminine and ends in -ь, in which case it becomes -и, or -ие or -ия, which become -ии. The plural is -ах or -ях depending on the stem.

    There is an exception here; in the singular masculine, there are a number of nouns that take a stressed -у or -ю, but this is ONLY when used with the prepositions в or на; if you use o or при, you use the regular prepositional ending.

Examples:
Лес -- Forest - в Леcу́ - In the Forest,  при Ле́се - Near the Forest
Бал -- Ball - на Балу́ - At the Ball, о Ба́ле - About the Ball

17. The Instrumental Case (Твори́тельный Паде́ж)

19. Adjectives

    Adjectives must agree with the nouns that they modify in gender, number and case. Adjective endings are distinctive for each case. One more thing: although written as ого, the genitive endings are pronounced as though they were written ово. However, this is only for endings associated with the genitive case. Also, some masculine-nominative nouns have -ой instead of ый as its ending. This does not change the declension patterns, however.

There are also four short form adjectives, used only in the nominative. They appear as follows:

Their usage is discussed in section 35.

20. Russian Verbs - Introduction & Aspect

    Russian Verbs have a reputation of being difficult to learn, and this is true, but only because the concepts governing them are very different from the norms of Germanic or Romance languages. Fortunately, there is a logic to the verb system, and highly irregular verbs are rare.

    The main feature that distinguishes Russian verbs from English is the notion of Aspect. Russian has two aspects: the imperfective, or несовершенный вид, which indicates an action which is either a) in progress, b) not yet finished c) done repeatedly d) may or may not be completed in the near future or e) may or may not be repeated in the future; and the perfective, or "совершенный вид," which indicates actions that are a) completed once, and successfully or b) an action that will be completed once in the near future.

For instance, I'll use the example of my first year Russian professor:
-Imperfective: "Кто ел мой сыр?!" -- Roughly "who's been eating my cheese?" -- The implication is that said person has taken cheese more than once over a period of time.
-Perfective: ""Кто съел мой сыр?!"" -- Roughly "who ate my cheese?" -- The idea here, by contrast, is that the cheese, (all of it,) was eaten all at once, and thus the action is perfective.

    Russian verbs thus form perfective and inperfective pairs, which have to be memorized. There is sometimes no logic in the verb pairs, as Russian used to have more than just two aspects, but there are patterns that emerge. There are about five ways to distinguish between the two:

1-Use of a prefix -- For instance, the imperfective of "to read" is читать, but the perfective is прочитать (this is the most common form)
2-Change in the stem/suffix -- The imperfective of "to understand" is понимать, and the perfective is понять (common, but less so than 1 and 3)
3-Change in the finial vowel -- The imperfective of "to enroll/join" is поступать, and the perfective is поступить (these are fairly common)
4-Use of -ыв- or -ив- -- The imperfective of "to order" is заказывать, perfective, заказать (used mostly on prefixed verbs and are easy to spot after some practice)
5-Completely different verb -- The imperfective of "to say/speak" is говорить, the perfective сказать (fortunately, these are not very common)

(If the idea of aspect is still puzzling, an excellent explanation can be found here.)

21. Russian Verbs - Present Tense

    This refers to actions which are going on, obviously, in the present. Since the action is ongoing, only imperfective verbs are used in the present tense. These correspond to all English present tenses; for instance "I see" and "I am seeing" as well as "I do see" have only one corresponding form in Russian, я вижу.

    Russian verbs are generally broken down into two or three groups or "conjugations" generally the first and second; for the sake of clarity, I will use a slight variant: 1a (e-verbs) 1b (ё-verbs) and 2 (и-verbs) These three are very similar in appearance and the form for each subject is distinctive; because there little room for confusion, pronouns are rarely repeated more than once in a sentence.

    The only difference here is the vowel preceding the ending, and deciding which one is the real trick to all of this; in many cases, it's fairly obvious: verbs ending in -ать are usually 1st Conjugation, and verbs ending in -ить are usually 2nd Conjugation. Verbs ending in -еть can be either, and verbs ending in -сти are almost always 1b, though their stems tend to be irregular. The easiest way to find out for sure is when you look up a verb in your dictionary, look at the ты or он form, and look to see which vowel is used; the same series of endings are always used otherwise, the rest is easy. Be sure to remember the spelling rules!

22. Russian Verbs - Past Tenses

The Past-Imperfective
Refers to an action in the past which was repeated, left unfinished, or both

The Past-Perfective
Refers to an action, successfully completed once, and now done with.

    Both of these tenses are formed in the same way, and the aspect of the verb does the rest; simply remove the -ть and add -л plus the appropriate vowel reflecting the biological gender (sex) of the subject if it is human, or the gender of the noun itself otherwise.

The table below explains this; I'll use говорить (imperfective) -- сказать (perfective) as examples.

    About 90% of Russian Verbs form their past tense this way, and for those that don't, usually only the stem changes. However, be careful in choosing which aspect to use, as there are a number of nuances to the meaning of each.

23. Russian Verbs - Future Tenses

The Future-Imperfective: refers to an action which will, in the future of course, be repeating, or that may or may not be completed. This is formed using the appropriate conjugation of the verb быть plus the infinitive of an imperfective verb.

Conjugation of "Быть"

For example, if I want to say that tomorrow, I will be reading a book, but don't think I'll finish it, or don't plan on doing so, I would say:
Завтра я буду читать книгу.

The Future-Perfective
Refers to an action that will be completed once in the near future

This tense is formed by conjugating a perfective verb in the same fashion as an imperfective verb in the present tense; for this reason, you'll sometimes see them referred to as "Future-Present" endings.

So if I was sure I'd finish reading the book tomorrow, or very determined to do so, I'd say:
Завтра я прочитаю книгу.

24. Verb Irregularities

    Unfortunately, Russian verbs have a few irregularities to cover, such as added or changed letters that appear during conjugation. However, the good news is that while you may not always be able to predict WHEN such changes occur, 9 times out of 10, you can predict HOW they occur.

    For the first item, let's try a few verbs: любить ("to love"-impf,) -- (я) люблю, ("I love,") остановить ("to stop"-pf) -- (я) остановлю, ("I will stop [something],") and, as we've already seen, готовить ("to prepare"-impf,) я готовлю, ("I prepare/am preparing.") The sounds of в and б, along with п and м, are what linguists call labials -words made using your lips, and in Russian, an л is inserted after these consonants in the 1st person singular (я,) but only here!

    Next, are a number of verbs, usually of foreign origin, though there are a number of native Slavic ones, which end in -овать. At first glance, the conjugation seems obvious; ремонтировать (to repair) should, in theory become я ремонтироваю. However correct way would be я ремонтирую, ты ремонтируешь and so forth. This is one little quirk for verbs with the -овать ending, but is wholly predictable: all verbs with this ending take the letter у plus the standard 1a ending when conjugated.  Similarly, there are a number of verbs ending in -авать that lose the -ва- in conjugation and take the 1b endings. Thus давать becomes даю, даёшь, etc.

    Finally, you may notice an odd change in some verbs that seem fairly arbitrary insertions of hushes (ш щ ж ч) in many verb conjugations. For instance простить (to forgive) becomes (я) прощу but also has (он) простит, and  рассказать (to tell-pf) becomes (я) расскажу and (ты) расскажешь. This process is called palatalization, and occurs when the syllable stress shifts onto or off of the stem during conjugation. Unfortunately, this means that you cannot always predict wth certainty when palatalization occurs, when it does happen, it's always following a set pattern, outlined in the table below:

Тhese don't always apply to each form of the conjugated verb but these instances are also highly regularized.

In the 1st Conjugation, when the ending is -ать, all forms of the verb, я to они, change according to the above rules (1). But when the verb stem ends in к, х, or г, only the я and они forms remain unchanged. (2) In the 2nd conjugation, however, only я changes (3).

25. Some Common Verbs

*Нравиться is most often used impersonally to mean "like" or "enjoy," or a similar sentiment that doesn't quite warrant the use of любить. Thus you would say something like, "Мне понравился этот фильм" ("I liked that movie") or "Им понравилась постановка ("they enjoyed the performance.")

A number of these verbs have some irregularities in conjugation, usually stem changes:

	Жить	Дать	Давать	Ждать	Спать	Петь	Открыть	Брать	Бзять	Стать
Я	живу	дам	даю	жду	сплю	пою	открою	беру	возьму	стану
Ты	живёшь	дашь	даёшь	ждёшь	спишь	поёшь	откроешь	берёшь	возьмёшь	станешь
Он/Она/Оно	живёт	даст	даёт	ждёт	спит	поёт	откроет	берёт	возьмёт	станет
Мы	живём	дадим	даём	ждём	спим	поём	откроем	берём	возьмём	станем
Вы	живёте	дадите	даёте	ждёте	спите	поёте	откроете	берёте	возьмёте	станете
Они	живут	дадут	дают	ждут	спят	поют	откроют	берут	возьмут	станут

The past tenses of these verbs are formed regularly.

26. Interrogative Pronouns

The two main Russian interrogatives are Кто (who) Что (what) like nouns, these decline by case, but only in one gender and only on the singular.

The declined forms are most often used with prepositions to specify the question, such as с кем (with whom?) от чего (from what?) or согласно кому (according to whom?)

Other interrogatives:
Где -- Where?
Куда? -- To Where?
Откуда? -- From Where?
Сколько? -- How many/much?
Чей? -- Whose? (declines like an adjective. Can also function as a relative-conjunction.)
Какой -- Which? (declines like an adjective)
Почему -- Why/What for? (Refers to past actions)
Зачем -- To What End? (Refers to a future or continuing action)
Как? -- How (This can also be a cunjunction meaning "as" or "like")
Что такое? -- What? (Used in this case, the person asking wishes to know facts, details, or a definition.)
Кто такой? -- Who? (Like что такое, this is used when you want a description of or information about someone. This declines by gender and becomes  Кто такая? for the feminine form)
Что это за... ? -- What kind of? (за is followed by a nominitive noun. )
Что он/она/они за...? -- What kind of? (Refers to person. Он/она/они can be replaced by a name as well.)

27. Cardinal Numbers and Their Declensions

    While the numbers themselves are fairly straightforward, using them properly in Russian is much more complex, for two reasons:

    Thus when using numbers with prepositions, the number declines according to the case of the preposition, while the noun described by the number takes the case dictated by the number. For instance, "The Three Musketeers" in Russian is "Три Мушкетёра," whereas "about the Three Musketeers" is "о трёх мушкетёрах."

28. Ordinal Numbers

    These decline just like adjectives, and must agree in gender, number, and case with the noun they describe.

29. Conjunctions

    There are a number of conjunctions in Russian, and while they do tend to make sense, they also tend to re-use particles seen elsewhere, so you should pay attention in at least recognizing their forms so you don't mistranslate. They are listed in no particular order.

И -- And
-У меня в моей комнате есть телевизор и DVD-плеер -- In my room there is a television and a DVD player

А -- And/But
-Моя мать - секретарша, а отец - менеджер -- My mother is a secretary, but my father is a manager.

И..., и – Both x and y
-Да, я пригласил и Анну, и Лену! -- Yes, I invited both Anna and Lena!

Или -- Or
-Я купил бы красный или серый. -- I would buy the red one or the gray one.

Или..., или -- Either...or
-Я буду встречаться с ними или в Декабре, или в Январе -- I will be meeting with them either in December or in January.

Не...не...а – Nether x nor y, but z
-Моя машина не красная, не чёрная, а зелёная. -- My car is neither red nor black, but green.

Не...ни...ни – Neither...nor
 -Я не хочу ни твоего присутствия, ни твоего совета -- I want neither your prescence nor your advice.

Чтобы- (in order) to, for...to, so that
-Надо работать, чтобы получать деньги... -- You have to work (in order) to get money... (Verb infinitive used)
-Мама хочет, чтобы ты убрала комнату -- Mom wants (for) you to clean your room. (Verb in past tense used)
-Мы тебе сказали, чтобы ты зналa правду. -- We told you so that you would know the truth. (Verb in past tense used)

Cловно-as though
-Он говорит о компьютерах, словно изобрёл их -- He talks about computers as though he invented them!

А то-or else
-Мы должны идти, а то опоздаем в театр. -- We have to go or else we will be late for the theatre.

Если-if
-Если будет дождь, я останусь дома сегодня. -- If it's raining, I will stay inside today.

Ли-whether (or not)я
-Я не знаю, идёт ли дождь -- I don't know whether it's raining or not, or I don't know if it's raining.
(Despite the use of "if" in the latter translation, ли and если cannot be used interchangeably; if you can use "whether" in English, then you must use ли.)

30. Negation

    Negation in Russian is very simple. There are a few words which indicate negation, but the two most common, and therefore most useful, are не and нет.

    The word не means "not" or "am not," and can be used with or without verbs, as below:
Я не юрист -- I'm not a lawyer
Я вас не знаю -- I don't know you.

    Although it is written as a separate word, не is pronounced as though it were a part of the following word, and thus assumes the pronunciation based of the stress patterns of the word it negates. In "proper" Russian, the direct object of the negated verb is supposed to be put into the genitive case regardless of gender. This doesn't always happen in speech, but it is nonetheless recommended, particularly in writing.

    Нет on the other hand means "no" or "there is/are no" and is more complicated, since the word it negates takes the genitive case.  In some cases, word order can be shifted somewhat, but it usually pays to be somewhat unambiguous.

Some examples:
Его здесь нет. -- He's not here.
На улице нет машин. -- There are no cars on the street.
B этой пицце нет сыра! -- There's no cheese on this pizza!

    Also, you should note that in Russian, the use of double negatives, even large numbers of them, is not only allowed, but also necessary in circumstances involving negative pronouns, (никогда, никуда, and so on; see section 46 for a longer list.) Indeed, you are only limited by what it is you want to say:

Она никогда не даëт ничего никому -- "She never doesn't give nothing to nobody," or more accurately "She never gives anything to anybody."

31. Times and Dates

In my experience, learning how to tell the time and date is one of the harder aspects of learning any language, and Russian, sadly, is no exception, so it helps to try and learn fairly early on. I've tried to include plenty of examples to help. Let me begin by saying that while in my list of common phrases I said that "сколько времени?" is how one asks for the time, this is true mainly for street language; if you're looking to appear more "educated" or are in the presence of a person of authority, I would recommend saying "который час?" instead.

Secondly, when used in writing and/or print, the 24-hour clock (often called "military time" in North America ) is used, but not when spoken; it may read as 16:10, but you would say it as though it read 4:10. (This of course is barring military usage, where spoken use of the 24-hour system over the 12-hour is apparently universal.) And finally, time is often written with hours, minutes and seconds are separated by periods/full-stops instead of colons. I will use this format from now on.

    Time can be told in one of two ways; the first is to simply say the numbers displayed, so 16.10 (that is, 4:10pm) would be четыре часа, десять. The second, while much more complicated to an English-speaker's eyes and ears, is much more common.

    To give an on-the-dot o'clock time, you say the hour plus a declension of the word час, "hour." In telling time, on its own is 1 o'clock, but becomes часа after 2, 3, or 4, and часов after 5 and up. To say "at" such-and-such time, use the preposition в (accusative.)

Thus:
-13.00 -- Час
-16.00 -- Четыре часа
-18.00 -- Шесть часов

    For times in the top half of the hour (that is, .01 to .29) you would say however many minutes, (минута, feminine-singular,) then the ordinal of the following hour in the genitive-singular. That's quite a mouthful, so here are some examples to help you catch your bearings:

- 15.10 -- десять минут четвёртого. (Literally "five minutes of the fourth")
- 11.17 -- семнадцать минут двенадцатого.
- 9.03 -- три минуты десятого
- 7.22 -- двадцать двe минуты восьмого.

For "half-past" times, you use the word половина plus an ordinal in the manner we saw just now. Thus:

- 6.30 -- половина седьмого.
- 14.30 -- половина третьего.
- 21.30 -- половина десятого.

    Note that when used with the preposition в, половина must decline accordingly, becoming в половину, "at half-past..." In colloquial Russian, however, it can often be heard as в половине. When in doubt, I would suggest saying в половину. [Native speaker note: the way this is normally said and even written is half (половина) gets abbreviated to пол-. It is spelled as one word with the number if it starts with consonant and with a hyphen in between if it starts with vowel (which is just one - 11 - пол-одиннадцатого, i.e. 10:30).You wouldn't hear it otherwise normally. This way it doesn't incline, i.e. with "в" the form of пол-(number) remains the same in all cases.]

For times in the bottom half of the hour, you take the minutes remaining until the next hour with the preposition без, followed by the next hour in the nominative-cardinal form. Thus:
- 10.47 -- без тринадцати минут одиннадцать.
- 8.58 -- без двух минут девять
- 23.35 -- без двадцати пяти минут двенадцать

And finally for times of "quarter to" and "quarter past, you use the word четверть in the same manner as the minutes are above:
- 7.15 -- Четверть восьмого
-7.45 -- Без четверти восемь

In all cases, you can use the adverbs утром (in the morning,) днём (in the afternoon,) or вечером (in the evening,) if you feel that there may be ambiguity over which one, or wish to add emphasis to the fact. Also, instead of 12.00 and 24.00, you can say полдень or полночь, respectively.


Dates are a somewhat different animal, and are, for better or worse, equally as complex.

To say them, you must first learn the months of the year and the days of the week:

To say "on" a specific day, you use the preposition в (accusative,) while for months you use в in the prepositional case.

    To give a specific date, you would first say the day (if necessary) then the date and month, both in the genitive case, and the year plus the word год ("year,") also in the genitive case. Years are said in full, such as "one thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine." If you are simply referring to the day, as in saying "today is..." the date is given in the neuter-nominative.

    For example, if asked my birthday I would say "Я родился тридцать первого июля тысяча девятьсот восемьдесят шестого года " (Literally, "I was born of the thirty-first of July, of the one thousand eight hundred and eighty sixth year." Whereas if one was to say "today is the 31st of July," it would be written as "Сегодня тридцать первое июля." The year would be written the same.

    If you are referring solely to a year and want to say "in x-year" you say the year as above, but the last number and год take the prepositional case. Note that you cannot use this form with days and months; those always take the genitive. So, if I were to say "in 1986" it would be written as "в тысяча девятьсот восемьдесят шестом году." In many cases, года and году are abbreviated as г. or г.г. in writing, and dates are always written day/month/year, with Roman Numerals sometimes used to abbreviate the names of months.

    For summary examples, below are a few dates in Russian history. All dates are in the new style calendar. Genitive endings are used because the ideas is that "X happened of this day," rather than "this day is such-and-such of this month."

-Ivan IV crowned Tsar, the first ruler crowned as such -- January 16, 1547.
--Шестнадцатого января тысяча пятьсот сорок седьмого года.

-Election of Mikhail Romanov, foundation of the Romanov Dynasty -- February 21, 1613.
--Двадцать первого февраля тысяча шестьсот тринадцатого года.

-Founding of St. Petersburg -- May 27, 1703.
--Двадцать седьмого мая тысяча семьсот третьего года.

-Birth of Aleksandr S. Pushkin -- June 6, 1799.
--Шестого июня тысяча семьсот девяносто девятого года.

-Battle of Borodino -- September 7, 1812.
--Седьмого сентября тысяча восемьсот двенадцатого года.

-Birth of Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky -- November 11, 1821.
--Одиннадцатого ноября тысяча восемьсот двадцать первого года.

-Birth of Lev N. Tolstoy -- September 9, 1828.
--Девятого сентября тысяча восемьсот двадцать восьмого года.

-Abdication of Nicholas II -- March 15, 1917.
--Пятнадцатого марта тысяча девятьсот семнадцатого года.

-Surrender of Nazi leaders to Marshal Zhukov -- May 9, 1945.
--Девятого мая тысяча девятьсот сорок пятого года

-Declaration of the Russian Federation -- June 12, 1990.
--Двенадцатого июня тысяча девятьсот девяностого года.

32. Verbs of Motion

    Now that we've examined regular Russian verbs, it is necessary to get to know a special group of verbs in Russian: verbs of motion. These forms are similain concept to the German verbs gehen and fahren in that  they tell you  how the action was carried out (on foot or by vehicle,) but in Russian, they also give information about the direction and nature of the motion itself, which can be further narrowed by the addition of prefixes, not discussed here. These verbs have what amounts to three aspects: the progressive, the imperfective, and the perfective; the progressive however, is only used in the present tense.

    The imperfective-progressive typically refers to an action in progress, that is, like "I am going," but like English, these can also be used like future tense verbs. In the tables below, these verbs are in black text. For example:  Сегодня вечером, Саша идёт на концерт -- "This evening, Sasha is going to a concert."

    Imperfective verbs refer to motions which follow more than one direction (i.e. a round trip/there and back), happens habitually or more than once (i.e. the daily commute) or has no real destination but the starting point (i.e. a stroll through the park). In the tables below, these verbs are in blue text. For example Каждый день я хожу на работу -- "Every day I go to work." or Мария ходила в библиотеку -- "Maria went to the library (and has since returned)"

    Perfective verbs refer to an motion in the past that occurred once and in one direction, such as a direct flight, or such an action that will occur in the future. Also important with the perfective here is the method of completion; if a person goes somewhere, and at the time you describe the action has yet to return, the perfective, barring any contextual nuance, is used. Likewise these verbs are marked with red text. For example: Катя пошла в магазин -- "Katya went to the store (and has yet to return)"

Note: If you can't decide whether to refer to motion on foot or motion by vehicle, and there is no illogic in choosing one or the other, simply use идти/ходить.

    There are a number of other verbs that either are or behave like the Verbs of Motion above. The идти/ходить and ехать/ездить pairs are repeated below to more clearly show the equivalents.

Adding the prefix по- to the verbs in the "Verb 1" column gives the equivalents for поехать and пойти.

33. Food-related verbs

    There are a number of verbs associated with food in Russian, many of which have slight to major irregularities in conjugation, so it makes sense to show them here. (The word-list for foods from the previous edition will be added to a second edition in the future.)

    The verb "to eat" in Russian is есть in the infinitive-imperfective, and съесть in the perfective. Be careful not to confuse this verb with its homophone which means "is."

However, these aren't the only verbs associated with food and drink. Some are regular, others not. In the lists below the first verb is given in the present tense and after the hyphen is the future tense perfective.

The past tense of Печь is irregular: Пёк (masc.,) Пекла (fem.,) Пекло (neut.,) Пекли (pl.) As is that of Жечь: Жёг (masc.,) Жгла (fem.,) Жгло (neut.,) Жгли (pl.)

34. The Imperative Mood

    The Imperative Mood is used when giving instructions, orders, or advice to another person. There are three forms, depending on how well you know the person/people involved, how many people there are, and how polite you want to be. We can break the imperatives down into three groups via this criteria:

1-- Informal: used when you know the person well or when talking to children.
2--Formal/Plural: Used when talking to a person you just met, a person of authority, or a group of people.
3--Informal-Plural: Used when talking to a group of people, when you have no desire to indcate formality. Most often used in the Army and similar circumstances.

How to form the Imperative:
For number 1, you have would add one of the following four endings to the stem, and number 2 is simply adding -те onto number 1. This is, admittedly, easier said than done, since the endting to be added is dependent on factors of syllable stress and stem endings.

--и -If the stress moves at any point during conjugation.
i.e. Входить (the я вхожу ты входишь) Входите!

--ай -If the stress is on the ending and doesn't shift in conjugation; most, but not all, verbs have -ать infinitive endings.
i.e. Передать - The stress is on the ending (a,) and does not change in conjugation, so it becomes Передай.

--ь -If the stress is on the stem rather than the ending, and the ending itself has a softening vowel, such as -ять, -еть, or -ить.
i.e. Доставить - The stress is on the stem, and does not change in conjugation, and so it becomes Доставь.

--уй - for verbs ending in -овать.
i.e. голосовать, which becomes голосуйте.

--ой - for verbs ending in -ыть, excluding быть.
i.e. Закрыть becomes закройте.

Number three is simply the infinitive form of the verb.

Aspect is also very important when using infinitives, and while Russians don't always follow the general rules in place, (but then who does all the time?) they are as follows:

-When the imperative is not negated (that is, it's a "do" command, not a "don't do" command) the perfective is generally used first, and successive repetitions of the command use the imperfective. That said, if the imperative is used in conjunction with an adverb that indicates the repetition of (i.e. всегда, etc.) or manner of doing said action (i.e. быстрее, громче, etc.) or if you simply want the action done right away, the imperfective is generally used.

-In cases where the imperative is negated ("don't do" rather than "do") the situation is generally reversed; in the majority of cases, the perfective is used, while the imperfective generally serves as a warning of some dire circumstance should we end up doing the action in question.

Don't be afraid to use imperatives in public situations as they are not necessarily considered rude, though adding пожалуйста dampens even that.

Пусть

    In addition to the above forms, there is also the word пусть, which translates as "let" and used in the same way it is in English. For example:
"Пусть они едят торты," ("Let them eat cake.") Note how the verb is conjugated in agreement with the subject, and not changing due to пусть.

The "Мы imperative"

    Alongside the second-person imperative we have already seen, Russian also posesses a first-person. For verbs of motion, this can be as simple as taking the мы form of the verb, while omitting the subject pronoun, and so can be as simple as "пойдём туда!" (let's go there!) When used with more than two people, the sufffix -те can be added, though in conversational speech only, the result being "пойдёмте туда."

    More often, however, for both regualr verbs and verbs of motion, the word давай(те) comes before. The word давай itself is the imperative form of the verb давать (to give,) but aside from the literal meaning is one of the most versatile words in Russian; depending on context it can mean "let's go," "hurry up,""get going," or a host of other meanings beyond the scope of this tutorial. As a result, to say "let's go see a movie,"you could say "пойдём(те) в кино," давай(те) пойдём в кино," or "давай(те) сходим в кино."

The Past Imperative

      The final imperative form to learn is the past-imperative. Unlike the other imperative forms, however, the past-imperative is mostly restricted to the verbs пойти поехать. We are already familiar with the formation of the past tense, here, as always dependent only on gender and number, so all you need to remember are the three main uses:

-An emphatic way of saying "let's go" or "let's get going."
-A direct (and, depending on whom you are talking to, impolite) way of saying "get going" or "get moving."
-A response to a request to go somewhere or do something, meaning "on the way" or "right away."

35. Relative Pronouns and Conjunctions

    Relative clauses in Russian are difficult for two main reasons, the first being that full relative clauses are rarely used in either spoken or written English; the second that there are three different relative constructions in use in Russian, which cannot be used interchangeagbly. Each is examined individually below.

    But first, what is a relative clause? Relative clauses are a part of speech, which describes the subject or an object in the sentence, usually wth the am of specifying one among many, with the use of a relative pronoun to replace the subject and a verb and predicates to describe it. They are, in effect, mini-sentences within a sentence.

    For instance, look at the sentence "The woman, who was standing on the corner, is my friend's wife." "...who was standing..." is the relative clause in this example. Notice both how it s used to specifiy which woman is the one you are talking about, and how the word "who" takes the place of the noun in question, while the remainder of the words in the sentence follow as though "who" was simply a repetition of the word described. Russian relative pronouns work on this same principle, but must be used in Russian, both written and spoken, unlike in English.

    Который

    Который is equivalent to the English pronouns which, who, and whom, and is used in much the same way, and is the most straightforward of the relative pronouns use. As the final two letters imply, который declines according to the gender and number of the word described, as well as with any preposition you use, following the same paradigm as most adjectives. However, который must be used when the subject of the relative clause is a noun, rather than a pronoun. Now, let's see the above sentence in Russian:

"Девушка, которая стояла на углу, жена моего друга."

    Notice how both the relative pronoun and verb both agree with the word being described (женщина) in gender and number. The same applies if you use a preposition with который:

    "Девушка, с которой я учился, сейчас работает врачoм." (The woman I went to school with is now a doctor, or more accurately, the woman, with whom I went to school, now works as a doctor.)

    Again, notice how the ending on который follows the gender and number of the word described (femnine, singular) and the case dictated by the preposition c (instrumental.) In this sentence, however, the verb ending corresponds with that of я rather than девушка, since the description within the relative clause is based not around the action of the person in question, but the speaker.

    The real difficulty comes when you do just that, and describe in a relative clause based on your own experience; который must be declined in accordance not only with the word being described, but how который fits into the relative clause, as though it were a standalone sentence; the gender and number come from the word beng described, but everything else is determined by the relation to the verb of the relative pronoun. For instance:

-"Девушка, которую я знаю..." (The woman, whom I know...) In this instance, the relative pronoun is the direct object of the verb with the speaker as the subject, and thus it takes the accusative case. And:
-"Девушка, которой он дал подарок..." (The woman, to whom he gave the gift...) Here, it takes the place of the indirect object, and so takes the dative case, since in the relative clause the woman is the recipient of the gift, regardless of the case of the word in the rest of the sentence.

    The pronoun который, however, is only used when the thing described is written as a noun in the sentence. There are of course instances where the use of a noun is impractical or simply repetitive. In such cases, you would use a то, что or то, кто construction, depending on whether you are referring to a thing or person, respectively. The best way to learn them is to see examples of how they are used:

    То, что/То, как

    The construction то, что (that which) along with тот, кто (he who) / та, кто (she who) / те, кто (plural, which doesn't depend on gender and can be followed by singular verb or plural verb) are somewhat more difficult to learn to use properly. These pronouns can be declined according to context, with or without prepositions. In addition, they are used in instances where in English you can attach prepositions to an action or verb instead of a noun or pronoun as a result of weak case governance and the expansion of roles of participles. Russian, along with most languages, however, does not allow this, as a preposition must be tied to a noun or pronoun, no exceptions. То, как is really more of a conjunction than a relative pronoun, but I include it here due to the similarities with то, что and то, кто.

You would not use these construction in spoken language, but would simply say "кто" or "что", which are abbreviated versions of these longer pronouns.

-Я не знаю то, о чём ты говоришь. -- "I don't know what you are talking about."
-Преподаватель спросил нам о том, что мы делали. -- "The teacher asked us about what we were doing."
-Я ещё не нашёл то, что я ищу. -- "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
-Кошки любят тех, кто их кормит. -- "Cats love those who feed them."
-Бог помогает тем, кто себе помогает. -- "God helps those who help themselves."
-Бери только то, что нужно, чтобы выжить. -- "Take only that which is necessary to survive."
 -Мы хотели бы пoблагодарить ваc за то, что вы пришли сюда сегодня.  -- "We would like to thank you for coming here today."
 -Перед тем, как я ухожy на работу, я каждый день готовлю для семьи кофе. - "Before I leave for work, every morning I make coffee for the rest of the family."
-В своей книге Социальный Контракт, философ Руссо говорит о том, как строить идеальную демокрацию. - "In  his book The Social Contract, the philosopher Rousseau writes about how to build the perfect democracy."
 
     Also, if you use a pronoun other than то to one of its declensions such as их, тебя or нас and so forth, the same applies.

36. Expressing "To Be"

    While Russian does have a verb "to be," it is unique in both the Slavonic family, as well as Indo-European languages as a whole in that it is generally omitted in Russian in the present tense, a phenomenon present in Turkish, Hebrew and Arabic as well. Therefore, not only does Russian have no articles, it also has no common words for "is" or "are." In writing, the "is," among other things, is represented by a dash, but not always. Thus you get statements such as: "Твоя подруга - красивая девушка" or "Your girlfriend is a beautiful young woman." Spoken Russian can be quite terse, as a result, but understanding it is not overly difficult once you get used to the idea, however.

    To express "there is," the infinitive есть plus the nominative case. The verb есть can also be used to emphasize the "is" or "are," especially when the phrase would otherwise be the repetition of two words. The word есть also literally means "is," and is used to represent "is" or "are" for cases of particular strong emphasis.

    To express "to be" something, you would use the verb быть plus the instrumental case. Thus, "После университета я хочу быть редактором газеты." (After university, I want to be the editor of a newspaper.)

    If you're using adjectives, you may use the short forms to express "is" or "are." For instance, цветы красивы (the flowers are beautiful) or было приятно познакомться с вами! (It was good to meet you!) However, for most adjectives, short form usage is restricted to written and/or formal Russian, long forms being more common, as well as less ambiguous in certain instances; крациво and красива sound the same, though admittedly, so do красивы and красивый.

    Otherwise, you speak as you would normally, just omitting "is" or "are."

37. School-related verbs
 

38. Expressing "To Have" and "To Want" and Modality

To Have:
Possession is usually shown by using the genitive preposition у plus the possessor, then есть and the object possessed in the nominative case. For example "I have a book" is "У меня есть книга." (Literally, "At me there is a book") If needs be, the word order can be changed a little, but keep the preposition y in front of the possessor.

To Want:
-The verb хотеть "to want" is one of only a few truly irregular verbs in Russian, and is used in much the same way as in English. Be sure to remember the conjugation:

    Like English, however, Russian also contains ways of expressing desire in more polite forms. Two more are:
-Я хотел(а) бы... I would like (Used for polite requests; more official)
-Мне хочется... I would like (Used like хотел бы; but less official)

    To express modality, Russians tend to use "impersonal" or "subjectless" constructions. The basis of this is the "modal," the dative case form of the name or pronoun, and an infinitive verb. Thus, if I wanted to say "I need to finish reading this book," I would say "Мне (dative of "Я") надо (modal) прочитать (infinitive verb) эту книгу (object)" Literally translated, this comes out as "It is necessary for me to read this book." Such forms are the basis for expressing modality.

Common modals include:
Надо -- "It is necessary" (Must, more colloquial)
Нужно -- "It is necessary" (Must, proper)
Трудно, Тяжело -- "It is difficult"
Легко -- "It is easy"
Невозможно -- "It is impossible"
Можно -- "It is possible" (May/Can) (The verb мочь --могу, можешь, может, можем, можете, могут-- can be used when it refers to physical ability)
Нельзя -- "It is impossible/forbidden" (Used with perfective verbs, this indicates that for the time being, the action is physically impossible to do, whereas the imperfective indicates that it is not allowed or that doing so is discouraged for whatever reason. )

    Another common option is to use должен to express "must" or "have to," in conjunction with an infinitive verb. Должен declines according to the subject; masculine - должен, feminine - должна, and plural - должны.

    If, however the thing needed is a noun, you would use the dative form of the subject, plus нужен/нужна/нужны plus the needed object in the Dative case. Note here that the form of нужен that you choose is dependent on the gender/number of the object, not the subject.

written by Stephen VanZuylen

39. Prepositions in the Accusative

    Prepositions are words or particles used to express ideas such as location, destination, origin, and a number of other qualities. There are a number of prepositions for each case, and when applied to a noun, it, and all adjectives, pronouns and the like must take the case ascribed to the preposition itself. I've tried to list as many as possible, particularly those I have found to be most common, but a number are not included, and some purposely left out. Pronunctiation is also important, as monosyllabic prepositions meld into the word that follows them rather than being pronounced separately; в Америке is vah-myer'-ee-kyeh, and not vuh ah-myer'-ee-kyeh. And finally, before a number  of consonant clusters, single consonant prepositions add an o, as in во вторнк ("on Tuesday") and the preposition o takes a б before vowels, as in об авторе ("about the author"). For the preposition o, there is also a special form, обо when used with the pronoun мне.


О(б) -- Against (Contact)
Про -- About
Сквозь -- Through
Через -- through, across, after x amount of time

40. Prepositions in the Prepositional Case

О(б) -- About (Same as the accusative про)
При -- Near/close to/on one's person/in the time of*

*There are a number of additional meanings for при; check your dictionary for proper contexts.

41. Prepositions in the Dative Case

Благодаря -- Thanks to
Вопреки -- Despite/in spite of
Наперекор -- Contrary to/
Согласно -- In accordance with, according to
Судя по -- Judging by

42. Prepositions in the Instrumental Case

За -- beyond, behind
Между -- Between
Над -- Over, above
Перед -- In front of
Под -- Under

43. Prepositions in the Genitive Case

Близ -- Close to
Без -- Without
Вместо -- Instead of
Вне -- Outside of
Внутри -- Inside of
Вокруг -- Around (usually a circular area)
Для -- for (use by, for the benefit of)
До -- up to, until
Мимо -- By, past
Около -- Near, around, approximately
Помимо -- Besides, other than
После -- After (event, day, etc.)
Против -- against, in opposition to

44. Prepositions of Motion and Location

    While most prepositions are fairly straightforward in their usage, the prepositions which indicate location, destination, or point of origin are more difficult to fully understand, especially for those new to language learning. Each preposition is given individual treatment here, and grouped according to which nouns/pronouns they modify. A summary table is available at the bottom of ths section. Also note that certain verbs may mandate specific prepositions, which may or may not conform to the logic normally applied.

В/В/Из

    В-(accusative) and В-(prepositional) refer to the motion into a closed space, and the location in it, respectively.  As such it is used with nouns such as школа (elementary school), общежитие (dormitory), квартира (appartment), здание (building), and so on.

    For instance, if I wanted to to say in Russian "Masha is going to the store," it would be "Маша идёт в магазин," that is, using the accusative case; while we may not always say "into the store" in regular English speech, the implication is that Masha goes into the building. Likewise, if I were to say "Masha is at the store right now," it would be "Маша сейчас в магазине," the implicaton here being that she is inside the building, and not simply at it. If, however, you wished to say that she did not/is not going into/inside the store, but is going to an area near it, then you would use к/у/от, explained further down.

    Из-(genitive) refers to the same instances above, only the movement out of -that is, exiting- the place in question. Из can also mean "of" in the sense of  "one of them" (один из них) or "of/from" in the sense of "made of chocolate" or "made with chocolate" (сделано из шоколада.)

На/На/С

    На-(accusative) and На-(prepositional) work in similar ways to в, but are somewhat harder to learn to use properly. The simplest usage is in the context of being "on" something, such as на столе, ("on the table;") that is resting on top of something. While "on" is a good equivalent, you have to be careful how you apply it; на телевизоре ("on television") wouldn't refer to a program on the TV screen, but rather to an object sitting on top of the TV set. The other major use is to indicate motion towards or location at an event or an activity, such as на концерте ("at the concert") or на занятии (at exercise(s)/class.) And finally there are some words that require the use of На/На/С as a matter of course such as на стадион, ("to the stadium,") не рынке, ("in the market,") or на кухне, ("in the kitchen.") As with most irregulars, you just have to remember them.

    С-(gentive) is like из, referring to the going from something, only it works in the situations described for на.


К/У/От

    К-(dative) There are generally two situations where this set of prepositions is used; first is situations where in English you would say say a person is "at x's house," going "to x's place" or is "with so-and-so" However, in Russian it is standard to simply say к/у/от plus the person's name in the correct case.  Thus I would say "Иду к Александру сегодня днём," (I'm going to Alexander's this afternoon,) "Я был вчера у Марины," (I was at Marina's yesterday,) or "Андрей придёт (к нами) от Лены," (Andrei is coming (to our place) from Lena's.)

    The other is for instances when you go "to," be "at" or come "from" and object but to not come into contact with it orpass through it, such as "стоять у окна," (to stand at the window) or  "подойдти к доске" (to walk up to the chalkboard.)

45. Summary of Prepositions of Motion

*This can also mean "for"
** This can also mean "because of"

46. Countries & Nationalities

47. Countries & Nationalities (Former USSR)

Русский & Российский:
    While both of these words translate into English as "Russian," their meaning is quite distinct; the former is an ethno-linguistic term and refers to ethnic Russians, regardless of present or past citizenship, whereas the latter refers to citizens of the Russian Federation who may not be ethnic Russians, such as Poles, Ukrainians, Belorusians, Germans, Tatars, Yakuts, Bashkirs, Kazakhs, and others. A similar paradigm is found in the United Kingdom, where there are the ethnic terms English, Welsh, Scottish, Cornish, Manx, etc., and the umbrella term British.

48. Common Adjective-as-State Constructions

    The primary usage of short-form adjectives has been discussed elsewhere, but they are also used to describe individual states of being where one would otherwise simply use a long form adjective. Some are used on their own, and others can add additional information through the use of prepositions.

All forms agree in gender and number with the sentence subject.

49. Reflexive and Reciprocal Pronouns
In addition to the various personal pronouns, there are a number of additional ones you should know, or at least recognize.

Reflexive
This pronouns translates roughly as "-self" and is usually used with prepositions or in noun phrases (i.e. a sentence without a verb.) There is no plural form, and the pronoun before self, such as my-, your-, one-, her-, and so on, is indicated by the subject of the sentence.

For instance, to say "How come you never talk about yourself" in Russian, you would say, "почему ты никогда не говоришь о себе?" (Notice the declension into the prepositional case.)


Reciprocal Pronoun(s)
    This pronoun, свой, is largely unique to the Slavic family of languages, and is used to replace possessive pronouns when the subject and the possessor are the same thing. For instance, compare these two sentences: "Она читает свою книгу" and "Она читает её книгу"  Both of these sentences translate into English as "She is reading her book," but there is one important piece of information: whose book it is. In the first case it is obvious that whatever book she may be reading, the girl in question owns it, but in the second, "her" can refer to any female. While it may seem trivial simply looking at it just from these two sentences, in the wider context, it tends to cut down on confusion with possessive pronoun use. Свой declines by case, gender and number in accordance with the word it describes, in the same fashion as мой or твой.

50. Useful Adverbs
   
Motion and Location
These adverbs generally share the same meanings as in English, though that includes archaic words such as "whence," or "thence." In either case, the roots are the same and the prefixes and suffixes are usually logical if you know your prepositions.

There are others that follow this pattern as well:

Other Useful Adverbs

Тоже &Также -- "Too, As Well, Also"
    These two adverbs are a notoriously confusing aspect of learnng Russian, largely because while English has more than one construction to express one concept, they more or less mean the same thing in common usage and can be used more or less interchangeably. Not so in Russian, however, so it is important to remember the uses of each:

Также -- Used when there is only one subject, but more than one object.
-Дедушка говорит со мной только по-английски, но он также знает голландский. -- "My grandfather only speaks to me in English, but he also knows Dutch."

Тоже -- Used when there is more than one subject, but only one object.
-"Я родилась тринадцатого .""Я тоже родился тринадцатого декабря!" -- "I was born on the 13th of December." "I was born on the 13th too!" (In this instance, you could also just say
"Я тоже!" or "А я тоже!" meaning something like "me too" or "so was I.")

51. Additional Pronouns

Those marked * decline like adjectives.

While these pronouns are mostly straightforward in usage, there are a few things you need to remember. First and foremost, when using pronouns beginning with Ни-, always add a не just before the verb, with the pronoun before that.

    For those pronouns ending in -то and -нибудь, usage is not exactly as the translations here imply; the former is used when you are sure of the existence of something, whereas the latter indicates doubt as to whether or not such a thing exists.

For example, compare the following pairs:
- Ты ему сказала что-нибудь? (Did you tell him anything?)
- Ты ему сказала что-то! (You told him something!)

    In the first example, -нибудь is used because the speaker does not know whether or not anything was said, nor what it was if so, whereas in the second, there is certainty on the part of the speaker that something was said, even though what was said may or may not be known. (Note that generally the latter provision, what exactly was said in this context, is not a determining criteria for which ending to use.)

- Кто-нибудь мне сегодня позвонил? (Has anyone called me today?)
- Кто-то мне сегодня позвонил; знаешь ты, кто? (Someone called me today; do you know who?)

    Again, in the first instance the speaker does not know whether or not anyone has called them, while in the second instance, the speaker knows that someone has called them, and is instead asking for more information about said person; the determning factor is, to re-iterate, the existence, not specific knowledge, of something.

    There is also a specific construction to represent "each other," which while it generally functions much as its English counterpart, is unique in that prepositions go in between the two words instead of in front of them; thus it is друг к другу, "towards each other" or друг с другом "with each other," and so on. In the prepositional case, the preposition comes in between these words, i.e. друг о друге, друг на друге.

52. Comparative and Superlative Adjectives

    The comparative of adjectives, -er edjectives like bigger, darker, smaller, etc. in English, can be formed in one of two ways. The first is to use the comparative больше or более (больше is literally the comparative of большой, or big, though in the comparative can mean "more" as well as более,) plus the adjective you are using.

    The second is to use the specific comparative form of the adjective. The individual comparative form usually involves the addition of -ee as the adjective ending, such as with красивее and тяжелее. There are a number of irregulars, some of which, like громче, (louder, from громкий,) дороже, (more expensive, from дорогой,) or богаче, (richer, from богатый,) involve following the consonant palatalization rules outlined in section 24 plus  -e, while others like старше, (older,) or дальше (farther) are completely irregular.

    For either, there are two ways to say "than," usually depending on the word coming after. Usually, if the word is a noun, adjective, pronoun, or number, then the word in question is simply declined into the genitive case. i.e. Больше одного, (more than one,)  старше тебя, (older than you, from старый,) or красивее вашего, (more beautiful than yours.) The other is to use the pronoun чем (not чём!) followed by either a nominative, or, as is most common, a word that cannot be declined as above such as a verb or construction beginning with a preposition.

    As you can see, comparative adjectives do not decline by either gender or case.

    Like the comparative, there are two ways to form the superlative adjective in Russian. The first and easiest is simply to use the adjective самый (most) plus the adjective in question. This method is most common in spoken Russian. The second is to form the individual superlatives, which unlike those of the comparatives, are highly regular and easy to form; there are two possible forms, which are dependent only on the adjective stem.  If the stem ends in к, г, or х, you add -айший after changing these letters to ч, ж, and ш respectively. For the remainder of adjectives, you simply add the ending -ейший, such as богатейший  (richest,) быстрейший, (fastest,) светлейший, (lightest,) or вкуснейший, (tastiest.) These are more common in formal or written Russian than in spoken, though the latter does have occasional ones such as ближайший (closest), but even then superlative usage is still rather uncommon.

    And finally, as in virtually all Indo-European languages, the comparative and superlative words for the adjectives "good" and "bad" are irregular in Russian:

53. The Passive Voice & Rules of Word Order

    The passive voice indicates that the action of a sentence or phrase is performed ON the subject, and not BY the subject. The passive is usually formed by the addition of the reflexive suffix to the end of the verb: -ся (pronounced "-ца") after consonants, or -сь after vowels, while any words that indicate who or what is performing the action take the instrumental case.

So, for instance,
Active:  Где продают компьютеры? -- "Where do they sell computers?"
Passive:  Где продаются компьютеры? -- "Where are computers sold?"
In theory, most verbs can be used as such, but a number are rarely, if ever seen anywhere.

    It should be noted, however, that the use of the suffix -ся/-сь is not primarily for use in the passive voice, even if that is where it is often seen. There are two groups of verbs that also use the same ending. The first are so-called "reflexive verbs" which always have -ся/-сь regardless of logic. The other, and more numerous group are those verbs that are transtive (that must take a direct object) but used in a context that does not have one This does not include cases where the object has been noted in a previous construction.

    Usage of the passive voice in Russian versus that of English also brings up the issue of word order, which is much freer in Russian than in English, and so while the passive voice is often used in English to change the word order, you can do the same in Russian while keeping the active voice. That is not to say that pasive constructions are rare in Russian; they are quite often used in regular speech, particularly statements of want, need or like, along with various indirect or impersonal constructions.

    Nonetheless, there are a few general rules and trends that may help in deciding what to put where:
-Prepositons must be placed before the noun or pronoun it is tied to; adjectives can be placed in between them, but the preposition must come before the noun/pronoun.
-Information that is emphasized or that is newly introduced by the sentence goes at or near the end.
-If the object of a sentence is a pronoun, word order is usually subject-object-verb; if the object is a noun, order is typically subject-verb-object.

    Thus while theoretically more or less any order of words is possible, as noted in the section on inflection, deviation from the subject-verb-object or subject-object-verb structure is rare outside of prose and poetry. As it is in any language, the less complex the sentence structure, the greater chances of being understood in full.

54. The Anthem of the Soviet Union

(These are my translations; others may differ according to the translator)

55. The Anthem of the Russian Federation (2000 version)

Source: http://ielanguages.com/russian1.html