What's the most difficult thing in the Russian language? Let's all say it together in chorus... The CASES! The Grammar Cases. Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Instrumental, Prepositional. In this article, I'll tell you how to go about learning them and then give you some tips on the Genitive Case. But before I say anything, I want to ask you to [...]
I'm sure most of you have already watched the whole film after reading the 1st Part. After the ludicrous incident on the bus, the drunk man (Fedya) got 15 days of communal service on a construction site where Shurik happens to work part-time. The two men don't get on well and they do their best to make each [...]
If we asked a Russian what's the most popular classic comedy of their кино, I bet the winner would be Операция "Ы" и другие приключения Шурика (Operation "Ы" and other adventures of Shurik - 1965). Shurik is a naive and nerdy Soviet student who often gets into ludicrous situations but always finds a way out very neatly. The [...]
Звезда is a special song for two reasons: First, the lyrics are simple and ideal for beginners. Second, it was made for Kuka – a wonderful film that you should definitely watch. Don’t Google the film right now. We’ve got some work to do first. I’ll tell you about the film later. Let's listen to [...]
The song under the microscope today is called Любовь настала - Love has come. The lyrics are by Роберт Рождественский. You can read an article about him here. As I have said in previous articles, the key to learning Russian or any language is "to learn it in context". What context? Films, songs, poems, interviews, radio, tv [...]
Last time I put Синие Сугробы under the Russian Language microscope. Before I move on to other composers, I'd like to look at another song by Ada Yakusheva: Если б ты знал - If you only knew. This is another very personal song by Yakusheva dedicated to her ex-husband Yuri Vizbor (more about their story here). It is a sad song with lots of emotional despair. I [...]
In this article, I am going to "make the anatomy" of the beautiful song Синие Сугробы (Blue Snowdrifts) by the poet and bard Ada Yakusheva (Ада Якушева). Yakusheva's songs are transparent, sincere, and brave. She is not afraid to openly express her feelings. You can find a nice article about Ada Yakusheva in Russian here. Синие Сугробы is [...]
Are you ready for some Russian vocabulary? I hope so, because I have created Anki electronic flashcards with 10,000 of the most common Russian words. On the back of every card, you will get the definition in English, an audio pronunciation, links to Google Translate and Yandex Translate, noun declension/verb conjugation rules, and examples. If [...]
The keyword mnemonics technique uses keywords and mental images to associate verbal material. For example, let’s say you want to memorize the French feminine noun affiche that means poster in English. For this, you could imagine a feminine looking fish attaching a poster to the wall. This technique has become increasingly popular lately. It is [...]
Visualisation is the process of creating mental images with a certain purpose. Top performers know very well the importance of picturing themselves succeeding in their minds before they do in reality. Michael Jordan always used to take a last shot in his mind before he took one in real life. Muhammad Ali always visualised knocking out [...]
