Explain to me the difference between (оставаться – impf/остаться – perf), (становиться – impf/стать – perf), статься, (останавливаться – impf/ остановиться – perf).

Here are some examples with explanations:

Он остался один в пустой квартире. – He stayed alone in an empty room. (The meaning is “to stay”.)

Оставайся с нами! – Stay with us! (The same as остаться, but the imperfective aspect.)

У нас остался всего один день. – We have only one day left.

К сожалению, после операции он остался глухим. – Unfortunately, after the operation he became deaf. (The meaning is “to become”, always used with the Instrumental case in this meaning, synonym of “стать”.)

Вдруг стало холодно. – Suddenly, it got cold.

Саша стал таким грустным. – Sasha became so sad. (The meaning also is “to become”, but used in the Instrumental case with adjectives and nouns.)

Петя стал инженером. – Petya became an engineer. (The verb стать is used with professions.)

Он стал одеваться. – He started dressing up. (The verb стать with the imperfective infinitive always mean “to start doing smth”.)

Временами ему становилось скучно. – Sometimes, he was feeling bored. (The imperfective aspect of the verb “стать” is “становиться”)

Что с ним сталось? – What happened with him?

Может статься, что мы больше не встретимся. – It can occur that we will not meet again.

Беги! Не останавливайся! – Run. Don’t stop! (The meaning is “to stop”. Be careful and don’t mix up the verbs оставаться-остаться and останавливаться-остановиться; it is quite a common mistake.)

Автобус остановился. – The bus stopped. (Here the verb остановиться is used – perfective aspect of останавливаться)

How to tell the time in the Russian language?

First of all, the expressions used to ask for time are:

• Сколько времени сейчас?
• Который час?
• Не могли бы ли вы сказать, который час?
• У тебя нет часов, сколько сейчас времени?

If we speak about the first part of the hour (for example, 07.23, 09.13, 13.20, etc.) we say the next hour. This “next hour” is an ordinal number and is used in the Genitive case.

07.23 – Двадцать три минуты восьмого;
09.13 – Тринадцать минут десятого;
13.20 – Двадцать минут второго.

If we speak about half past (an hour), we use the same rule

15.30 – полчетвёртого;
17.30 – полшестого;
00.30 – полпервого.

After the half an hour, the structure changes. In this case, we use the preposition “без” with the Genitive case and cardinal numbers:

17.55 – без пяти шесть;
19.40 – без двадцати восемь;
08.45 – без пятнадцати (четверти) девять.

To be precise, we can add the words утра, дня, вечера and ночи. It is quite interesting that night lasts till 04.00 o’clock in the morning in Russia! 🙂

Я заснула в три ночи. – I felt asleep at 3 o’clock at night (the correct English translation would be “in the morning”, of course).

To tell exact hours we use the adverb “ровно”.

Сейчас два часа ровно. – It is exactly two o’clock.

Finally, it is very important to know that we use these structures to tell the time in everyday speech. In formal speech we just say the numbers directly.

13.25 – Тринадцать часов, двадцать пять минут.
14.40 – Четырнадцать часов сорок минут.

Here is the most common ordinal and cardinal numbers used in the Genitive case when telling the time.

Give me your best hacks on verbs of motion.

There are two issues about the verbs of motion I would like to mention.

1. When used without prefixes, the verbs of motion are both imperfective, but when used with prefixes, the one that meant a movement in two directions, becomes the imperfective verb and the one that meant a movement in just one direction, becomes the perfective verb:Идти-ходить: Both imperfective
   Приходить-прийти: The first one is imperfective and the second one, perfective.
2. Be careful with the verbs плавать and ездить. When used with prefixes, they turn into плывать and езжать:Плавать, but переплывать
   Ездить, but заезжать.

I like using different kinds of pictures to illustrate this difference. For example, these:

Не стоит переплывать океаны ради тех, кто не перешагнул бы ради тебя и через лужу. – It is not worth crossing oceans for those who would not be able to cross a puddle for you.

Приезжайте в гости! мне скучно и инет плохой… – Come visit me! I am bored and I have a bad internet connection… 🙂

Explain to me the difference between the verbs учить-выучить, изучать and учить-научить

There are two different pairs of verbs, учить-выучить and учить-научить. The first one means “to learn something” and is used with the Accusative case and the second pair means “to teach something to somebody” and is used with the Accusative and the Dative case.

Я учу глаголы. – I am learning the verbs.

Он учит мальчика немецкому языку. – He is teaching German to the boy.

Я уже выучил глаголы. – I have already learned the verbs.

Он научил мальчика немецкому языку. – He taught German to the boy (The boy knows how to speak it already).

The main difference between the verbs учить-выучить and изучать-изучить is that учить-выучить is used with small pieces of material like formulas, words, verbs, etc. and “изучать” is used with school and university subjects.

Я учил слова. – I was learning the words.

Я изучала русский язык в школе. – I learned Russian at school.

However, sometimes we use учить instead of изучать in everyday speech, because изучать sounds quite formal.

Я учу русский язык. – I am learning Russian.

Apart from the big classic representatives of the Russian literature like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy etc.,  can you recommend a few works that are easy to read for Russian learners?

It depends on the level of the student. I think students can start reading Russian books in original when they reach B2 level.
It is much better to read short stories than novels and it is also easier to read modern literature than Russian classics because of the vocabulary issues.

My students like reading and discussing:

• Сергей Довлатов, «Наши», «Заповедник»;
• Людмила Улицкая, «Рассказы»
• Борис Акунин, «Левиафан», «Турецкий гамбит»;
• Татьяна Толстая, «Ночь»

Give me two songs that a Russian learner should listen!

In my opinion, the most important Russian songs for foreigners are the birthday song of the crocodile Gena (“Пусть бегут неуклюже…”) and “The night is dark” (“Тёмная ночь”) because they reflect some crucial aspects of the Russian culture, they are both known by 100% of the Russian population. The first one shows our birthday traditions and the second one is one of the most famous songs of the Great Patriotic War.

How can I stay motivated when learning Russian?

Russian is a hard language to learn, that is true. To stay motivated, try to immerse in the Russian culture, try to find something interesting every day: a song, a quote by a Russian writer or famous person, a historical fact, a short film.
Here are some useful resources I use in my lessons to keep my students motivated:

• Songs from Russian cartoons and Russian films;
• Russian jokes;
• Famous quotes;
• Historical facts;
• Short funny films.

If you are learning Russian with a teacher, it is very important for your teacher to be enthusiastic about their job and give interesting homeworks, use funny videos during the lessons. So, you should also find a good teacher and not the one who just corrects homeworks and yawns!

Show me and explain two pictures that reveal the Russian an element of the Russian culture.

The first picture is the painting by Viktor Vasnetsov called “Богатыри” (“Bogatyrs”):

Bogatyrs are is the stock characters in medieval Russian legends. The most notable bogatyrs were the trio of Alyosha Popovich, Dobrynya Nikitich and Ilya Muromets you can see in the picture. Each of them had a certain character trait: Alyosha Popovich for his wits, Dobrynya Nikitich for his courage, and Ilya Muromets for his physical and spiritual power and integrity. They say that the bogatyrs themselves were often based on real people.

This image is an important part of the Russian culture, many Russians associate the word “богатырь” with this painting. “Bogatyr” also means “a strong man” in the Russian language.

The second picture is the Isaac Levitan’s painting “Над вечным покоем” (“Above the Eternal Peace”).

It is one of the most well-known paintings of the Russian scenery. It shows huge spaces filled with air and water, typical of Russian landscape. Russian nature has always been an important part of the “mysterious Russian soul”, Russian people have always found peace and relief in the nature, even in the most turbulent times. It is widely reflected in Isaac Levitan’s paintings and in Sergey Esenin’s poems.