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1500 questions
75
votes
13 answers
Resources for learning Russian
Using the same structure in the Chinese Resources question, this is a specifically created Community Wiki which gathers resources for learning Russian and it has been approved by the Community itself.
It should be clear that the resources are not…
Alenanno
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Why does "охуенно" mean "great" but "хуёвый" mean "bad"
I came across some words chatting with my friend (he's a native speaker). What's the difference between пиздато, охуенно, хуёво and пиздец? The first two words have a positive meaning but хуёво and пиздец are negative. Why? They derive from the same…
saq_423
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59
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2 answers
What are the lesser known Russian cases?
In schools, it is taught that Modern Russian has 6 cases:
Nominative (Именительный)
Genitive (Родительный)
Dative (Дательный)
Accusative (Винительный)
Instrumental (Творительный)
Prepositional (Предложный)
Here on RLU, there are mentions of…
Armen Tsirunyan
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59
votes
14 answers
What does the phrase "Да нет" mean?
Does it mean yes, or does it mean no, or something else?
chubbycantorset
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51
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10 answers
What's the difference between "лежит на столе" and "стоит на столе"?
Can anyone explain the difference between the following sentences:
"Чашка лежит на столе" vs. "Чашка стоит на столе"
"Мяч лежит на столе" vs. "Мяч стоит на столе"
"Лэптоп лежит на столе" vs. "Лэптоп стоит на столе"
When I should use the first one…
valdemar
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45
votes
3 answers
Why does italic 'т' look like 'm'
The Cyrillic letter 'т', when italicized, looks like a Latin 'm'. This is illustrated in the image below. The first row is the Cyrillic letter 'т', the second is the Cyrillic letter 'м', and the third is the Latin letter 'm':
As with most Cyrillic…
ctype.h
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44
votes
9 answers
Why do Russians almost not use verbs of possession akin to "have"?
I have always been puzzled as to why the Russians almost never use verbs of possession akin to "have" or "own."
Instead of such verbs, the Russians use the preposition у, whose primary or original meaning is "near" or "at", and sometimes…
Mitsuko
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41
votes
10 answers
Usage of "про" instead of "о"
One of the prepositions I never learned in Russian courses is про, which I only met later when communicating with native speakers or when reading. Is it possible to give a good rule of thumb about when it is better to use про instead of о for…
KCd
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41
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8 answers
The meaning of "давай" when saying good bye
I was always wondering: When at the end of the phone or other conversation people say "ну давай" meaning "see you later". Where does this come from?
In terms of meaning, I always understood it to mean "давай уже сколько можно болтать, потом…
JAM
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38
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8 answers
Why doesn't Russian have native words beginning with А?
I've heard that Russian has no native words beginning with the letter A. The claim is that the words appearing under A in dictionaries were all imported at some stage or another. Browsing through the dictionary does reveal that the words under A…
Vitaly Mijiritsky
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37
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8 answers
When is it more appropriate to use здравствуйте rather than привет?
As far as I understand, both of these mean more or less the same thing. Rosetta Stone, that introduced me to the Russian language seems to prefer здравствуйте, but it seems привет is more commonly used in day to day speech.
Is здравствуйте just more…
mikl
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2 answers
How can "to teach" and "to learn" be translated to Russian?
I know that there are several Russian verbs can be used to translate the English verbs "to teach", "to study", and "to learn", e.g. учить, выучить, научить, учиться, изучать, ...
However, I am a bit confused about their exact meaning and…
Giorgio
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What's the meaning of "у нас" in phrases like "он у нас умный"?
The grammatical construction у меня, literally at/near me, is the Russian way to express possession and is also used to express proximity:
У меня хорошая подруга. (I have a good friend.)
Она сейчас у меня. (She is now at my place.)
But I…
Mitsuko
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33
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14 answers
ахуеть and охуеть - which is used, and what is the precise meaning?
I came across the (obscene) verb ахуеть chatting (instant messaging, to be precise) with a native speaker (context: soccer game). A bit of research on the Russian Wiktionary seems to show that this could be a misspelling of охуеть originating in…
codesparkle
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8 answers
Do adult Russians normally hand-write Cyrillic as cursive or as block letters?
In The Netherlands, we learn to write Latin characters in cursive in school, but most adults write block letters in practice. My experience is that in other countries using the Latin alphabet, most adults use block letters as well. How is this in…
Херрит
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