Today’s spoonful is going to consist of a useful Russian phrase and a poem in Russian. Don’t worry if you don’t understand the poem. The reason for reading out loud is so that you can get more familiar with the Russian sounds. As you’ve probably noticed I started this podcast with the expression Добрый день translated as ‘Good afternoon’. There is also Доброе утро (‘Good morning’) and Добрый вечер (‘Good evening’). So when is the appropriate time of the day to use these expressions? Most...

Emily made a little сюрприз for you:

• ❑ Opening Word Ну, здравствуйте, мои дорогие слушатели = Well, hello, my dear listeners! Как вы поживаете? = 'How are you?' 'Как вы поживаете' is basically the same as 'Как дела'. The difference is in the use. I'd never say 'Как дела' to a person I just met, or to someone who's a lot older than I am. 'Как дела' is reserved for close friends, family and children. The use of 'Как поживаете' in turn is more appropriate when addressing people much older than you, groups of people, someone you...

Hi, everyone. Добрый день. This is just a short note to let you know I haven't forgotten about my listeners and "A Spoonful of Russian' podcast will be coming back! I also wanted to share with you an interview I recently gave to a BBC reporter and producer April Peavey. It aired today, January 4th, 2006. It was a pleasure and honor to work with April. The interview is a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.

Topic - Birthday Greetings • ❑1 intro Добрый день, друзья! (Hello, friends!) Как дела? (How are you?) Надеюсь, что у вас все хорошо. (Hope you are doing well.) Thank you for keeping up with this podcast even though I do not produce them as often as I'd like to. I am excited to get e-mails and comments on the spoonfulofrussian.com site. Your enthusiasm is contageous! For those who asked about the condition of our house, we just sold our restored home and are planning on moving to Charlotte,...

A fun way to learn Russian is by learning the words with opposite meanings. Here are some antonyms for you. Stay in touch: - site: http://speakrussian.blogspot.com - voicemail: 209-980-7877 (209-980-RUSS) - email: [email protected] - twitter: @russianspoonful

Здравствуйте и добро пожаловать … Hello and welcome to the very first 'Questions and Answers' edition of A Spoonful of Russian Podcast. Coming to you from a small home studio in beautiful Charlotte, North Carolina. Instead of trying to find time to get back to each and everyone of you individually through email, I decided to start accumulating the questions and answering them in a podcast. I am thinking of getting one out once a month maybe. I am getting questions sporadically. Sometimes...

You'll be surprised how many words you would be able to recognize without studying any Russian. The words I am talking about are cognates - words borrowed from a foreign language that share a common pronunciation and meaning.The Russian version of an English word may look intimidating to you at first, but as you become familiar with the Russian characters you'll learn to recognize a cognate when you see it. 1. теннис 2. доллар 3. баскетбол 4. доктор 5. Нью-Йорк 6. Калифорния 7. бейсбол 8....

'Привет', my old friends, and 'Здравствуйте', my new listeners! Welcome to Lesson 22 of 'A Spoonful of Russian with Natalia'. I am Natalia, your host and instructor. And today we are going to finish the Russian Cursive Letters series. But before we start, I want to thank again all those of you who support this podcast by first of all, keeping subscribed, also by purchasing Rosetta Stone's software through the link on my site (that really helps), and via PayPal donations. There's another and...

Today you will learn how to write Russian Cursive letters "У,Ф,Х,Ц,Ч" . (updated on November 25, 2009) To answer Chris' question about forming a cursive 'ф' in the middle of a word I made a little demonstration vid.

8th of March - Women's Day . It's Women's Day in Russia today, a holiday of spring and attention to women. It's one of most important holidays in Russia. The celebration is similar to a combination of Valentine's Day and Mother's Day in the West, but better. This is a national holiday and a day off. Several nations celebrate this, but only a few acknowledge it as an official, non-working holiday . If you forgot to send a rose on Valentine's Day, it's only half the trouble. But if you forgot...

Russian Cursive (Letters "Й,К,Л,М,Н") Letter 'Й' is represented by word 'Йогурт' (Yogurt) Letter 'К' is represented by word 'Кошка' (Cat) Letter 'Л' is represented by word 'Лодка' (Boat) Letter 'М' is represented by word 'Машина' (Car) Letter 'Н' is represented by word 'Носки' (Socks)

Добрый день, мои дорогие слушатели ( Hello, my dear listeners)! Welcome to 'A Spoonful of Russian' , where we learn Russian one bite at a time. Добро пожаловать ( Welcome)! (Samir's audio message) I thank all the listeners who stuck with the show since the beginning and welcome the newcomers. I appreciate all the mail that you send my way. Questions, comments, suggestion and even criticism....I read them all and try to reply as time allows. We've covered a lot of ground already, and there's...

(Please follow the video for this lesson. Just click on the title of the blog entry.) Добрый день, дорогие друзья! You are listening to and viewing 'A Spoonful of Russian' podcast, where we learn Russian 'one bite at a time'! I am your host, Natalia. Давайте начнём (Let us begin)! First, I want to take just a few seconds to thank all those who contributed to this show either by donating through PayPal, purchasing products with 'Spoonful of Russian' logo at my cafepress.com store of going to...

Today I'll show you how to write Б,В,Г in cursive. (Please follow the video for this lesson. Just click on the title of the blog entry.)

Today you will learn to write Russian cursive "А". I will include more than one letter in my future lessons. Thanks to one of my listeners I was able to upload a "Russian Cursive Workbook" in the DOWNLOADS section on the right. The Cyrillic alphabet was adopted by the Slavs in about the 9th century. Although it is named after St. Cyril (Constantine), it was not invented by St. Cyril. It is based on the system of Greek capital letters. If you know the Greek alphabet, many of the letters will...

Ученье свет, а неученье тьма(Knowledge is light, ignorance is darkness) Век живи - век учись(Live and learn) And the last one is quoted around our house quite often:) Повторенье - мать ученья(Repetition is the Mother of learning) I thought I would start talking about the Russian sound system. Since I want to be true to the podcast's format and keep it short'n'sweet and to the point ... It will take us several lessons.  Some of the items used for pronunciation practice will be isolated...

Today we'll talk about nouns and genders. Keep in mind that we are going to look only at singular nouns in nominative case (more on the 6 noun cases later). As you know, a noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, event or idea. All Russian nouns are divided into 3 genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. It's important to know the gender of a noun, since it needs to agree with other parts of speech. Let me give you an example: красивая девушка (a pretty girl) is correct, while...

Video Vocabulary #1 - Common Greetings and Phrases. You can find a PDF file of the vocabulary in the DOWNLOADS section of the site. p.s. Isn't the sound of that BALALAIKA great in the video?

If you ask a Russian 'How are you?' (КАК ДЕЛА) you might hear more that just a simple "OK". But for starters we'll learn some simple replies. Here are the transcripts of the dialogs from our lesson. #1 (- Как дела, Эмили? - Хорошо, спасибо. ) #2 (- Как дела, Эмили? - Хорошо, спасибо. А у вас?) ("I am fine as well" - "Тоже хорошо" ) #3 (- Как дела, мам? - Так себе...) #4 (- Как дела, мам? - Ничего хорошего, Эмили...) Word/Expressions list: Provided below are the lyrics to the song you heard on...

How do you say 'Goodbye' in Russian? This show teaches you a couple of ways to do that. As you listen, the images below will help you visually. - Пока, Эмили. - Пока, мам. - До свидания, Эмили. - До свидания, папа. Sorry for the quality of the show's audio. Was out of town, and recording was made on my notebook. I am hoping that I'll have all my usual gear unharmed (by hurricane Katrina) when I go back to New Orleans, La. on Monday.

How do you feel about food? Я люблю поесть! (I love to eat!) most people will say.  Whether you love it or hate it, we deal with food and talk about food every single day. That reminds me, I have to throw together PLOV (rice-based national dish of Uzbekistan) for tonight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plov) ....be right back. (Natalia making noise in her kitchen) First, let me give you a list of some popular food items in Russian: Хлеб - bread Соль - salt Сахар - sugar Яйца - eggs Икра -...

Sounds like cognates are the single greatest friend to folks learning Russian. However, as with most good things there are pitfalls. And these pitfalls are called 'false cognates'. A 'false cognate' is a word that shares a similar pronunciation between two languages, but means one thing in one language and something else in the other. You'd sound pretty silly if a Russian asked you what you were doing ('Что вы делаете?') and you'd answer 'Я читаю магазин' (which means 'I am reading a...

Добрый день, друзья! Как дела? Хорошо? Отлично. (Hello, friends! How are you? Doing well? Great!) It's December now, and I am a bit late with my coming back to the 'Spoonful of Russian'. I was hoping to get it started again in November, but....like they say in Russia: "Люди предполагают, а Бог располагает!" Which literally means "People make plans, but everything is in God's hands'. To quickly bring you up to date we are in our new house in Charlotte, NC and lovin' it! Still lots of things to...

(Due to lack of interest in the enhanced version of the podcast I am going to stick with the audio only version. Below is the Valentine's Day enhanced show converted into .mp3 file) Привет! Hey there, all you Russian language addicts and all those who have just subscribed. Welcome! (Добро пожаловать!) It’s Lesson#11 - Love is in the Air. It's been a while since I cranked up my Microphone and my Mac to produce a podcast. My house renovations are still going on, and we are still living with my...