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Guide to Russian Grammar
Thursday, October 30, 2008
InstructionsFunctionStep 1: Russian grammar relies very heavily on an extensive series of endings that are added to base words in order to convey a word's function in a sentence. Nouns are declined into one of six cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, prepositional and instrumental). Verbs are conjugated in three tenses, while employing a concept known as "verbal aspect" to convey what English accomplishes using the perfect and imperfect tenses. Russian verbs also depend heavily on prefixes to convey concepts of motion.
SignificanceStep 1: Russian is a member of the Slavic family of languages, which in turn belongs to the larger Indo-European class of which English is also a member. Therefore, its structure is generally easier for English speakers to grasp than Asian or Middle Easter languages. Russian's nouns use a case structure similar to the structures used in many European languages. Russian is distinguished by the fact that the verb "to be" is not used in the present tense. Additionally, Russian does not use articles ("a" and "the"), and instead conveys this information through context.
BenefitsStep 1: A major benefit of the way Russian grammar works, is that word order is much more free than in English. As a result, Russian has long been touted as being uniquely suited for poetry. In fact, Russian does have a very rich poetic tradition, and some would argue that poetry is more highly valued in Russian culture than it is in English-speaking cultures. Russian speakers are also able to convey a wide variety of subtleties simply by changing the order of the words in a sentence.
HistoryStep 1: The Russian language is believed to be over 1,000 years old. In addition to its primary Slavic roots, Russian has also been heavily influenced by Old Norse, Turkish, Tatar and Mongolian. In more recent history, French and English have also influenced the development of the language. Russian grammar was at one time much more complex than it is today. In recent centuries, Russian has lost one of its original cases for nouns (vocative), and its system of verbs has also been simplified over the centuries.
MisconceptionsStep 1: Although most English speakers find Russian grammar to be difficult to learn, Russian children generally develop their language skills at about the same rate as native English speaking children. While certain aspects of Russian grammar are more complicated than English, there are also many ways in which English grammar is more complex than Russian. Russians often have great difficulty in grasping the proper use of English articles, and are also often confused by the use of the perfect and imperfect tenses. In truth, Russian has a lot more in common with English than many people believe.
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