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What kind of grammatical form is this?/ Что это за грамматическая форма?

Он ревмя ревёт. It's clear that the phrase means an intensive and, possibly, frequentative action. But what is the grammatical meaning of the phrase? Is it a productive pattern? Понятно, что фраза означает некое интенсивное и, предположительно,…
Manjusri
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How do I pronounce the soft sign at the end of a word?

An example of two words which differ only by a soft sign are кон (round, as in "the next round of a game") and конь (stallion, male horse). Often, English speakers do not know how to enunicate the soft consonant at the end. How can we understand the…
Darya Shavarina
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Difference in pronunciation between "щ" and "шь"?

I understand that the difference between "щ" and "ш" is (roughly) the difference between "shya-" and "sha-". But how do you differentiate "щ" and "шь"? For example, I always differentiated, for example "н" and "нь" as "na-" and "nya-". By that…
chubbycantorset
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In Russian, can "мы" be used to refer to "you" in conversation?

А чего это мы такие ворчливые? I just received an IM from my girlfriend, in which she used the pronoun "мы" (jokingly, I suppose) although it was I alone who was grumbling about something in a previous message. I wonder if this is an equivalent of…
Con-gras-tue-les-chiens
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Why is the letter "г" in some Russian words pronounced [v]?

We all agree that the letter г in Russian is equivalent to g in English. But why is the letter г in some Russian words pronounced [v]? For example: сегодня = pronounced as if it is written: севодня ничего = pronounced as if it is written:…
Influx
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Why are United Nations and United Arab Emirates translated as "Объединённые", but United States as "Соединённые"?

Are there two different ways to be "United", or is one simply the more modern usage while the other was used historically in previous centuries?
ghostarbeiter
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How to say "Kafkaesque" in Russian?

What is the best way to convey the meaning of the English word "Kafkaesque" in Russian as succinctly and correctly as possible? I'm interested in both noun and adjective versions. I understand "Kafkaesque" as something that is absurd, distorted and…
Mirzhan Irkegulov
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Where outside the former Soviet Union is the Russian language widely used?

Where, outside the former Soviet Union, is the Russian language so widely used that the knowledge of the other language in practically not required for traveller etc.? In Ukraine, for example, Russian is so widely used that most of the books are in…
Stepan Vihor
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Meaning of "драже"

I'm coming to this by way of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker/Nutcracker Suite, and the piece "Танец Феи Драже". This is known as "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" in English. In German, it's called "Tanz der Zuckerfee", which is just "Dance of the Sugar…
trw
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Which is correct "нахуй" or "на хуй"?

I've seen many Russians write "на хуй" separately, or "нахуй" as one word, although I'm 99 % sure it should be written separately. Why is it so often written as one word? (Because the stress on на confuses them?) And is the spelling with a space the…
AMDcze
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How is Yoda Speak rendered in Russian? Are there easy, yet universal, rules I can follow?

Full disclosure up front: I've never watched Star Wars in Russian. Nor do I plan to. (Edit in response to comments: that is not meant as a stab at Russian, of course. It is a stab at the movies themselves. I'm just not too much of a fan. Yeah, I…
RegDwight
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Кофий и кофе - что от чего произошло? Is the кофе derived from кофий or vice versa?

Артемий Лебедев в своем "ководстве" пишет: Мужской род бедному напитку достался от устаревших форм «кофий» или «кофей». У Корнея Чуковского в книге "Живой как жизнь" сказано: Русский язык вообще тяготеет к склонению несклоняемых слов. Не потому…
Artemix
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Certain words supposedly in Russian that I can't verify!

My late mother-in-law's story of her captivity in the Soviet Union as a German civilian forced laborer after WW2 contains a number of words which are apparently Russian, but for which I cannot find any confirmation (some of them I can find, but…
Cyberherbalist
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Поставить точки на «i» (dot the i's and cross the t's)

In an interview with the last president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev, which was motivated by the anniversary of the attempted coup in 1991 (and in which the interviewer tries to elicit some comments on the situation in Belarus), Gorbachev is…
Frank from Frankfurt
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"Член клуба" - how to use "член" in feminine here?

Let's consider this sentence: I'm a member of the Japanese Renju Association. A member translates into Russian as член, but the grammatical gender of this word is masculine, so I'm curious how I can make a feminitive of that word. You know, the…
Mitsuko
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