Население и этнический состав 2

Предлог ОКОЛО

You may know that In Russian “около” means “near.”

For example: Я живу около парка. – I live near a park.

You can also use the preposition “около” to indicate approximation of a quantity, time, or value.

For example:

• “Сейчас около десяти часов.” – It is approximately ten o’clock right now.
• “Около двадцати человек пришли на вечеринку.” – Around twenty people came to the party.
• “Температура около 25 градусов Цельсия.” – The temperature is about 25 degrees Celsius.
• “У нас есть около килограмма масла.”- We have about a kilogram of butter.

“Около” can also be used to approximate long, complex numbers as well as fractions, rounding them to the nearest whole number for simplicity.

For example:

• 45,2  – около сорока пяти
• 3,8  – около четырёх
• Численность населения Тбилиси 1 202 731 человек. – Численность населения Тбилиси около миллиона двухсот тысяч человек.

Note: In Russian, a comma is used instead of a decimal point when writing decimal fractions, to separate the whole number part from the fractional part. When representing large numbers, spaces are used, as opposed to English where commas are typically used. For example, 1 200 000 instead of 1,200,000.

As you noticed in all of the examples above, “около” is used with the numeral in the genitive case.  Keep in mind that numerals for ‘thousand’ (тысяча) and ‘million’ (миллион) are declined as nouns, and they have both singular and plural forms (‘тысячи’ and ‘миллионы,’ respectively). When approximating quantities close to one thousand or one million, these numbers take the genitive singular form. For example:

• “Oколо тысячи человек.” – Approximately a thousand people.
• “Около миллиона рублей” – Approximately a million rubles.

On the other hand, when dealing with quantities two thousand, two million, or higher, they require the genitive plural form. For example:

• “Около двух тысяч студентов.” – Approximately two thousand students.
• “Около десяти миллионов долларов.” – Approximately ten million dollars.

Use this table to review genitive forms of some numerals: