Being able to recognize familiar word roots will greatly expand what you can understand in Russian.

In this chapter, you will see quite a few words with the root рост-, which means growth. Because of vowel and consonant changes, the root also sometimes appears as раст-, рос-, рас-, рощ-, ращ-. A few words with this root that you probably already know: растение (plant), рост (height), вырасти (to grow up), взрослый (adult).

Look at a few more examples of words related to this root with their meanings, and try to understand the connection to the root. Notice how many variants there are of the root. Note that these are just some examples, there are many more examples of words with this root!

In this chapter, you will see quite a few words with the root жи-, which means life.

What words can you think of that you already know with this root? Click on the accordion to see if you thought of all of these.

You may have noticed that prefixes, suffixes, and roots contribute to the meanings of words. While this topic is too big to get all of the details on this one page, we will give you here some prefixes and suffixes that can help you understand new words when they are combined with roots.

Suffixes also contribute to the meaning of a word.

As you know, words that end in -я are usually feminine, but there is a small group of 10 words ending in -мя which are all neuter. The ones that you have seen in the past are имя and время, which are both quite common, but some of the words are somewhat rare.

The full list is as follows:

бре́мя (burden), вре́мя (time), вы́мя (udder), зна́мя (flag), и́мя (name), пла́мя (flame), пле́мя (tribe), се́мя (seed), стре́мя (stirrup), те́мя (crown of the head)

One of the challenging things about this group is its unusual declension. The chart below shows the declension for и́мя and се́мя (their pattern is the same except the genitive plural). Most of these words follow the same pattern as и́мя, though стре́мя follows the same pattern as се́мя, and пла́мя, бре́мя, те́мя, and вы́мя do not have a plural form.

In this chapter, in addition to и́мя and вре́мя, you will also encounter пле́мя and се́мя.

By now you are quite familiar with using the prepositional case with names of places that conform to Russian grammatical patterns:

Masculine: Они живут в Санкт-Петербурге.
Feminine: Они живут в Москве.
Feminine with -ь: Они живут в Казани.
-ие/ия/ий endings: Они живут во Франции.

But what about names that don’t conform to Russian grammatical patterns? Oftentimes Kyrgyz (and other non-Russian) names of places do not follow the same patterns.

1. Names that are similar to Russian words (ending in a consonant, ending in -а), will follow the familiar patterns when we use them in Russian.

Masculine pattern: Бишкек – Они живут в Бишкеке.
Feminine pattern: Караганда – Они живут в Караганде.

2. Non-Russian place names are sometimes hyphenated. Usually only the second part of the name is declined. Note that names that end in -Куль (like Иссык-Куль) are masculine.

Чолпон-Ата – Они живут в Чолпон-Ате.
Джалал-Абад – Они живут в Джалал-Абаде.

3. Non-Russian names that have endings that are very different from Russian name endings are generally indeclinable, meaning they do not change form.

Балыкчы – Они живут в Балыкчы.
Кара-Суу – Они живут в Кара-Суу.
Тбилиси – Они живут в Тбилиси.

As you know, in some cases (most notably accusative masculine singular and accusative plural) Russian grammar distinguishes between inanimate and animate nouns.

For example: Я люблю шоколад. / Я люблю брата. / Я люблю кыргызские фильмы. / Я люблю кыргызских актёров.

It’s pretty clear that humans are animate. But in this chapter, we are talking a lot about animals and plants. Are they animate or inanimate? It’s a little bit complicated!

Plants in Russian are considered inanimate, so the word растение and the names of plants do not change in the accusative singular.

For example: Я вижу цветок. / Я посадил куст возле дома.

As for animals and insects, they are considered animate.

For example: Мы встретили волка в лесу. / Мальчик поймал жука.

The words животное and насекомое, however, while they are animate, are neuter, and are technically adjectives. They are the same as nominative in the accusative singular.

For example: Учитель показал детям животное на картинке. / Я сфотографировала редкое насекомое.

In accusative plural, both of the words are the same as genitive plural adjectives.

For example: Учёные изучают животных в этом районе. / Мы не любим насекомых летом.

1. The preposition по can be translated into English in many ways depending on context, but in many instances the meaning can be thought of as something like “in terms of”. You probably know some instances of this meaning already.

For example:

По национальности он кыргыз. – In terms of nationality he is Kyrgyz.
По профессии она врач. – In terms of profession she is a doctor.

Some other examples of phrases that use по in the meaning of “in terms of”:

по площади – in terms of area – По площади Россия – самая большая страна в мире.
по возрасту – in terms of age – По возрасту она самая младшая в группе.
по характеру – in terms of personality – По характеру он очень спокойный человек.
по высоте – in terms of height – По высоте это здание занимает первое место в нашем городе.
по внешности – in terms of appearance – По внешности он похож на актёра.
по размеру – in terms of size – По размеру это озеро больше, чем другие.
по вкусу – in terms of flavor – По вкусу этот суп похож на борщ.
по глубине – in terms of depth – По глубине Байкал – самое глубокое озеро в мире.

2. По can also mean along.

For example:

Мы гуляли по берегу реки. – We walked along the riverbank.
Дети шли по пляжу босиком. – The kids were walking along the beach barefoot.

Remind yourself of the dative endings:

There are several prepositions that use instrumental and indicate position:

над – over, above
под – under, below
ме́жду – between
пе́ред – in front of
за – behind

For example:

Солнце взошло над лесом. – The sun rose over the forest.
Под деревом лежал мох. – There was moss under the tree.
Было озеро между горами. – There was a lake between the mountains.
Перед пещерой рос высокий куст. – In front of the cave a tall bush was growing.
За рекой начинался густой лес. – Behind the river began a thick forest.

Remind yourself of the instrumental endings:

You already know that Russian makes a distinction between location (Где?) and direction (Куда?).

For example:

Вчера он был в магазине.
Вчера он ходил в магазин.

The same distinction is made when talking about up and down.

Read some examples using these words. Notice that the verbs подниматься (to go up) and спускаться (to go down) are often used with these adverbs. Both of these verbs conjugate just like the verb читать.

Книга лежит наверху. – The book is upstairs.
Наверху очень холодно. – It’s very cold at the top.
Я слышу шум наверху. – I hear a noise upstairs.

Мы живём внизу, а бабушка живёт наверху. – We live downstairs, and Grandma lives upstairs.
Вазы стоят внизу, под столом. – The vases are at the bottom under the table.
Внизу было жарко. – It was hot at the bottom.

Я поднимаюсь наверх. – I’m going upstairs.
Он посмотрел наверх. – He looked upward.
Птица взлетела вверх. – The bird flew upward.

Мы спускаемся вниз. – We’re going downstairs.
Он посмотрел вниз. – He looked down.
Я уронил ключи вниз. – I dropped the keys down.