Russian's ы lies somewhere between the [i] sound in the English word "hockey" and the [u] sound from "boom". If you watch your lip position and practice going back and forth between these two sounds you should be able to find the ы sound.

You can actually use the Russian consonant ш to find the correct pronunciation of ы. Pronounce the ш sound while trying to make a vowel sound as lazily as possible (don't move your lips and keep your tongue back). The sound you're likely to make is the ы sound. 

One of the most common ways to find the correct pronunciation of ы is to compare it to tongue position of the vowel и. Notice how when we pronounce ы the back of our tongue raises. When we pronounce и our tongue is in a more forward position.

These next two approaches come from a Russian speech therapist. I would have never thought this on my own, but there're both great techniques. Just be careful with the toothbrush!

This is final approach is a bit unorthodox, but many have said that it's helped them. Basically you find the ы sound by imitating the sound you might make if you shoved a dagger into your gut (gruesome I know). I found that it helps to think of those ridiculous death scenes from old kung fu movies. 

Between these different approaches you should be able to find the correct pronunciation of ы. Even after you find the sound it will take some practice before you can easily use it in a word or within a Russian sentence. 

Practice making the sound with different consonants, then work your way up to shorter and eventually longer words. Once you nail this difficult vowel sound you might actually impress your Russian speaking friends!

Word order matters a lot in English. If we change the word order of an English sentence, its meaning could drastically change as well. Take a look at the two sentences below:

The dogs bites the man.

The man bites the dog. 

In both sentences the exact same four words are used, yet you'll notice that the order of the words changes the meaning of the sentence entirely. In English we can tell which word is the subject (who's doing the biting) and which is the object (who's being bitten) by word order.

In Russian the distinction between subject and object are just as important, but word order isn't used to show which is which. Instead of word order Russian uses endings to show who or what is carrying out the action (subject) and who or what is being acted upon (object).  

Take these two sentences for example. Let's say we have two people: Boris (Борис) and Olga (Ольга). In Russian we could say: 

Борис любит Ольгу. (Boris loves Olga)

We could also say or write the same idea like this: 

Ольгу любит Борис. (Boris loves Olga)

In both sentences Ольга gets the accusative ending Ольгу. It's because of this ending that we know that Olga is the one being loved and not Boris. 

This system of word endings makes the word order in Russian quite flexible. Word order won't change the principle meaning of a given sentence, but it may add or imply a different emphasis. 

There are three basic rules for feminine noun endings in the accusative case. Based on the last letter of the feminine noun you will be able to tell which accusative ending to use: 

Here's some examples to illustrate this rule: 

Masculine and neuter nouns don't change ending in the accusative case (unless they're an animate noun, which we'll touch on in a little while). This is great for us Russian learners. It's one less ending we have to remember!

In many cases accusative plural nouns are identical to nominative plural nouns. Take a look at the example below: 

Here we see no change in the plural endings even if the word is feminine, neuter, or masculine. 

It's important to point out here that all the words in the above table have one important thing in common. To see what that this let's look at their English translations. 

So what exactly do suitcases, cities, books, and windows have in common? They're all inanimate objects (they're not alive). 

In Russian plural nouns will not change their ending if they are inanimate objects. They will however change if they are animate (something that is alive).

 Let's take a look a few examples using the words: студенты (students), немцы (Germans), and бабушки (grandmothers). 

If you've studied the genitive case before you might notice that these endings look familiar. That's because animate plural nouns in the accusative case have the same endings as the plurals in the genitive case.

Before we alluded to the fact that animate masculine nouns have endings that do change in the accusative, unlike other masculine nouns. 

Animate masculine nouns in the accusative case have the same ending as in the genitive case. 

In the above table we have the words student (male) and rabbit. Both are masculine, and both are animate. To decline them in the accusative case we use the same endings we would use in the genitive case. 

When I first learned the accusative case my head spun. Individually the exceptions were simple enough and easy to understand. However when I put them all together to try to use the accusative case I felt like I was trying to juggle too many things at one time. 

My accusative nouns were filled with mistakes. One thing that helped me was to focus on one set of rules at a time. First I concentrated on remembering the endings of singular feminine nouns.

Once I was comfortable with that I moved on to the inanimate masculine and neuter singular nouns. I kept taking the case piece by piece until I was comfortable with everything. 

When you take the accusative case endings one at a time, they seem a lot less intimidating. Sooner rather than later you'll find yourself using them without thinking! It just takes a little dedicated practice.

We'll start by looking at the past forms for going on foot.

Now we'll discuss how to use "went" when talking about movement by transport. 

If you're already comfortable in making the distinction between going by foot and going by transport, the past tense of these verbs aren't that difficult. 

The hardest part is remembering to use the perfective verbs пойти and поехать. Once you get used to that everything is pretty straight forward!

The dative case is commonly used to describe the physical or emotional state of a person. Here are a few examples:

другу холодно

the friend (male) is cold

подруге плохо

a friend (female) feels bad

брату скучно

a brother is bored

Note how statements in the dative like брату скучно (brother is bored) and подруге плохо (friend feels bad) differ in meaning  from statements like скучный брат (boring brother) or плохая подруга (bad friend). 

The dative case is used with certain verbs. The dative case will used for the direct object of this verbs. For example: 

Я позвонил своему брату.

I called my brother*. 

*We use the dative case for "my brother", because "my brother" is the one who was called.

 Here's some of the more common verbs used with the dative case: 

The above list is by no mean exhaustive. Here's a more comprehensive list of verbs used with the dative case. 

In Russian the preposition k means "in the direction of" or "towards". A common English translation of k is the word "to"; as in "He goes to the doctor". K is used with the dative when we use it to talk about going toward people. We do not use the dative when we use k to talk about going toward places. 

Here are some examples of how we can use the dative case with the preposition k: 

Он идёт к врачу.

He does to the doctor. 

Я иду к маме.

I'm going to mom

мы летим к друзьям.

We fly to friends.

as in "by"

We use the dative case after the preposition по. This preposition has several meanings. We can use to по to mean something similar to "by" in statements like: 

говорить по телефону

Lit: "to talk by telephone" (to talk on the phone)

искать по интернету

lit: "to search by internet" (to search on the internet)

The preposition по can also be used to mean "through". Examples include: 

Он идёт по улице.

He goes through the street

Мы гуляем по городу.

We walk through the city.

Another use of the dative case with по is for the English preposition of "on" in statements like:

учебник по физике

The text book on french

Урок по математике

The lesson on math

When we mention someone's age we also use the dative case: 

Маме пятьдесят лет.

Mom is fifty years old.

The basic dative case ending for masculine and neuter nouns is -у for hard stem endings and -ю for soft stem endings. 

The basic ending for feminine nouns in the dative case is -е. We will use this ending for both hard and soft stem endings.

One exception for feminine nouns

Feminine nouns ending in -ия receive an -и ending. Feminine nouns that end in a ь (soft sign), also receive an -и ending.

In the dative case plural nouns receive an -ам ending if they have a hard stem and a -ям ending if they have a hard stem. This is true of both masculine and feminine plural nouns. 

The dative can seem a bit mysterious, but a little knowledge and practice will help you cut through the fog. I recommend focusing on the more common uses of the case and then moving on to other users. 

Little by little you'll see yourself become for comfortable with this case the more you use it!

In the Russian language all nouns fall into 1 of 3 groups: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Each of these groups is considered a grammatical gender. In Russian grammar the word gender here doesn't have any thing to with biological sex.  

While for the most part words for male persons are masculine and words for female persons will be masculine, the real world association with biological gender stops there. 

You'll find that objects which have no biological gender (like a car), have a masculine or feminine gender. While you can't tell the gender for a word based on the object it's used for, you can usually tell its gender simply by looking at the ending of the word.  

In reality determining grammatical gender in Russian is quite simple.

Most of the time you can tell the gender of a Russian word just by looking at its ending. Masculine nouns typically end with a hard consonant or with the soft ending й. Feminine nouns will almost always end with а or with the soft ending я. Neuter nouns often end in either o or е. 

One common exception to the rules we just mentioned are names of male persons which end in а. Words like папа (dad), дядя (uncle), and дедушка (grandfather) all have endings that would normally be considered feminine. However in this instance these words are in fact masculine.  

There are no hard and fast rules for determining the gender of a noun that ends with a ь. For example, the word for dictionary (словарь) is masculine but the word for notebook (тетрадь) is feminine. 

When you come across a new noun ending with a ь you'll have to memorize which gender it is. The majority of Russian nouns don't end with a ь, so this isn't a huge issue. After a little use you shouldn't have any trouble remember the gender of the given word.  

The troublesome 12 ending in я 

There are twelve nouns in the Russian language ending in я that are neuter instead of feminine.

Thankfully most of these words aren't used all that much. The two most common are the words for time and name. 

Gender is a big issue in Russian because adjectives and other modifiers match the gender of the noun they follow. A masculine noun will be describe using a masculine adjective, a feminine noun will be described with a feminine adjective, and so on (more on this in another post). 

Grammatical gender is a fundamental concept in the Russian language. You'll want to make sure you have a good grasp on the rules and exceptions that dictate which gender a noun has. 

Luckily there aren't a lot of exceptions, and the rules themselves are straightforward. After a little practice knowing noun genders will feel natural!

What difference is there in saying, "I drank the glass of milk" verses saying "I drank up the glass of milk"?. When you say "drank up" you imply that you finished drinking the entire glass of milk. If you simply say "I drank" then we know you drank from the glass, but we don't necessarily know if you finished off the entire glass or not. 

Typically in English we don't care whether or not an action in the past has been completed. If you say "I read a book", it could be that you read the whole book, but it could also mean you read through some of it but never finished it (depending on context).

Russian verbs make a distinction between a completed action and a general or uncompleted one. In fact, for just about every past tense English verb there are two different Russian verbs: one that specifies the past action was completed while the other doesn't. 

The Russian verbs that imply that an action was completed are called perfective verbs. The ones that don't specify completion are called imperfective (in this instance think of perfect as meaning complete, rather than without error). 

Let's break things down a bit more...

Perfective verbs are used for:

Imperfect verbs are used for:

Both perfective and imperfective verbs can be used in the past and future tenses. However only imperfective verbs can be used in the present tense.

This makes sense if you think about it. If an action is occurring right now it can't be completed yet. Therefore the perfective aspect doesn't make much sense when describing a present action.

There are four basic patterns for the forms of perfective and imperfective verbs:

One of the most common ways we get a perfective verb is by adding a prefix to an imperfective verb. 

Unfortunately there's no sure fire way to predict which prefix you'll need to turn an imperfective verb into a perfective one. 

If a prefix is a something you place at the beginning of a word, an infix is something you put in the middle of a word.  

Sometimes an imperfective verb is changed into a perfective one by changing the ending to the stem of the word. 

Again, this change isn't something you can reliably predict. You simply have to learn the verbs as pairs and get comfortable with each of them.

Sometimes the pairing of perfective and imperfective verbs doesn't fall into either of the previous three categories, so we put them into a forth "other" category. Verbs in this group can differ widely in the changes between the two aspects. 

The concept of verbal aspect can take a little while to get used to. We just don't have much of an equivalent in the English language. When you throw in the fact that the perfective and imperfective verbs can't easily be predicted by any sort of rule or overarching pattern, it all feels even more difficult. 

But there's no need to despair. The more you use verbal aspect the more natural it will feel. The best approach to learning perfective and imperfective verbs is simple: take it one step at a time. 

From here on out do your best to learn Russian verbs in pairs (imperfective/perfective). Practice using both forms with your Russian teacher or language partner.

After a little while it will be easier to remember the pairs and you will start to intuitively feel the difference between the imperfective and perfective aspects. 

Я пью кофе с молоком.

I drink coffee with milk.

Ольга разговаривала с Борисом.

Olga was talking with Boris.

Они говорили с родителями.

They spoke with their parents. 

It's fairly easy to tell from the example above that the Russian word "с" corresponds to the English "with". The only difference being that in Russian we have to change the ending of the noun that comes after "with". Nouns with this ending change are part of the instrumental case. 

In my opinion the instrumental case is one of the easier cases in the Russian language. There aren't very many exceptions and the word endings are quite predictable. Let's take a look:

The basic endings for masculine and neuter nouns in the instrumental case is -ом. 

If the masculine or neuter noun ends in a soft sign and the ending is stressed we use the -ём ending. 

If the ending of a masculine/neuter noun is soft but is unstressed, then we use the -ем ending.

The basic  instrumental case ending for feminine nouns is -ой.

In the instrumental case feminine nouns that end in a stressed soft consonant use the -ёй ending. 

If a feminine noun ends in a soft consonant but is unstressed it uses the -ей ending in the instrumental case. 

There's a special ending for feminine nouns that end with the soft sign (ь): -ью

*these nouns are two common exceptions to the rule because their stem changes.

Plural nouns that have a hard stem will use the -ами ending (it doesn't matter is they're masculine, feminine, or neuter). Plural nouns that have a soft stem will use the -ями ending (again irrespective of gender). 

There are two common exceptions to the usual instrumental plural endings: 

There you have it, nouns in the instrumental case! To be honest you'll probably find this case to be one of the easier ones to use and remember. Nevertheless it's still an important case to learn, as you will be using it a lot. 

Try using the instrumental case in your next Russian conversation!

The prepositional case is the only case in the Russian language that is always used with a preposition (hence the name). 

Here are the three most common prepositions used with this case: 

в машине

in the car

в комнате

in the room

в университете

in/at the university

на концерте

at the concert

на столе

on the table

на лекции

at the lecture

When used with the prepositional case "о" in Russian corresponds to the English word about, as in thinking about something or talking about something. 

о концерте

about the concert

о России

about Russia

об этой книге*

about this book

*In this last example we use the alternate form of the preposition о: об. We use об before words that start with vowel sounds.

In the prepositional case masculine nouns will receive an added -е at the end of the word. Here's few examples:  

With feminine and neuter nouns the prepositional ending -е replaces the last vowel of the nominative form.

There are two groups of nouns that receive a -и instead of the usual -е ending.

The first group is feminine nouns that end in ь (soft sign). In this case we drop the soft sound and add -и in its place

No matter the gender, any noun ending in -ий, -ия, or -ие in the nominative will end with -и. In this instance the -и replaces the last vowel of the word. 

That covers everything you'll need to get started with the prepositional case. Again, in my opinion, this is one of the easiest and most useful cases in Russian. Knowing how to use the prepositional case will go a long way toward increasing your ability in the language. Good luck!