Counting the water
A text in Russian at level B1. The translation sits next to it for checking, not for support: at this level the text is read whole, and an unknown word is usually guessed from the sentence. At school we spent a week counting how much water our family uses. The total came out big: almost a thousand liters a…
Text
- В школе мы неделю считали, сколько воды тратит наша семья. Общее число вышло большим: почти тысяча литров на неделю. Треть ушла на душ, ещё треть — на стирку, остальное — на готовку и посуду. Когда мы закрывали кран, пока чистим зубы, расход снизился на десятую часть. Новый душ тратит в разы меньше воды, чем старый. В конце мы округлили числа и начертили шкалу от одного до десяти.V shkole my nedelyu schitali, skolko vody tratit nasha semya. Obshchee chislo vyshlo bolshim: pochti tysyacha litrov na nedelyu. Tret ushla na dush, eshchyo tret — na stirku, ostalnoe — na gotovku i posudu. Kogda my zakryvali kran, poka chistim zuby, raskhod snizilsya na desyatuyu chast. Novyy dush tratit v razy menshe vody, chem staryy. V kontse my okruglili chisla i nachertili shkalu ot odnogo do desyati.At school we spent a week counting how much water our family uses. The total came out big: almost a thousand liters a week. A third went to the shower, another third to laundry, the rest to cooking and dishes. When we closed the tap while brushing our teeth, the use fell by a tenth. The new shower uses several times less water than the old one. At the end we rounded the numbers and drew a scale from one to ten.
Comprehension questions
The questions are asked in Russian on purpose: we test your understanding of the text, not your ability to read the question.
- How much water did a week come to?
- Where did the first third of the water go?
- How much did the use fall from the closed tap?
- What is good about the new shower?
Frequently asked
What level do you need to read this text in Russian?
B1. That means: everyday topics are behind you, you know about three thousand words, and an unknown word is more often guessed from the sentence than looked up.
How to read a text in an unfamiliar language usefully?
First all the way through without peeking at the translation — just to catch the familiar words. Then with the translation. Then all the way through again: the second pass brings noticeably more, and that feeling matters more than any rule.