около

In short

Why it looks that way

"Around" in place and "about" in number: okolo mosta, "near the bridge"; okolo desyati, "about ten".

A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.

In a live sentence

A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.

• Около моста собралась толпа

  Okolo mosta sobralas tolpa

  A crowd gathered near the bridge

Nearby words: basic words

Yes, no, good, bad, very. The small change of a language — and no sentence assembles without it.

• да

  da

  yes

  The shortest word of agreement there is. The negation of a verb is a different word, ne: ne ponimayu, "I do not understand".
• нет

  net

  no

  Says "no" and also "there is not": menya net vremeni is literally "of me there is no time". A verb, by contrast, is negated by ne, a word of its own.
• и

  i

  and

  Keeps a list together even in front of the last item: khleb i moloko. It never changes shape, whatever it joins.
• а

  a

  and (contrasting)

  Compares rather than opposes: ya rabotayu, a ty? — "I work, and you?". English folds it into "and" or "but"; the contrast here is softer than no.
• хорошо

  khorosho

  good, fine

  Both the adverb "well" and the standard reply to how-are-you. Stress it on the end: kha-ra-SHO.
• плохо

  plokho

  bad, badly

  The twin of khorosho. Often about how someone feels rather than a verdict: mne ploho means "I feel bad".
• отлично

  otlichno

  great

  Khorosho with a margin, from otlichit, "to tell apart" — also the top school mark. The bright answer to how-are-you.
• на

  na

  on, at

  A chameleon of a preposition: na ulitse, na pochte, na dve nedeli. English splits it into on, at and for; this one does all three.
• в

  v

  in, into

  One letter, two cases: v gorode says where, v gorod says where to. Place and direction ride on the case, not on two prepositions.
• но

  no

  but

  Argues rather than compares: khochu, no nelzya. The twin of a: a compares, no stands against; English folds both into "but".

Test yourself

Five questions from the same set — “basic words”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.

How not to forget this word

Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.

• This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many times
  Kim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
• Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many times
  Adesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
• An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many times
  Bertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.

Next

• Basic words314 words on the topic
• вместо — instead ofread “vmesto”
• против — againstread “protiv”
• без — withoutread “bez”
• для — forread “dlya”
• All Russian wordsIndex by topic
• Why a word list doesn't sticka note