препятствие
“препятствие” (prepyatstvie) — obstacle in Russian. Noun, level B1. Glavnoe prepyatstvie — ne dengi, a vremya — "the main obstacle is not money but time" — what stands across: on the way; the verb prepyatstvovat is to hinder — a word a grade above pomekha, living in letters and rules. In a live sentence: “Главное препятствие — не деньги, а время” — The main obstacle is not money but time. Written with the characters п, р, е, п, я, т, с, т, в, и, е.
In short
| Written in Russian | препятствие |
| Read in Latin letters | prepyatstvie |
| Translation | obstacle |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
Glavnoe prepyatstvie — ne dengi, a vremya — "the main obstacle is not money but time" — what stands across: on the way; the verb prepyatstvovat is to hinder — a word a grade above pomekha, living in letters and rules.
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.
- Главное препятствие — не деньги, а времяGlavnoe prepyatstvie — ne dengi, a vremyaThe main obstacle is not money but time
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 timesKim & 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 timesAdesope, 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 timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “obstacle” in Russian?
«препятствие», read “prepyatstvie”. In a live sentence: “Главное препятствие — не деньги, а время” — The main obstacle is not money but time. Noun, level B1; written with the characters п, р, е, п, я, т, с, т, в, и, е.
How is “препятствие” written in Latin letters?
prepyatstvie. This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Glavnoe prepyatstvie — ne dengi, a vremya — "the main obstacle is not money but time" — what stands across: on the way; the verb prepyatstvovat is to hinder — a word a grade above pomekha, living in letters and rules. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.