прямо

In short

Why it looks that way

A cousin of Latin rectus — the same root as "right". Idite pryamo do ploshchadi — "go straight to the square"; also "right now".

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.

• Идите прямо до площади

  Idite pryamo do ploshchadi

  Go straight to the square

Nearby words: asking the way

Right, left, straight on, how far. You ask the way rarely — and always at the moment when there is no time to work it out.

• где?

  gde?

  where?

  The question about place. Kuda asks where to — the direction keeps its own question, the way English splits where and where to.
• здесь

  zdes

  here

  The place word; for direction there is a separate syuda, "to here". Zdes ochen tiho — "it is very quiet here".
• там

  tam

  there

  The opposite of zdes, and it answers gde too: Gde apteka? — Tam.
• 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.
• направо

  napravo

  to the right

  For the turn: povernite napravo. The position is a different word — sprava: "the pharmacy is on the right".
• налево

  nalevo

  to the left

  The twin of napravo with the same split: povernite nalevo for the turn, sleva for the position.
• близко

  blizko

  close, nearby

  Eto blizko? is the everyday question at the map, and "no, blizko" is the best possible answer.
• далеко

  daleko

  far

  The twin of blizko. Queda lejos and "it is far" do the same job — the thing stays far.
• идти

  idti

  to go (on foot)

  On foot; riding is another verb, ekhat. The pair is stricter than English "go": walking one way, transport the other. The present comes from a different root: idu, idyosh.

Test yourself

Five questions from the same set — “asking the way”. 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

• Asking the way21 words on the topic
• близко — close, nearbyread “blizko”
• далеко — farread “daleko”
• идти — to go (on foot)read “idti”
• ехать — to go (by vehicle)read “ekhat”
• All Russian wordsIndex by topic
• Why a word list doesn't sticka note