сверху
“сверху” (sverkhu) — from above, on top in Russian. Adverb, level A2. Pirog posypali sakharom sverkhu — "the pie was sprinkled with sugar on top" — on the upper side: the sugar, the blanket; for where-to there is naverkh — the pair is close but the difference lives. In a live sentence: “Пирог посыпали сахаром сверху” — The pie was sprinkled with sugar on top. Written with the characters с, в, е, р, х, у. A word from the everyday Russian course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Russian | сверху |
| Read in Latin letters | sverkhu |
| Translation | from above, on top |
| Part of speech | adverb |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
Pirog posypali sakharom sverkhu — "the pie was sprinkled with sugar on top" — on the upper side: the sugar, the blanket; for where-to there is naverkh — the pair is close but the difference lives.
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.
- Пирог посыпали сахаром сверхуPirog posypali sakharom sverkhuThe pie was sprinkled with sugar on top
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 “from above, on top” in Russian?
«сверху», read “sverkhu”. In a live sentence: “Пирог посыпали сахаром сверху” — The pie was sprinkled with sugar on top. Adverb, level A2; written with the characters с, в, е, р, х, у.
How is “сверху” written in Latin letters?
sverkhu. 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?
Pirog posypali sakharom sverkhu — "the pie was sprinkled with sugar on top" — on the upper side: the sugar, the blanket; for where-to there is naverkh — the pair is close but the difference lives. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.