Russian Vocabulary: When Dictionaries Can’t Help



The aim of this course is to expand students’ vocabulary and to study Russian words that are difficult to use correctly even if one understands their meaning. For example, dictionaries do not clearly explain the difference between razve and neuzheli, or tozhe and takzhe; nor do they clearly distinguish the contexts in which Russians say poutru, nautro, and pod utro, and use many other synonyms and quasi synonyms. Students will read linguistic articles, analyze Russian texts from the point of view of their vocabulary, and write papers about the interpretation of Russian words or group of words