Duo Russian Grammar

59) Arts & Entertainment

Tell us about it

There is another verb in Russian for "to tell", «рассказывать». It covers the situations when what you tell is quite a bit longer than a single sentence. You may link it to рассказ ("a story"). No brick walls here, only with «рассказать» it is understood you're passing on a rather finished piece of information about some topic. «Говорить/ сказать» is primarily for shorter answers where coverage of some topic is not the point (also, when reporting someone's words).

When expressing what you are talking "about", you may use о + Prepositional or про + Accusative. The meaning is roughly the same, especially in the sentences covered in this course, and they are largely interchangeable. In most situations only the shade of meaning changes:

  • «о» focuses more on the overall coverage
  • «про» focuses more on something "specific" and detailed but maybe not as true "in general"

«О» is a lot more frequent than «про».