Duo Russian Grammar

15) Food

Yummy

«для»(for) always takes Genitive nouns

Food offers a delicious intake of mass nouns. Russian has them massed up even where English does not!

  • so карто́шка(potatoes), лук(onions), шокола́д are mass nouns in Russian
  • and you may recall that mass nouns may be used in Gen. instead of Acc. if you mean "some quantity": Купи́ сы́ра/карто́шки. = Buy some cheese/potatoes.

'Taters

The formal word for potato is карто́фель (German speakers, rejoice), but it's hardly ever used in speech. Use «карто́шка» instead.

The word for tomato is помидо́р. There is also the word тома́т, but it is

  • the plant's name, pretty formal; look on pricetags

  • the base stem for derivative products: тома́тная па́ста = tomato paste

  • посуда is a word for different containers used for cooking , consuming and further storage of food. English, sadly, does not have the exact equivalent. However, it is obviously "dishes" that you wash and "cookware/tableware" that you buy.

Verbal wisdom

In this skill, we used perfective verbs for "cook", "cut", "wash". The reason is simple: that's the verb you'd use when you want a single specific action, often with a result—rather than referring to "activity" (activity may be fun but, in some cases, pointless).

More on that later. For now, just go with the flow.

Levels

  1. 1) Alphabet 1
  2. 2) Basics 1
  3. 3) Phrases 1
  4. 4) Единственное число
  5. 5) Name and polite "You"
  6. 6) Plurals
  7. 7) Where is it?
  8. 8) Animals 1
  9. 9) Genitive Case - 1
  10. 10) Possessive Modifiers 1
  11. 11) Partitive
  12. 12) Accusative Case: the direct object
  13. 13) Verbs Present 1
  14. 14) Infinitive, Likes and Dislikes
  15. 15) Food
  16. 16) Adjectives Introduction
  17. 17) Conjunctions
  18. 18) There is
  19. 19) Questions
  20. 20) People 1
  21. 21) Around you
  22. 22) Prepositions and Places
  23. 23) Verbs Present 2
  24. 24) Time and Numbers
  25. 25) Family
  26. 26) People 1
  27. 27) Weather and Nature
  28. 28) Sport
  29. 29) Adjectives 1
  30. 30) Past & Infinitive
  31. 31) VLAD
  32. 32) Dative and Plurals
  33. 33) Reported speech
  34. 34) Perfective Verbs
  35. 35) I
  36. 36) Body and Health
  37. 37) Genitive Plural
  38. 38) Adjectives 2
  39. 39) Short and Long
  40. 40) Perfective verbs
  41. 41) Countries and Places
  42. 42) House
  43. 43) Reflexive
  44. 44) Time expressions 2
  45. 45) Imperative and Adverbs
  46. 46) Образовние
  47. 47) City and People
  48. 48) Imperative2
  49. 49) That Which
  50. 50) Technics
  51. 51) Future Simple
  52. 52) Being Instrumental
  53. 53) Placing Objects
  54. 54) Kitchen and Food
  55. 55) Speaking
  56. 56) Subjunctive
  57. 57) Compound Future
  58. 58) Prefixed Verbs of Motion
  59. 59) Arts & Entertainment
  60. 60) Together
  61. 61) Numbers 2
  62. 62) Adjectives 3
  63. 63) Plans
  64. 64) Prepositions 2
  65. 65) The Same
  66. 66) Fleeting Vowels
  67. 67) Measure
  68. 68) Business
  69. 69) Morphology
  70. 70) History & Fantasy
  71. 71) Participles
  72. 72) Computers & Internet
  73. 73) Adverbial Participles
  74. 74) Science
  75. 75) Politics
  76. 76) Spiritual
  77. 77) Some Spoken Patterns
  78. 78) Nothing Left
  79. 79) Crime and Justice