Vocabulary 5A—Thirty Common Words

Some words are much more common than others. About 50% of the words uttered in conversation come from the 100 most used. By concentrating on the most used words you can improve your understanding of conversation much more quickly. Start by learning these 30 commonly-used words.

Conjunction	Definition
и	and
а	and (but with slight contrast between the things joined)
но	but
и́ли	or
е́сли	if (in the sense “if...then”, but not in the sense “whether”)

Particle	Definition
не	not
да	yes
нет	no, there is no

Preposition	Definition
у	next to or by as in “by the river”
в	inside or into
из	out of

Pronoun	Other Forms	Definition
э́то		this (in the sense “This is...”)
я	меня́, мне, мной	I
мы	нас, нам, на́ми	we
ты	тебя́, тебе́, тобо́й	you (singular, informal, literally “thou”)
вы	вас, вам, ва́ми	you (plural or formal)
он	его́, ему́, им	he
она	её, ей	she
оно	его́, ему́, им	it
они	их, им, и́ми	they

In English most pronouns have two forms: I/me, he/him; etc. In Russian most have four forms. For now just learn to recognize them you see them. Later we will learn what each form means.

Noun	Gender	Definition
друг	masculine	friend
кни́га	feminine	book
де́ло	neuter	business, a matter to attend to
го́род	masculine	city
глаз	masculine	eye
сло́во	neuter	word
день	masculine	day
жизнь	feminine (3rd declension)	life
рука́	feminine	hand and forearm
вода́	feminine	water

Gender is a grammatical concept. Russian nouns are divided into three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. For living things gender generally corresponds to sex, but for inanimate objects it is determined by the word's form.