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Quite colloquial but possible.

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idealforcolors.livejournal.com

also, is there a word for borrow other than "взять"? I learned that that means "take", so do the connotations ever get confusing?

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взять взаймы - to borrow money

одолжить - to borrow (anything, including money)

взять напрокат - to rent

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sorry

одолжить - to lend
занять - to borrow

Я занял у него пять рублей

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Why do you always call everything colloquial?

I think that взять напрокат is perfectly legitimate, moreover, I cannot think of any other way of saying it.

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Он не заработал деньги sounds wrong. Он не заработал денег is correct.

I did not exactly get your question about the posessive pronouns, but your example is translated as
У меня есть машина. У моей сестры есть машина. У меня машина лучше, чем у нее. (Или: моя машина лучше, чем ее машина.)
If you actially meant to ask whether posessive pronouns ever decline, then yes, they do.
моя машина, мой дом
моей машины, моего дома
мою машину, мой дом
etc.

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Взять напрокат - you're absolutely right. Now compare it with the form mentioned above. See what I mean?

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It's half a dozen of one and six of the other :-)

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Мой, моя, мою, моей, моего etc. - declines all right, you're right. As well as твой, ваш, наш.

Now what about его or её?

Я взял её машину. Я нигде не вижу её машины. Мой автобус столкнулся с её машиной. Она так много рассказывает о её машине (though this one is stylistically weak, I better say "о своей машине.") Etc. Его goes the same. And их (не вижу их машины... взял их машину...). So 3rd person posessive pronouns don't actually change. BUT! Note if we replace them with "свой," it declines fairly well: своего, своему, своим, о своём etc.

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not exactly. Взять фильм (OK, видео, though I hear this less frequently than фильм) напрокат. BUT этот фильм есть в прокате (literally, they have this movie for rent, i.e. this video rental store has this exact movie.)

To make things worse, the theatrical demonstration of a movie is also прокат, but it requires another form - идти в прокате (to be in theatres? not sure I know the English terms for movie theatre industry.) Фильм выходит в прокат на следующей неделе - the movie hits the theatres next week. Фильм плохо шел в прокате, но хорошо продавался на видео - the movie was weak at the box office, but the video sales went well. Etc. Too many differences in terms, though, so no direct translations (because the system of movie theatres we grew up with was very different from American system, so it generated its own, really different system of terms.)

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>Я занял у него пять рублей

I like this example. It's about 18 U.S. cent now. A lot of money :))

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I guess my subconscious still operates with old Soviet-time money :-)

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BTW, the variant I hear most often is "взять в прокатЕ", where "прокат" refers actually to "пункт проката" -- a rental shop.

As to the fancy conjunctions, I don't think there is a site devoted to them specifically. Just read a dozen of good essays with a dictionary ;-)

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As for the conjunctions, this site (http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/index.html) looks like a nice digest of Russian grammar; I have no time to check it out, but at least the index looks good :)
They have four chapters on Russian conjunctions:
Coordinating Conjunctions (http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/conjunction.html)
Subordinating Conjunctions (http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/subordin.html)
Other Conjunctions (http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/conj.html)
Conjunction Modifiers (http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/conjadv.html)

I took a brief look at all four chapters; they did not look comprehensive, but still were pretty good (they even had some exercises.)

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Oh my... Look at the punctuation in the examples they provide. Or, more precisely, at its absence.

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Yes, there was more that a bit of typos, I think it's because the online version has been transferred to HTML from the printed original by somebody not really good in Russian. This was the only source on the Russian conjunctions in English I could find within a 5-minutes Google break. Sorry for that.

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At least it was better than the terrible York University Russian page that I've also found. Look at this example they give:
>можно: 'it is possible to', e.g.: можно купить - smoking is allowed.

Можно купить, in fact, means "purchase is allowed." Smoking is allowed would be "можно курить".

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And here's a quote from that site to have a good laugh:

"Like most aspects of Russian grammar, the second declension is pretty simple and straightforward, requiring no commentary."

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Well, that looks like a simple typo, because "п" and "р" are located side by side on a Cyrillic keyboard.

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vladon.livejournal.com

what about "Я занял ему пять рублей"?

PS.
"Я занял ему 5 рублей" = "Я одолжил ему 5 рублей" = "Он одолжил у меня 5 рублей" = "Он занял у меня 5 рублей".

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Hmmm... ok. So there's no such thing as a possessive pronoun? It seems to me in this case it's a possessive adjective. I don't know if you know French or not, but in French you would say something like "J'ai pris la voiture de ma sœur, parce que la mienne est chez le mécanicien" for "I took my sister's car because mine is at the mechanic's."

Hm... I'm wondering if "mechanic's" is right. Damn, now I have to review English grammar even.

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quem98.livejournal.com

You've got to be kidding me.

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quem98.livejournal.com

http://www.russnet.org/learn.html
This source is pretty good... In my not so humble opinion.

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Well, see for yourself :-)

http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/case.html

It's under "Declension II"...

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Yeah. I remember the time when three Soviet roubles was enough to have a really good lunch at a medium-priced restaurant, and at our University canteen 1.20 was more than enough, though the food wasn't good. Remember those small blue-green notes - трёшки? Have you ever seen any other currency which had a 3-unit note? Oh yes, Czechoslovakia also had a 3-kron note until 1992.

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yms.livejournal.com

Right, in Russian there is no special posessive pronouns like "mine", posessive adjectives "my" serve this purpose, just without the noun. "Я забыл ручку. - Возьми мою."

Btw, I learned right now that "my" is called a possessive adjective and not a pronoun. In Russian you call it местоимение too, like all pronouns. I think this is why

wolk_off didn't understand you.

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How much is a can of Coca-Cola in Russia?

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This is NOT correct. Some people speak like that but it's illiterate.

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vladon.livejournal.com

Are we here learn literary Russian or we learn Russian language?

Literary Russian is in the books. You may learn it.

But...

But native speakers sometimes can say such illiterate phrases, and if you don't know what they mean, you can't understand him.

Короче, был фильм советский, где Меньшов играл шпиона, которого сбросили с самолёта в СССР. Так вот, он чуть не спалился на том, что не знал слова "чирка" (= "червонец" = "10 рублей"). Это тоже неграмотно. Ну и что?

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I don't know :) The only soda I ever buy is Schweppes Indian Tonic, it's 35 - 36 roubles a bottle (two litres,) i.e. one euro or $1.30. I normally buy kvas (Russian bread-flavored beverage,) or iced tea, or natural juices (J7 is Russia's best juices brand.)

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When people are trying to learn some language, they should learn the correct version first. People here are not spies and I hope they will never be. Besides, there is a difference between slang (your example about чирка) and plain illiteracy.

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1. I would love to remind that the working language of this community is English. It's OK to write something in Russian (especially if you give examples,) but you are expected to provide ENglish translation as well.
2. 10 roubles were чирик, not чирка (this word I've never heard, though I've lived at that time.) If you decided to teach people slang, it'd be wrong to give them wrong examples.
3. The learner of a language should master the literary Russian first and THEN enrich his/her knowledge with other means of the language. Should you learn the illiterate language first, it would only lead you nowhere. This is how I, as one of this community's mainainers, see the community's goals.

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Right. Now I see.

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Russian bread-flavored beverage?

...who likes bread so much that they want to drink it? Well, I guess people who drink Coca-Cola, for the most part, don't know that it was originally medicine.

Soda drinkers are weeeird. I'll stick to my water, thank you. Except the occasional Sprite or Pepsi, that is.

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What's so wrong about being a spy? That'd be a cool thing to do. My Russian teacher once told me of a Swedish spy in Russia who spoke every level of Russian (aristocratic, business, slang, street, drunk) and the Russian officials, when they caught him, were just so amazed he wasn't Russian. He, of course, did not need a translator for the hearing. I aspire to one day have that level of language learning, but iiit's taking long.

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>who likes bread so much that they want to drink it

Russians do. For centuries, black sour rye bread was the main food in Russia, so it's just in our blood :))

Kvas has bubbles, almost like Western sodas, but no sugar, no thirst-waking acids, no artificial sweeteners etc. And it's really refreshing.

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surok75.livejournal.com

Kvas is delicious.

And a can of Coca-Cola costs between 8 and 10 roubles depending where you buy it. Will be more in places like airports and trainstations where they have a captive audience.

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There is sugar in kvas (what do you thinks makes it sweet?), except only the special kvas for okroshka.

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::What's so wrong about being a spy? That'd be a cool thing to do.

That's a very childish thing to say.

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