Hello!

[chouchou61.livejournal.com]

New to this community and enjoying the exchanges immensely, I just wanted to introduce myself ...

I'm an American woman of French-Canadian descent.  English is, of course, my native language and I've also been speaking my ancestral language (French) since childhood. Almost two years ago, I decided to learn Russian.  Inspired initially by having met a Russian-speaking man, I'm now pursuing my studies out of love for the language itself.  It is rich, it is logical (at least, more so than English or French) and it has become nearly as beautiful-sounding to my ears as French.

As an addition to my intensive studies over the internet with a wonderful teacher in Odessa (whom I even visited in person during the summer of 2007!), I find this community a great help. 

Thanks!

Expressions of time with на, за and через

[chouchou61.livejournal.com]

I'm having difficulty understanding which preposition to use in the following examples:

Она задумалась ___ минуту.
Он уехал ____ год, и ____ год мы не получили от него ни одного письма.
 

Мы остановились около рынка ___ полчаса.  ___ полчаса мы купили всё, что нам было нужно.
Сейчас у меня обед, я планирую обсудить этот вопрос ____ час.

More than simply getting the answers to these exercises, I'm hoping that one (or more) of you can come up with a combination of explanations and examples that will sink into my old brain. :)