The sciences, the scientists, the adjectives
Each field gives you three words: the science, the person who practises it, and an adjective (describing word) for things to do with it. The person is usually the field minus -а (фи́зика → фи́зик) or with -лог for the -логия sciences. Tap any word to hear it.
| Field | The person | Adjective | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| science · scientist · scientific | |||
| physics | |||
| chemistry | |||
| biology | |||
| mathematics | |||
| medicine | |||
| psychology | |||
| ecology, environment | |||
| computer science | |||
| history |
The broad groups: есте́ственные нау́ки (natural sciences), то́чные нау́ки (“exact sciences”: maths, physics, computing) and гуманита́рные нау́ки (humanities). A гуманита́рий is an arts person; a те́хнарь is, informally, a science-and-engineering person.
Doing research: the verbs
Verbs are given as aspect pairs: imperfective for the ongoing work, perfective for the completed result (see verb aspect). иссле́довать is one of the few verbs that serves as both.
The nouns of research
From the first idea to the published paper. Two to watch: статья́ (an article) is stressed on the ending, and да́нные (data) exists only in the plural and declines like an adjective: по да́нным, “according to the data”.
Phrases of scientific writing
Russian academic prose follows a fixed set of formulas. Using them is how a student essay or a conference paper starts to sound professional. They are strictly written style; in a conversation, say the same thing plainly.
Units of measurement
Russia uses the metric system. Units are masculine or feminine nouns and follow the counting rules after numbers: оди́н метр, два ме́тра, пять ме́тров. Their abbreviations are written in Cyrillic, with no full stop.
Check yourself
Say the Russian out loud, then reveal it.