This chapter lists some of the Russian words that give difficulty to the English-speaking student. The difficulty may arise for any one of several reasons. For example, the Russian word may have a wide range of meaning. It may be easily confused with some other Russian word or words. It may be deceptively similar to some English word. It may occur in a plural form whereas its English equivalent occurs in a singular form or vice versa. Or it may denote some phenomenon or concept that is unfamiliar to an English-speaker.

Homonyms

Homonyms arise in several ways. Firstly, as a result of phonological change a word may come to coincide in sound and form with another word of different origin (as is the case with the pair лук). Secondly, identical forms may develop as a result of the processes of word-formation, by the addition of distinct suffixes to a root (e.g. удáрник). Thirdly, it very often happens that an existing word takes on quite a new meaning (e.g. свет).

We also include here a few words (e.g. ногá) which strictly speaking are not homonyms but which have a range of meaning that is unexpected to English-speakers.

Many of the examples given here are full homonyms (i.e. they have identical pronunciation and paradigms, e.g. ключ in its different meanings), while others are partial homonyms (i.e. they do not share all the forms which each word possesses, e.g. мир, which does not have plural forms in its sense of peace).