Learn how to ask the price of something
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| Let's take a closer look at the conversation. |
| Do you remember how Ben asks, |
| "How much [does] coffee cost?" |
| Сколько стоит кофе? (Skol'ko stoit kofe?) |
| Let's start сколько (skol’ko) "how much" in this context. Сколько. Сколько. |
| Next is стоит (stoit), “costs.” Стоит. Стоит. |
| Стоит is from the verb стоить (stoit’), “to cost.” Стоить. |
| Next is кофе (kofe), "coffee." Кофе. Кофе. |
| Сколько стоит кофе? (Skol'ko stoit kofe?) |
| Let's take a closer look at the response. |
| Do you remember how the shop clerk says, |
| "One hundred rubles." |
| Сто рублей. (Sto rubley.) |
| First is сто (sto), “one hundred.” Сто. Сто. |
| Next is рублей (rubley), “rubles,” the name of the currency. Рублей . Рублей. |
| Note: Рублей (Rubley) is from рубль (Ruble). Рублей (Rubley) is used as сто (sto), “100” ends in 0. |
| All together, it's Сто рублей. (Sto rubley)."One hundred rubles." |
| Сто рублей. (Sto rubley) |
| Note, the first part of the sentence кофе стоит ( kofe stoit), “Coffee costs…” is omitted. |
| The pattern is |
| Сколько стоит ITEM? (Skol’ko stoit ITEM?) |
| "How much does ITEM cost?" |
| Сколько стоит ITEM? |
| To use this pattern, simply replace the {ITEM} placeholder with the thing you’d like to know the price of. |
| Note: This pattern requires a noun. |
| For example, imagine you’d like to know the price of a tea, чай (chay). |
| Чай (Chay), “tea.” Чай. Чай. |
| Ask, “How much does a tea cost?” |
| Ready? |
| Сколько стоит чай? (Skol’ko stoit chay?) |
| "How much does a tea cost?" |
| Сколько стоит чай? (Skol’ko stoit chay?) |
| Note: the word order in Russian often is not important, so the phrase Сколько чай стоит? (Skol’ko chay stoit?) is equivalent to Сколько стоит чай? (Skol’ko stoit chay?) and Чай сколько стоит? (Chay sko’ko stoit?). All those phrases mean “How much [does] a tea cost?” |
| Почём это? (Pochyom eto?), "How much is it?" |
| First is почём (pochyom), “how much [is]”, where “is” is omitted. |
| Then is the demonstrative pronoun это (eto), “this”. |
| All together it is Почём это? (Pochyom eto?), literally it means “How much this?,” but translates as "How much is it?" |
| The pattern is: |
| Почём ITEM? |
| "How much is ITEM?" |
| Pochyom ITEM? |
| To use this pattern, simply replace the {ITEM} placeholder with the thing you’d like to know the price of. |
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