Internet and Society: Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy to launch a free online course in Russian

The Slovo Centre for Slavic Writing at the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy (VDNKh) launches an online course in Russian. The lessons will help everyone who wants to repeat the basic rules of spelling and punctuation, and also learn about the correct stressing in compound words and dictionaries for self-checking.

The lessons will be conducted by Yegor Sartakov, associate professor of the Faculty of Journalism of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, a well-known philology popularizer. The live broadcasts are available every Saturday at 15:00 on the Exhibition's official website and its page in the VKontakte social network.

Participants will receive theoretical knowledge, as well as practical tasks to solidify studied material. Exercises for the lessons are free for download by the link.

The first lesson "Dash and Colon" will be held on November 14. Users will discover when it is better to use a dash or a colon and comma. Also, they will learn interesting facts about punctuation.

The online lesson on November 21 will focus on homogeneous parts of the sentence. Participants will learn to identify coordinating conjunctions and analyze possible punctuation for homogeneous parts of the sentence.

The rule of checking unstressed vowels by the root of the word is taught in elementary school, but only a few people remember about exceptions years later. This topic will be discussed in the third lesson entitled "Unstressed Vowel at the Root of the Word". Besides, the lecturer will recall about vowels alternation in the roots, the use of O and Ё after sibilants, Э and E after consonants and vowels, and the alternation of И and Ы after prefixes. The lesson will take place on December 5.

On December 12, the lecturer will analyze the punctuation in participle constructions.

The final lesson will take place on December 26. It will focus on comparative constructions in sentences. Yegor Sartakov will pay particular attention to the word "how" and tell about the necessity of a comma before it.