Грамматика русского языка. Часть 8. Глагол. Глава 14. Перевод глагола “быть”. Russian Grammar. Part 8. The Verb. Unit 14. Translation of the verb “to be”.

Translation of the verb to be into Russian gives rise to much difficulty, for it is rendered by some form of its most obvious equivalent, быть, in only a small proportion of instances. The following list gives some indication of the numerous verbs to which Russian resorts in contexts in which an English-speaker might comfortably use some part of the verb to be.

Урок 25. Проблема с определением времени действия. Lesson 25. Problems in choice of tense.

Russian in some contexts requires use of a tense which is unexpected to English-speakers.

(a) Reported speech, in which Russian verbs are put in the tense that would have been used in the original statement or question. Reported speech may be defined for this purpose as statements introduced by verbs of thinking, knowing, hoping and even verbs of perception such as hearing as well as verbs of saying, asking and replying. This usage differs from English usage. Compare, for example, the tenses used in the reported speech in the following Russian and English sentences:

Грамматика русского языка. Часть 8. Глагол. Глава 13. Глаголы движения. Russian Grammar. Part 8. The Verb. Unit 13. Verbs of motion.

There are fourteen pairs of imperfective verbs of motion which give particular difficulty to the foreign student. There is perhaps no entirely satisfactory term to define the two categories: the terms abstract, indeterminate and multidirectional are all applied to the category including ходить, whilst the terms concrete, determinate and unidirectional are applied to the category which includes идти. The fourteen pairs are as follows:

ходить	идти	to walk, go on foot
ездить	ехать	to travel, go by transport
бегать	бежать	to run

Урок 23. Использование слова “свой”. Lesson 23. Use of the word “свой”.

Use of this word gives much difficulty to the English-speaker, because English has only one possessive pronoun for each person. Cвой declines like мой and agrees in gender, case and number with the noun it qualifies. It denotes possession by the person or thing which is the subject of the clause in which the possessive pronoun occurs irrespective of whether that subject is first, second or third person and  singular or plural. It might therefore translate any of the English possessive pronouns in the following variations:
I/you/he/she/we/they have/has lost my/your/his/her/our/their money.
Я/ты/он/онa/мы/вы/они потeрял(a/и) свои дeньги.

Урок 10. Пропуск глагола ЕСТЬ. Lesson 10. Omission of the verb ЕСТЬ.

Прочитайте предложения:
Read the sentences:
 
У Кати много друзей. [U Kati mnoga druzey]
У меня много книг на английском и на испанском языках. [U minya mnoga knik na angliskam i na ispanskam yazykah]
У нашего города интересная история. [U nashiva gorada intiresnaya istoriya]

In the expression of quality or quantity of a person or thing we don't use the verb ЕСТЬ. 
In sentences containing an evaluation, the logical stress is shifted from the availability to the quality and quantity of the person or thing mentioned, which make the use of the verb  ЕСТЬ unnecessery.

Сравните диалоги:
Compare the dialogues: