Expressing connection, relationship with У

If you’re starting out with Russian, you may have learned about using the preposition у for “having something“ (У меня есть виза) and being at someone’s place (Мы были у Серёжи). In this video we’ll learn about another important usage of у: to express a sense of connection or relationship. This nuance isn’t always easy to translate into another language, but it’s very common in everyday speech. Getting comfortable with this will help you understand how Russians sometimes express affection, pride, or even – in some contexts – a note of irony. We’ll go over some basic examples, compare у to a way of using “on“ in English, and also touch on why this usage of у is sometimes difficult to express in English.