Thread: approximations; when to use около, с + acc, reverse order of number and noun

Hi,

These seem to be the three ways of expressing 'approximately' in Russian. Unfortunately, my grammar textbook doesn't explain the usage of any of these, and I seem to have failed to find a way of describing it in order to search on google; does anyone know of any good resources which explain which one to use for any given situation?

Thank you,

R

I don't think there's any meaningful difference between the three. Just the usual, like около can be characterized as your "official" version as in it'd be good for any situation. I mean you can use it at work and at home quite safely. С + acc is, well, same thing, it's just that I don't think people use this one nearly as much as the others these days and when they do, they usually do it informally. And the reverse order, that one is good for your casual conversation but I don't think anyone would frown upon you for using it at work. That's pretty much the gist of it. There's also примерно and приблизительно, these can be used like "примерно/приблизительно 3 рубля." But again, essentially these are all the same thing.

Okay, thanks iCake.

If I wanted so say 'the hand swelled up to the size of a baseball glove', I'd be inclined to say 'рука распухла с бейсбольную перчатку'; c + accusative. Just in this one sense of meaning 'the size of'. And then maybe I'd use около for everything else, except for approximations of time, where I tend to feel like using noun followed by time; 'час три' etc. I seem to recall seeing примерно used in a technical/engineering context, but I may be misremembering, and приблизительно to me means 'in the region of', which is just another expression for approximately, which can be used anywhere you like.

Does that make sense? Or is some/all of that wrong?

One last thing, how do I 'like' a post? I'm sure I used to know how to do that...

I'd say one of these:
Рука распухла как бейсбольная перчатка
Рука стала размером с бейсбольную перчатку
Рука распухла до размеров бейсбольной перчатки

Приблизительно is much more useful word, you can for example give приблизительное meaning(значение) for a word, you are not able translate exactly.
Or you can only give a vague description of smth/smb, this time you provide приблизительное описание.
It's totally ok to say приблизительно/примерно в шесть часов.
etc

I can locate Like button on the right of each post.

HTH

Thanks Maxmixiv,

I hadn't seen the little 'like' button before, I think I need to get better glasses...
I like the alternative sentences here, I did wonder about maybe expressing that using размер, so it's good to know that this would perfectly normal for a native speaker. Приблизительно is a word I don't think I've actually used before, but it sounds pretty versatile. I feel like I'm prety on top of the subject now!

R