Thread: налево vs слева vs влево

Is there any difference in how these 3 words are used? or are they interchangeable?

налево and влево are directions (куда? where to?) while слева is a location (где? where?).
налево and влево are synonyms.

Thanks for that. My teacher corrected my 'Маша повернулась влево' to 'Маша повернулась налево'.
Is налево just a more common word in this context?

Originally Posted by grafrich

Thanks for that. My teacher corrected my 'Маша повернулась влево' to 'Маша повернулась налево'.
Is налево just a more common word in this context?

Both are correct.

1. Driving \ walking. Налево = usually in context of 90 degree turn to the left ("на перекрестке поверните налево (влево)").
Влево - turning the wheel ("поверните руль влево"). На развилке сверните влево (налево).
But both of the words are almost equal.
Check 1.есть разница между словами влево и налево? | Lang-8: For learning foreign languages

2. Слева - Only location ("аптека находится слева"; "аптека слева")

Okay, thanks. Thats all clear now.

Well, налево and влево are synonyms, but often they cannot be used interchangeably. For example: "машина повернула налево" (манёвр на перекрёстке) vs "машину тянет влево" (неисправно рулевое управление). We can say "машина повернула влево" and "машину тянет налево", but it sounds a little bit strange (at least, for me).

In my opinion, they differ in their meaning in the following way:

Налево denotes the change of direction: We go in some direction initially and then we turn and go налево, to the left.

Влево denotes some characteristic of direction: a direction is such that it is related to the left side.
2016-09-08-084201_1366x768.png

That's interesting; I sort of expected there to be a difference in usage, but I wouldn't have been able to notice that one myself.
Thanks RedFox.