Can someone tell me what this word is? устаканились

It is sort of a slang term that means "things have settled down". Literally, it is "the glass has settled". You may recognize the root word стакан or glass.

sorted out..Used like problems been sorted out...Problemi ustakanilis...
Or life been sorted out

Yes, it means sorted out, got fixed or fixed itself.

I recognized the "stakan" part, but the rest didn't make much sense to me. I looked it up in my official dictionary and it didn't say squat about this word. So, I waited for my "unofficial" dictionary, a.k.a. my Russian wife to come home and asked her about it. She said she's never heard of it before and when I told her what the others on here said, she said "OK. I guess it can be used like this, but I've never heard this word before."

Seems that some Russian slang is regional.

You can guess some of the meaning of устаканились

у - prefix, often meaning away, or an aspect variation
стакан - glass
или - past tense, plural
сь - reflexive (acting on itself)

Looking at the word without knowing its meaning, you can say "The glass has taken away itself' The "y" prefix doesn't have an "away" meaning here (that happens with motion verbs, or the genative case), and you can't guess how a prefix changes a word exactly.

This can help with making an more accurate translation, though the word is idomatic enough that it is insufficient for a correct translation.

Does anyone know of a good book of Russian idioms?

Wow! I never analyzed words this way.

Care to try that with another one?
УКОЛБАСИЛИСЬ

Great word! I have a good combination too:
Сопритюхнуться и вздребезнуться.
Variants, anybody?

I've got a good book for curse words, but if it's not a "bad" word, then I'm #$%%A@Q!

Russ, you've got a good jump on finding the meaning with your system, but like determining English words based on their Latin roots, it's a crapshoot. And to quote my man Caesar... "the die is cast."

It isn't "my system" - just the grammar of the Russian language.

You always need to be aware of false cognates. (words that are similar in two languages, but mean something totally different). Blues Fairy's point is similar - just because a word appears to have a root you know, the word may mean something else. This is more true of colloquial language and slang, but also occurs with dictionary words.

English words do not all have latin roots - there are plenty with Greek and French roots, as well as borrow words from other languages. And some German as well (English is a germanic language).

Even slang in Russian will agree in Case, Number and Gender -- knowing the grammar is still important. It doesn't matter if you know what the rules are called, you just need to use them correctly. As a non-native learner of the language, that usually means that learning the grammar is easier than learning from context.

What in the world does it mean?? I've never heard anything like it.

It's actually a toast that my professors back in Russia loved! It means literary to clink glasses.

You've almost got me sold on your "proper" learning. Each time you add a little bit, I see it's probably the part that I'm lacking to take me to the next level. This post has illuminated to me why I've been thinking to myself "You don't need grammar. Grammar is useless without knowing the other stuff first." I realize up to this point, I haven't needed grammar because all (or the significant part) of the Russian language I've learned and used has been learned/used in context, not in a formal study setting.

I've picked up a little here and there from chitayu moi slovar (which isn't all the way right but it works for communication purposes.... now I need some endings!) because my goal has only been to be understood in an informal setting and to bridge the gap in communications between non-fluent speakers of either language. Now that I'm among fluent speakers of both languages (my wife is so much better than me!) it's time for me to step my game up. Guess I'm going to Princeton!

There was a question a while back about where the Princeton course went. Apparently the guy who wrote it is no longer at Princeton, so it too is gone.

Fortunately, he got permission to put it up on BitTorrent. Here: http://www.mininova.org/tor/904728
Masterrussian.net has links to just about anything else you might want.

I also still recommend the Голоса series as well (what I used in class). Less suited to self-study, but the exercises are very good.

If anyone remembers who was asking about the, PM me or them.

it was me and thank you; now if I can just open the file I will be good

well; got it downloaded but it is some type of torrent file and can not open; back to square one

You need a Bit Torrent client to download it. You can get one here: http://www.bittorrent.com/download?csrc=header