Russian Language Blog

A funny experience happened in my Russian class today, «дорогие друзья» [dear friends]. We are reading «Дама с собачкой» [The Lady with the Lapdog]. My professor said of the main character, «Гуров» [Gurov], «Он верен своей жене?» [Is he faithful to his wife?] I smiled and gave a resounding «Да, конечно» [yes, of course]. Unfortunately, that was wrong. I misread the bit where it says that «Гуров» is unfaithful to his wife: «Изменять ей он начал уже давно…» [He had started to be unfaithful to her a while ago]. And here I was thinking that meant she had perceived him to be a changed person or something like that, which admittedly did not make much sense in context. It just goes to show you: you learn something new every day! In the photo: «памятник Минину и Пожарскому» [the monument to Minin and Pozharsky (two commanders who defeated Polish-Lithuanian forces)].

I want to talk about a Russian holiday, «День народного единства» [Day of People's Unity] that was recently on November 4. I am always interested to learn about foreign countries’ holidays, so I was reading about this one a little bit last week.

«День народного единства» is a recent holiday. It is observed on November 4, «начиная с 2005 (две тысячи пятого) года» [beginning with 2005] and is «нерабочий день» [a non-working day]. And even though it is recent, its history actually dates back pretty far. «27 (двадцать седьмого) октября 1612 (тысяча шестьсот двенадцатого) года гарнизон в Москве сдался» [On October 27, 1612, a garrison in Moscow was surrendered]. One year later, «земский собор избрал новым царём Михаила Романова» [the Zemsky Sobor chose Mikhail Romanov as the new tsar]. This ended the Time of Troubles and began the new Romanov dynasty.

«С 1649 (тысяча шестьсот сорок девятого) года до 1917 (тысяча девятьсот семнадцатого) года» [From 1649 to 1917] November 4 was a holiday because it marked the liberation of Moscow from the Polish-Lithuanian force.

There has been controversy about the holiday because of groups espousing «национализм и ксенофобия» [nationalism and xenophobia] demonstrating on this day, like in the photo below:

The banner says «Вернём Россию русским!» [We will return Russia to the Russians!] This is a reference to some people’s dislike of immigrants from certain regions to Russia. It is an important issue today and there are quite a few politicians in Russia who say some pretty crazy things on this matter.

I am back, «дорогие читатели» [dear readers], ready to explain obscure points of Russian grammar to you. What have I been doing in the past weeks? Many things, all of which relate to school. I am writing «тезис» [a thesis] on a famous Soviet leader and just generally studying for exams (I just took three exams in a week-and-a-half span). Today, I am ready to teach you about a group of Russian verbs that are all translated into English as “to unite”. How do they differ? Read on! In the photo: the eighth party congress of «Единая Россия» [United Russia], Russia’s ruling party, from here.

In my Russian class, we have to report on the news every day («конечно, по-русски» [of course, in Russian]). Today I reported that «Евразийское экономическое сообщество» [the Eurasian Economic Community] discussed «присоединение Киргизии к таможенному союзу» [Kyrgyzstan's joining the customs union]. The word «присоединение» made me think. It comes from the verb «присоединяться/присоединиться», which is often translated as “to unite”. But so are the verbs «объединяться/объединиться» and «соединяться/соединиться». I have never been clear how to use these three verb pairs, so I said to my professor: «Существует ли разница между этими словами?» [Is there a difference between these words?] He answered: «Конечно» [Of course] and proceeded to explain.

The verb pair «объединяться/объединиться» refers to a few things (states, political parties, etc.) all coming together at once. So, in reference to that customs union Kyrgyzstan wants to join, you could say: «Россия, Белоруссия и Казахстан объединились» [Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan united]. Or like this strange headline from 23 August of this year says: «”Справедливая Россия” предложила КПРФ объединиться на выборах» [A Just Russia (a political party) has proposed to KPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) that they unite in the elections].

Let’s say that A Just Russia did unite with the communists and that after this union, suddenly «Правое дело» [Right Cause] wanted to join, too. Then we would say that «Партия “Правое дело” хочет присоединиться к группе» [The party "Right Cause" wants to join the group]. If there is an already-existing union, then you use «присоединяться/присоединиться». It might make more sense to think about this verb pair as meaning “to join”.

The verb pair «соединяться/соединиться» simply means “to unite” and is the most neutral. When I search it on Google (Google can be a great language learning tool, my friends), I see it often used in relation with technology, such as: «Не могу соединиться с сервером» [I can't connect to the server].

Any comments about these verbs? Please leave them below!

You may be wondering right now «Где же Наташа?» [Where is Natasha?]. I know I have had a long absence from «наш русский блог» [our Russian blog], but I am pleased to say: «я вернулась» [I have returned]. And in a later post, I will answer the questions: «Где я была? Что я делала?» [Where was I? What was I doing?] But for now, another post about social networking…

I have blogged about social networking before, and I mentioned the website «Фейсбук» [Facebook]. Well, in case you have not noticed, «Фейсбук» has made some «изменения» [changes] in the past few days. Over on our Facebook page (if you did not know it, my friends, I am telling you now: Transparent Language’s Russian blog has a Facebook page, and we would love it if you clicked «Мне нравится» [Like]), there is quite a discussion going on.

In response to «вопрос» [the question] “Use your Russian to say what you think of the new Facebook layout!” there are over two hundred responses. Yes, my friends, I do mean «двести» [two hundred]. Here is a selection of what some of you have been saying:

• «Это мусор!» [It's trash!]
• «Очень плохо!» [Very bad!]
• «У меня ещё не поменялся слава богу!!!» [Mine still hasn't changed yet, thank God!!!]
• «Это кошмар!» [It's a nightmare!]
• «Я хочу, чтобы они просто оставить его в покое.» [I just wish they'd leave it alone.]
• «Всё равно, я никогда не мог найти ничего здесь.» [It's all the same, I can never find anything on here anyway.]

«Честно говоря» [To be honest], I agree with that last statement. I do not like the new format, but I was not overly fond of the old one either.

A few people like it, such as one commenter who wrote «очень хорошо» [very good]. And some others really, really hate it and have used «мат» [bad language (okay, so I recognize that my example is not technically considered «мат», but it is still a word you really should not use in polite company)]. A common word I see in this discussion is «говно» [s**t].

But my favorite comment is this one: «Я люблю Россию» [I love Russia]. No matter what Facebook decides to do when changing its interface, «мы любим Россию» [we love Russia], right?

What do you think about the changes? Will this affect how many people use Facebook? Let me know in the comments!