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Archive for July, 2008

«Неважно» – unimportant or unwell? Posted by on Jul 31, 2008

A while back I posted an entry with the title ‘The Russian Emotion: Sickness’ , but it seems that I left one way of expressing feeling under the weather unmentioned back then. One early morning last fall a Russian friend told me: «Ты выглядишь неважно.» That didn’t make much sense at all to me at…

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Имя России [‘Name of Russia’]: Who’s Your Pick? Posted by on Jul 21, 2008

Russia is an enormous country. It is inhabited by millions of different people. Its history is colorful [to say the least], the culture exceptional and vivid, it is a country that has given many great artists, writers, thinkers, scientists [the list could go on and on] to the world, but never mind all that now…

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Linguistic Riddles: Жалоба Or Жалованье? Posted by on Jul 12, 2008

Some things are easy. When it comes to the verb «любить» [to love] it is no surprise that the noun to go with is no other than «любовь» [love]. Other things – not so much. It is not always uncomplicated to figure out which noun goes with which verb, and sometimes guessing is not recommended…

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Learning Russian In The News Posted by on Jul 9, 2008

Learning Russian is no walk in Gorky Park, something I suppose most of you are already more than well aware of. Often we talk about the difficulties of this language, we try to sort out verbs of motions and what not, but when was the last time you heard someone talk about how much fun…

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Test Your Russian! Posted by on Jul 7, 2008

One of our readers, who signs his comments here as Stas, sent me a mail with the following link today: “Тест: Знаете ли вы русский язык?” [Test: Do You Know Russian Language?] He told me that he scored 7 out of the 8 questions right, something that, according to statistics, only 15% of Russians are…

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The Difference Between Being «Русский» And Being A «Россиянин» Posted by on Jul 3, 2008

In the light of the discussion that arised around my last post, I thought I might take today to clear a few things up as well as explain some linguistic peculiarities. After four years in Russia I’ve seen and heard a great deal of things, not all of them have made me happy and proud…

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