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!