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Speak Russian без акцента in just one month!!(?) Posted by Rob on Jul 25, 2012
Okay, maybe it’s not actually possible for a student of Russian to speak «без акцента» (“without a foreign accent”) in just a month — heck, I started studying the language in 1989 and I still haven’t completely gotten rid of my US-English акцент! But with the caveat that my Russian pronunciation is far from native…
A couple more words from the birds Posted by Rob on Jul 18, 2012
When I was working on last Monday’s “Name That Bird” post, in which a panel of six avian “mystery guests” offered подсказки (“hints, clues”) to their identity, I considered a longer list of birds but ended up cutting some of the feathered panelists just to avoid making the post too long. For instance, фламинго and…
Look It Up in Ozhegov! (or, “Using a Russian dictionary”) Posted by Rob on Jul 11, 2012
From the earliest days of learning Russian as a foreign language, we all make frequent use of a переводный словарь (“translation dictionary”), whether it’s English/Russian, French/Russian, Chinese/Russian, or whatever our native language may be. But as you gradually progress in your studies, it helps to become familiar with a different kind of reference tool, namely…
Назовите Эту Птицу! (Name That Bird!) Posted by Rob on Jul 9, 2012
Today, we’re going to get some sentence-reading practice as we play a round of that thrilling new шоу-викторина (“trivia-game show”), Назовите Эту Птицу! (“Name That Bird!”). And without further ado, here’s the ведущая (“TV-show hostess, moderator”) of our show, direct from her sold-out concert appearances in Vegas! Дамы и господа (“ladies and gentlemen”), please put…
A Geek, His Wife, A Thief, and a Super (or, my favorite Soviet film) Posted by Rob on Jul 2, 2012
The first full-length Soviet movie I watched in the original language was the 1973 comedy «Иван Васильевич меняет профессию» — Ivan Vasilyevich Changes Careers — which my 2nd-year college Russian instructor screened for the class on a grainy VHS tape with English subtitles. Later, it would be the first Russian-language movie I bought on DVD…
Blood and Brains: One more look at anatomy Posted by Rob on Jun 27, 2012
If you read the previous posts about Russian terms for human anatomy, you now know some words related to the biological process of eating, as well as moving around and reproducing. But we haven’t yet covered the most crucial “life-support” functions that keep the body alive — so let’s look at… Органы кровообращения и дыхания…
Internal Anatomy for “Clueless N00bs” Posted by Rob on Jun 25, 2012
Анатомия внутренних органов для «чайников» Last week, I took you on a whirlwind tour through the digestive tract. Today, we’ll continue our виртуальное вскрытие (“virtual dissection”) of the human body. Actually, almost everything one can say about our own internal anatomy is also true of other млекопитающие (“mammals”), and much of it applies to позвоночные…