Archive for 'language'
10 Ways To Say You Don’t Care In Russian – Part II Posted by Maria on Jan 18, 2016
Last week, we looked at some colloquial ways of saying you don’t care about something. We listed five, but that’s not all! Let us continue the list. 6. до ла́мпочки Лампа is the diminutive of ла́мпа (lamp) and usually means “light bulb.” [Noun/pronoun in dative] + до ла́мпочки is yet another synonym of “I…
10 Ways To Say You Don’t Care In Russian – Part I Posted by Maria on Jan 14, 2016
Read Part II here. Russian has many ways to say you don’t care about something. They range from neutral to decidedly low-register to downright vulgar. In this post, I would like to cover some colloquial ways of expressing indifference. Let’s start with the basics. Normally, we say “[adjective/noun in the dative case] + всё равно́”…
Паронимы: Frequently Confused Words in Russian Posted by Maria on Dec 7, 2015
If you grew up in the former USSR and had Russian in grade school, you will remember that most of your class time would be spent going over the numerous rules of that language. One of the aspects that often came up in my Russian classes was what is called паро́нимы. Паронимы are words that look similar…
Fear of Speaking a Second Language Posted by Jenya on Nov 4, 2015
I can remember back to when I began learning English in school about 10 years before actually coming to America. It was fun, exciting, and quite difficult. My parents had always told me that I needed to learn English in order to have a brighter future. Before I’d graduated our version of high school, I’d…
Russian Braille and Sign Language Posted by Maria on Oct 15, 2015
Today I would like to talk about a different kind of Russian. We have mostly been talking about the spoken Russian and its graphic representation in the Cyrillic alphabet. Let us look at the communication for the deaf and blind communities in Russia. First, I must say that unfortunately the blind (слепы́е) /vision-impaired and…
Speak of the Devil — Idioms With Чёрт in Russian Posted by Maria on Oct 12, 2015
In the month of October, much of the United States (and other Anglophone countries, I imagine) is getting ready to celebrate Halloween. Some of you may know that this holiday is not universally celebrated in Russia and has even caused some controversy. There used to be a different occasion for dressing up and role-playing…
Yakov Smirnoff: Russian Funny Man! Posted by Jenya on Sep 30, 2015
Yakov Naumovich Pokhis, better known as Yakov Smirnoff, is a comedian born in the Soviet Union in 1951. After emigrating to the United States in 1977, he changed his last name to Smirnoff after the vodka. During the 1980’s and early into the 90’s, Smirnoff saw his brand of humor taking off and resonating with…