Archive for 'Uncategorized'
Metaphoric Country Names Posted by Maria on Dec 1, 2014
Russian is notoriously intolerant of repeating words within a sentence or in adjacent sentences. As a result, elaborate circumlocutions are used to say the same thing. A specific case is metaphors that refer to countries. As always, I will link to sources for words in languages I don’t know. All usage examples come from the Russian National Corpus…
Writing about Russia for Dummies – Part II Posted by Maria on Nov 20, 2014
We are continuing our discussion from last week about things to keep in mind if you plan to feature Russia or Russians in your creative work. History and Governance Mixing Up Historical Periods The territory that is now Russia (and the neighboring territories that are not) has undergone many transformations in terms of its national…
Writing about Russia for Dummies – Part I Posted by Maria on Nov 13, 2014
Disclaimer: This post is English-heavy. It is directed at people who do not have a strong background in the Russian language or culture. If you like seeing more Russian in posts, you probably already know most of what I am going to say. Read Part II here. Say you are fascinated with Russia and would like to make…
Russian Skill Check: Can You Translate This? Posted by Jenya on Nov 12, 2014
Recently I found out that Russian President Vladimir Putin was ranked by Forbes Magazine as the most powerful person in the world; this was the second year in a row that he has earned this title. I decided that writing an article on the subject while weaving in some Russian sentences might be a good…
Colloquial Praises Posted by Maria on Oct 23, 2014
If you took Russian — or any language, for that matter — you probably eventually arrived at a point when your teacher encouraged you to use words other than хороший (good) to praise things. Hopefully, you started using замечательный, чудесный (both mean wonderful), восхитительный (delightful), великолепный (magnificent), прекрасный (great, beautiful), отменный (select, top-notch), отличный (excellent) and…
Expand Your Palette – in Russian Posted by Maria on Sep 22, 2014
Colors are one of the first things you learn in any language. However, as you talk to native speakers or read authentic literature, you will start noticing that they are they are more diverse than the basic colors of the rainbow you learned. The Basics Colors of the rainbow go like this: красный оранжевый жёлтый…
Seven Things about Russia You Didn’t Know Posted by Jenya on Sep 16, 2014
Many of you know so much about Russia! Some of you were fortunate enough to go there, others spent a lot of time reading about it. Whatever the case, I hope the information below fuels your curiosity even more and propels you to dive deeper into the culture and history of this country, a country…