«Право на радость» [Entitlement to Joy] Posted by josefina on Sep 7, 2008
The success of Russian soccer players in early summer revealed to Дума [the Duma] the hitherto practically unknown problem of the average Russian Ivan being prohibited by law to wave the flag of the Russian Federation in any way he or she might see fit. During June this year, millions of Russians took to the…
Learning ‘Conversational Russian’ Posted by josefina on Sep 2, 2008
A good textbook often reads just like a novel. One excellent example of this is Helen Yakobson’s “Conversational Russian: An Intermediate Course” from 1985 [при The George Washington University]. Earlier this summer I found it in a box up in my mother’s attic marked “Russian books”, this pale orange and tattered little book of no…
Is The Russian Tradition «идти в гости» Dying? Posted by josefina on Aug 29, 2008
My last post may or may not have been a little too optimistic [the comparative got me carried away there for a moment], something I intend to make up for today with a more serious post on a gloomier subject. As I have to read my favorite Russian paper online these days, I stumbled on…
Let’s Go Grammar Crazy & Do Comparative! [или кое-что о сравнительной степени прилагательных] Posted by josefina on Aug 27, 2008
It has happened again, and this time it happened rather suddenly – I found something in Russian language that I haven’t given much thought to as of late but which amused me to such an extreme that I could not refrain from sharing it with you all. The other day I was browsing through a…
Dictionary Must-Have: Толковый Словарь Русского Языка Posted by josefina on Aug 20, 2008
Wisdom is meant to be shared with others. No piece of advice given to me proved to be so wise in regards to learning Russian as the one I am about to share with you today. Back in the days when I was biding my time in Sweden after studying one semester in Saint Petersburg…
«Неважно» – unimportant or unwell? Posted by josefina 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…
Имя России [‘Name of Russia’]: Who’s Your Pick? Posted by josefina 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…