Oldies, but Goodies – Love Songs Edition Posted by yelena on Feb 14, 2013
Yay, it’s Valentine’s Day today! Love it or make fun of it, there’s no escape from dozens of red roses, pounds of chocolate candy, piles of cheesy postcards and other holiday hoopla. Either way, let’s make the most out of the occasion and listen to some love songs that you have probably not heard before and get…
Are There Any Good Knock-Knock Jokes in Russian? Posted by yelena on Feb 6, 2013
Speaking of stereotypes, Russians usually view themselves as having a highly-developed чувство юмора (sense of humor). We cherish our анекдоты (jokes), however бородатые (old; lit: bearded) they might be. Indeed, Russians have an impressive catalog of joke categories, from армянское радио (Armenian radio) one-liners to elaborate шутки о том свете (afterlife jokes; lit: jokes about…
The same-ish, yet kinda different… Posted by Rob on Feb 6, 2013
Hello, it’s good to be back! Я целую неделю лежал в постели, с всеми признаками гриппой. (“I spent the entire week in bed with all the symptoms of flu.”) У меня были кашли, насморк в голове, лихорадка, и хуже всего, меня постоянно тошнило. (“I had coughing, head congestion, a fever, and worst of all, constantly…
Gangnam Russian Style Posted by yelena on Jan 24, 2013
The only way you would not have heard PSY’s “Gangnam Style” is if you с Луны свалились (fell off the Moon). Otherwise, by now you’ve probably heard the song one time too many. But as a another well-known (Russian) song goes, “эх, раз, да ещё раз, да ещё много, много раз!” (once, and once more and…
5 Russian Stereotypes Other Than Winter, Vodka and Bears Posted by yelena on Jan 17, 2013
In the middle of the winter, a group of young foreigners travels across Russia searching for Russian women, Russian vodka and Russian bears. Nope, this is not a sequel to Особенности национальной охоты (Peculiarities of the National Hunt) movie. Instead, it is this year’s Cinetrain documentary project. The twenty four filmmakers participating in it are…
“So the lady says to the talking margarine…” (Participles and dumb TV ads) Posted by Rob on Jan 16, 2013
The title of the post is drawn from a list of “Stupid TV Commercial Cliches” that I found on a Russian humor site. I got a kick out of it because “idiotic advertising” has been a staple of English-language humor for generations, but in Russian, poking fun at consumerism is mostly a post-Soviet development. Apart…
“In eight o’clock of morning, at January 8th, on the 2013…” Posted by Rob on Jan 8, 2013
…this post are scheduled for to be auto-publishing’ed over blog Transparent! 😉 A Russian learning English might make these exactly these sorts of stereotypical blunders with English предлоги (“prepositions”) — saying “at January 8th” instead of “on January 8th,” for instance. But an English speaker learning Russian faces faces exactly the same problem of…