Tag Archives: Russian humor
“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…
Dramatic poetry reading: «Багаж» (“Luggage”) Posted by Rob on Aug 29, 2012
I’ve been wanting for a while to make a video for the blog, but it took me a while to get over my camera-shyness — not to mention, fix some technical problems with my camcorder and figure out how to (sorta) use video-editing software. As my debut ролик (“video clip”) for the blog, I decided…
“Didja hear the one about…?” (Some Russian анекдоты) Posted by Rob on Aug 22, 2012
Russian анекдоты are not only a fascinating source of insight into Russian culture, but often provide a great opportunity to learn some important grammar and vocabulary. Here are just a few examples I’ve collected from the Internet — hover your cursor over the yellow-highlighted terms for some additional commentary on word usage. Political humor, of…
Greka and the Crayfish: The Sequel Posted by Rob on Jul 30, 2012
Last week, I offered some general tips on improving your pronunciation in Russian. One suggestion I overlooked: Reciting скороговорки (“tongue twisters”) can give you practice at distinguishing similar-but-different sounds, such as the hard and soft variants of consonants. For instance, the shortest Russian tongue-twister I know of is Пароль — «орёл» (“The password is eagle“)…
Introducing: «Советский анекдот» [the Soviet Joke] Posted by josefina on Nov 29, 2008
Russia is not only terribly fascinating just because it is the wildest, most chaotic and most unpredictable place on the face of the Earth, but also because it was once home to another country – yes, you guessed it – the Soviet Union. It is difficult to sum up the Soviet Union in a short…