Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with russian

Tips for learning advanced vocabulary and grammar in a foreign language?

kristi — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 09:31:16 -0800

What are your tips and techniques for learning advanced vocabulary and grammar in a foreign language? I'm happy with my techniques for learning basic vocabulary (sky, street, house, speak, run) in another language. I'd like to do better with more advanced vocabulary, especially:

* more abstract words (such as the adjective "striking")
* related words with specialized differences ("ship" vs. "boat")

I'm also struggling a bit with the best way to learn and review advanced grammar (for example, in Spanish, the personal subject pronoun can usually be omitted, but there are times when it's required).

What resources do you use?

What techniques do you use?

My main target languages are Spanish and French, but I'd also appreciate suggestions for Italian and German, as well as Russian and Japanese.

I am a huge fan of Anki spaced-repetition software, so I'd be delighted to have suggestions that take advantage of SRS. (For example, if you use additional material, such as example sentences that use the target, do you put them on the back or the front of the card?)

Thanks!

In Russia, Travel somethings You!

small_ruminant — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 10:39:25 -0800

We're thinking of travelling to Tula for our honeymoon. How hard is it to travel in Russia these days, if you're not going to a usual travel destination? We're interested in the accordion and samovar factories there, and probably we'd like to see some of the Suzdal area monasteries.

I used to speak Russian at a university level- I was never completely fluent- but now only know rudimentary phrases. I can get my point across to someone but generally can't understand their responses. My fiance only speaks and reads English. We're both white, which is helpful. (I hate to say it, but it's true).

I visited St Petersburg (Leningrad) in 1990 for several months, when it was still Soviet, and I didn't think twice about travelling back then. In 1997 I stayed several months in St. Petersburg and it was scary thuglife gangsta. The last time I was there for 10 days in 2003, it seemed far less wild west but I stayed with a Russian friend and I didn't hazard any long journeys by myself. Each time I've visited the changes have been exponential. The current proliferation of dash cams makes me think it's far more dangerous to navigate if you don't know when to pay a bribe or whom to stay out of the way of.

On this trip, I was thinking we'd start in St. Petersburg to see my friend, go to Novgorod for a day, just because I have fond memories of it :) and then head south to Tula and Suzdal.

Any suggestions? How hard is it to travel these days? How hard is it to deal with papers/militzia/bribes, especially if your Russian sucks?

Any suggestions for a travel agency in the San Francisco Bay Area that I can use? Last time I found that having a Russian dealing with the consulate and visa papers was invaluable.

Any and all suggestions very welcome.

Script for Krokodil Gena

sanskrtam — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 12:28:23 -0800

I'm learning Russian right now. I wonder if there's a website that has the whole script for the 1971 Soviet cartoon, Cheburashka. I've been using Yandex and Google and I didn't get any result for the past few days. Thank you.

What's Misha the bear's last name?

madcaptenor — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:09:15 -0800

In Russian fairy tales, bears are named Misha. Or so my girlfriend, a student of Russian, says; so does Wikipedia and this New York Times blog which quotes something saying "all Russian bears are named Misha". But does this Russian bear have a last name? She swears that the Russian fairy-tale bear has a canonical last name but she can't remember what it is! Any ideas? Or any sources that might be useful? (I don't read Russian. She does.)

How to copy/paste Cyrillic characters from PDF?

lily_bart — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 19:23:24 -0800

For years, I've accepted as fact that Russian-language PDFs don't play nice with other programs. That if you tried to paste copied text into Word or Notepad, you'd get gibberish characters. (I work on two laptops, one with Windows Vista and Acrobat, the other Windows 7 and Reader.) Are there any clever workarounds or programs I should know about? Googling this issue only confused me more. Someone on one forum mentioned installing "freeware" Cyrillic fonts, but searching for that led me to some sketchy sites with (admittedly cool-looking) skateboarder-style graphic fonts, but I can't imagine that would help...

English Subtitles for "Moscow I love you."

pandorasbox — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:35:50 -0800

There is a film series of short films called "cities of love." The most common one is "New York, I love you." and "Paris, j t'aime" which are all over the place. However, my friend said "Moskva, ya lyublyu tebya!" (Moscow, I love you) is really good, but I can't find the English subtitles. I already have the movie, I just need the subtitles file. (Though hints on finding the movie with subtitles is also appreciated!) Any ideas where to look? This movie seems to be really obscure!

In Soviet Russia, Cucumber Eats YOU!

julthumbscrew — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 07:56:02 -0800

In Soviet Russia, Cucumber Eats YOU!: okay, I can't believe I'm using a question on this, but I've been driven mad by it for years: my dad claims that Russians eat cucumbers in a certain distinctly Russian manner, and that Yul Brynner once ate one that way in a film. Do they? Did he? Okay. I KNOW this is ridiculous, but: my dad grew up in a freshly-immigrated Russian family and socialized with other freshly-immigrated Russkies in his youth. He has long claimed that "when a Russian eats a cucumber, he does it in a certain way", and that Yul Brynner once demonstrated this Russian cuke-consumption style in a movie. He doesn't remember which movie. Nor will he SHOW me how a Russian eats a cucumber. I do not think he's pulling my leg (he's not a big practitioner of long-form pranks, and he's been asserting the Russian Cucumber Mythos for decades).

Any input, Hive Mind? Spasiba!

I need a Russian Larousse Gastronomique

ivan ivanych samovar — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 21:57:41 -0800

Can anyone recommend any good all-around Russian-English or Russian-French culinary dictionaries, online or in print? I am trying to decipher some recipes in Maksim Syrnikov's Русская домашняя кухня, and they are kicking my ass.

Specifically, the general purpose dictionaries I own are fine for vegetable and animal names, and really crappy for cuts of meat, or collective nouns of vegetables: I figured out from context that he meant a "bunch of parsley" or "cloves of garlic", but all I can tell from some of the meat phrases is that there was a shank or a shoulder involved.

I have found the following resources so far, but they are far from exhaustive, and seem to cover more ingredients than methods of cooking. As you might surmise from the use of wayback machine, most of these are not recently maintained, as well...

cuts of beef, cuts of beef

cuts of veal

cuts of lamb, cuts of mutton, cuts of lamb

cuts of pork

Russian food dictionary (does not cover meat)

other food dictionary, somewhat arbitrary choices

Where can I combine nordic skiing with Russian language immersion - outside Russia?

nihotaniwha — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 01:55:12 -0800

Outside Russia, where can I combine cross country skiing with Russian language immersion? I'm a reasonably good nordic skier, and speak low-intermediate Russian. Now I want to spend around a month somewhere improving both. The sort of place I'm after would enable me to spend half of each day in lessons / immersing myself in Russian language (ideally a decent sized town at least) and the other half training on a decent and varied network of well-maintained cross country skiing trails. Ruling out Russia and Belarus to avoid the need for visas lands me in the area of the Baltic states or Ukraine I guess - but does anyone have any specific ideas or experience? Thanks!

How does one become a High School Russian teacher

SollosQ — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:40:36 -0800

How do I go about getting hired for a position that doesn't exist: a High School Russian teacher? The job exists, or so there has been a precedence for such a position at other schools. In fact, the College Board has been developing and testing an AP Russian Culture and Language test. What I want to do, is approach high schools, and make the case that they should offer a Russian language class to their students, and that I would be a fitting candidate for teaching.

Now, how do I got about doing that? Let's say I have a CV; and a cover letter detailing the reasons for why the Russian language should be taught and my own credentials; and a complete syllabus for the course, serving as a beginning proposal.

Do I send an email to the employment address, if they have one - some don't, or do I give them a call? If I send an email, how should I start? I'm personally inclined to just shove all my documents out to them and let them get back to me if they're interested, but I can see how this could be seen as too forward or desperate.

For what it's worth, I'm a senior at university preparing for my Spring graduation. I am also aware of my university's career services, and am going to get in touch with them about this and other things.

Is there a term for this kind of punning word play?

easy, lucky, free — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:47:10 -0800

Attention, language types of MetaFilter: The Russian word poshlost' is roughly equivalent to the English "banality" or "self-satisfied mediocrity." Vladimir Nabokov wittily rendered it as poshlust ("posh" + "lust"), and described it as "not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive." Is there a specific term for this kind of word play? Obviously, it's a pun, but I'm looking for something more specific or technical than that.

I'm familiar with the term "eggcorn," and that seems almost right, but not quite.

Any ideas?

how to add new dictionaries on mac osx?

221bbs — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 11:10:05 -0800

Is there any way of adding new dictionaries to the system dictionary app for Mac OSX? I am learning russian and would love to be able to highlight a word and receive an english-to-russian or even just russian definition. I am running the latest version of mountain lion.

Sweet and sexy Russian phrases

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:31:53 -0800

Please teach me how to say sexy and flirty things to my boyfriend in Russian. I speak and read Russian, but I've never learned how to say sexy/flirty things that one would say to a boyfriend, since I've never had to speak Russian to anyone other than my family. The literal translations for "you are so sexy" or "you are the sweetest" sound really weird to me. My boyfriend is learning Russian, so it'd be fun to teach him some phrases, and to challenge him with compliments in Russian. I need some sweet phrases, slightly dirty phrases (very cheesy dirty phrases are ok too!), basically anything that loving couples actually say to each other.

How do you say:
You are cute/sexy/sweet (both guys and girls in case different words are used) or any other common compliments
Let's go have sex/do it right now
I want you so bad right now
How do you give compliments and um, directions in bed? how do you actually refer to various body parts in bed? (nothing too dirty but some basic stuff)

Basically anything that comes to mind, teach me how to say it!

throwawaymetafilter@gmail.com, just in case you don't want to answer here. Thanks!!

Reading english websites in russian to practice russian

mnemonic — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:07:42 -0800

Is it a good idea to practice russian by reading english websites translated into russian via google translate? Or would the flaws in the translation be too much? I'd be reading all the sites I normally visit, including MeFi, Reddit, WSJ, random news sites and some forums. I was thinking that even though the translation may be error-prone or awkward, just having the exposure to that much vocabulary would be beneficial.

Russian Translation

lungtaworld — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 09:23:55 -0800

I have several identical Bonds written entirely in ?Cyrillic/Russian and would much appreciate their headings translated for me. (No need for a full translation!) Here is a picture. And if anyone knows how they may be safely sold, so much the better.

I have looked at NY auction houses and also eBay but not happy as they do not seem to cater for foreign documents. Any help welcomed!

I know the search word is 'Scripophily' but this has not helped.

Russian Language - Can You Help?

watercarrier — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 01:29:08 -0800

Russian - What Does This Say? What does the wording on this package say?

to Russia with love

spbmp — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:39:21 -0800

Do you know any good videos for young children to learn a little Russian? I'm taking my little boy to Russia. He's in first grade. I think it'd be fun for him to have a smattering of Russian under his belt, some fun and/or useful expressions to use when he's there. (Maybe asking for things, foods, hello my name is's, animals, silly stuff to say, etc...) He's familiar with a couple of words like спасибо and пажалуиста, but not well enough to use them unprompted/unhinted. Are there some good (and fun) videos he could watch with healthy doses of repetition, and maybe some sing-song-iness, to help burnish a little lingo into his beautiful brain?

What are the Russian Lyrics to this song?

subarctic_guy — Fri, 11 May 2012 23:41:50 -0800

I'm looking for lyrics (in Russian/Cyrillic) to this song. I'm not familiar enough with russian to do more than pick out a few words. I don't want the English lyrics, I would like to figure that part out myself. :) Any help at all would be appreciated.

What should I bring back from Russia?

Marquis — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:06:32 -0800

I am visiting Russia in June - Moscow, St Petersburg and Magadan. What should I buy while I'm there? Which food items, clothing, booze or um anything-at-all are wonderful, affordable and hard to find elsewhere? Particularly interested in specific recommendations - belts from this shop / blueberry jam from here.

(I live in Montreal.)

Thank you!

Where does protest live online (I'm not Putin, honest)

221bbs — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 17:18:34 -0800

I am an English speaker learning Russian. I am also interested in the recent protest movements in and around Moscow. Where are the forums/twitter accounts/facebook accounts/blogs where opinions are being formed? They will be used as a resource in learning the language and understanding contemporary russian politics.

Russian translation?

Currer Belfry — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 13:26:45 -0800

Song from a Russian film score - lyrics translation wanted. I watched The Return last night and will be thinking about it for at least a few days, if not longer. I'd recommend it for any film lover.

This brief song (whose title is "Old Man," according to the YouTube comments) is played right before the final credits start to roll. If any Russian speaker out there is so inclined, I would love a translation, no matter how rough.

Спасибо! (I learned at least one thing from the Internet today...)

Can you recommend passages to memorize?

kristi — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 09:27:02 -0800

Can you recommend passages I can memorize in Spanish, French, Italian, German, or Russian? I'm trying to keep up the various languages I've studied over the years:
* Spanish
* French
* German
* Italian, and
* Russian

One thing I've found really helpful is memorizing a few sentences of something in the target language. I have a simplified reader of Tolstoy's "Nikita's Childhood" for Russian, a couple of plays by my favorite Spanish playwright (Buero Vallejo) for Spanish, and Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity" in German, but I could use some other good sources.

Can you recommend some material in any of those languages that I can memorize?

For me, ideal passages would be:

- clearly and elegantly written
- medium difficulty or medium-advanced difficulty - harder than Dick and Jane, but easier than Shakespeare (except the Russian - medium-easy or medium would be better there; my Russian's pretty basic)
- publicly available: in the public domain or otherwise widely legally available on the web
- compelling - JFK's "we will go to the moon" rather than dry analysis
- not overly flowery; I prefer memorable prose over poetry
- reasonably modern - probably no earlier than 1850 or 1800 ... 21st Century is fine if it's easily available

I'm usually memorizing 20-80 words at a time, but I'm happy to work on longer pieces in chunks. Complete long works are fine, but I would especially appreciate pointers to specific shortish passages to focus on.

Bits of plays (especially monologs) or well-known speeches (like MLK speeches or Churchill's WWII speeches) would be great. Really evocative descriptive passages would also be good.

The more vocabulary and phrasing I could carry over into everyday conversation or thinking, the better.

Among my favorite English writers for these purposes would be Tom Stoppard and John McPhee, just to give you an idea of some styles I like.

Thanks!

Russian dictionary support on the Nook Simple Touch?

griphus — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:19:06 -0800

Is there any way I can replace the standard dictionary on my Nook Simple Touch with a Russian/English dictionary? So I just got a Nook Simple Touch and I am really impressed by the "Look Up" inline dictionary function. However, I could really use the same feature for Russian books. Any way to do this? I'm more than fine with jailbreaking if it's required.

What I do not want is to leave reader app, look up the word, and go. It's the seamless integration that I'm looking for. Thanks in advance!

Speaking Russian in Asia

peachtree — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:37:39 -0800

Why are there so many Taiwanese, Japanese, and S. Koreans learning Russian as a foreign language? My American-bred stereotype is that Asians tend to study topics which are industrial and "useful": engineering, English. So is there something I'm missing here if it's for personal pleasure? Or if it is just for business, what are the specific industries, commodities, and companies that make Russian applicable in that region of Asia? I signed up to take some courses to learn Russian at a major university (Lomonosov) in Moscow, and was surprised to learn from the instructor that the top three most populous students are from Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea.

As an American who has lived and worked in Asia, my general understanding was that English was highly valuable as a foreign language for both personal life and in a business setting. In the United States, the general stereotype is one should learn Spanish for the same reason. Or even in a more naive narrow-minded "American person" generalization, as a whole English, Spanish, French, and Mandarin Chinese are now highly prized as a 2nd language.

- What does Russian have to do with Taiwan, Japan, and S. Korean?

- How useful/applicable is being able to speak Russian outside of Russia? Where?

- If it's simply for business reasons, what are the specific industries, commodities, and companies that make Russian applicable in that region of Asia?

What should my characters be named?

Lady Gaga — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 19:42:06 -0800

Help me give my fictional characters non-stereotyped names! Degree of difficulty: Iranian and Russian I have three characters I'm trying to name and I could use a little help. I want their names to be appropriate to their families and ages, and am hoping to avoid the obvious stereotypes (e.g., Natasha for the Russians) unless it really would be the most appropriate name.

My characters are:

1) An Iranian man, born between 1975 and 1980ish, from a fairly Western and intellectual family. The family is Muslim or Zoroastrian (not yet determined) but not very religious/observant.

2) A Russian woman, around the same age, from a struggling family in or near Moscow.

3) A Russian woman in her sixties (so born in the immediate post-WWII period) who has achieved great success in the Soviet and, later, Russian national government.

Also, any names in particular to avoid?