Friday, January 25, 2008

Swear words in Russian or Russian Language culture

Russian language is very popular nowadays in a lot of countries around the world, because of the Russian growing economy and Putin's politics. Don't be offended to hear those bad word from a Russian person. People from Russia use swear words very often. Some say it helps express their feelings...So, if you communicate with Russians you have to be aware of those phrases. Find a Russian English translator and translate bad words from English to Russian. If you learn Russian language you have to know basic swear expressions.

Monday, January 14, 2008

How to Read Russian

Russian language is one of the most difficult languages in the world after Chinese language. But you can learn to read in Russian very easily. All you need to know - Russian alphabet.
Let's say you found this word in Cyrillic: Давай, well the transliteration would be Davay and the pronunciation would be dava'j and the Russian translation would be let's. You can read the pronunciation, right? Try to read this word then Дав...Any luck? I bet you read it. Dav. Good Job on this task.
To make it even easier for you, here is a Russian alphabet with Latin equivalents.

A- A (like in sum)
Б - B (batman)
В - V (Vogue)
Г - G (God)
Д- D (daughter)
Е- E (sell but softer)
Ж-ZH (say it almost like in Georgia)
З - Z (that)
И - EE (meet)
К - K (cat)
Л - L (lamp)
М -M (moon)
Н- N (not)
О- O (not)
П - P (parachute)
Р - R (ram)
С - S (site)
Т - T (teach)
У - U (like in book)
Ф - F (fool)
Х - KH or H (hook)
Ц - TS (think of this one yourself)
Ч - CH (China)
Щ - SCH (the same as TS=)
Ш -SH (and again as TS)
Ъ (to make a consonant hard, always goes after a consonant)
Ь - (adds softness after consonants)
Э - E (like in pen)
Ю - YU (tune)
Я - YA (kayak)

I hope I got them all. There should be 33 letters total.

So if you want to read, lets say this word written in Cyrillic: папа - papa - which means dad. Usually in short words like that the stress goes on the first syllable. By the way there are two syllables in this word made of four letters. Now try to read мама - exactly, it's mama, which means mom. If you see this word, мать - you would read it like that: mat', T at the end is very soft. You need to train on that.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please write me or post a comment.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Speak Russian Words and Sentences like you are Russian

In this post I would like to teach you some of the most commonly used Russian words and phrases in our everyday life. It is very important to understand these easy sentences. Let's say you want to hear a voice of a woman you are corresponding with, then this little guide will help you. Of course, it is better to use a Russian translation service, but you can avoid this by using my notes below.
By the way, Russian reading is very easy to learn. I will talk about it in my next post, so check back later. If you have any comments, please tell me your opinion.
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Notes:

A word in brackets is a pronunciation.

A little apostrophe in a word in brackets after a vowel tells you to put a stress at that syllable.

An apostrophe after the consonant means that it should be soft.
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Let's go, let's learn some Russian.

The most common Russian salutation is: Hi - Привет -Privet - [preeve't];

You want to explain that it's you who are calling her: This is Peter - Это Петер - Eto Peter - [e'to Peter];

After that you want to ask a person how is she doing: Как Дела - Kak Dela - [kak Dela'];

To answer this question: Fine - Хорошо - Horosho - [kharasho'] or Excellent - Отлично - Otlichno - [atlee'chna] or Normal - Нормально - Normalno - [Narma'l'na] or Not so good - Не очень - Ne ochen - [nee o'chen'];

Then you would probably like to say Thank you - Спасибо - Spasibo - [spasee'ba];

To make your phone conversation flow you would ask: What did you do today - Чем занималась сегодня - Chem zanimalas segodnja - [chem zaneema'las' sego'dnja];

After this question, you most likely won't understand her answer, but it's OK, it is your first time. And all you wanted to do is to hear and enjoy a lady's voice, remember?

To say Bye-Bye use До свидания - Do svidanija - [da sveeda'neeja] which is more official, or you can say Пока - Poka - [paka'] people usually say this to their friends, relatives and other close people.

If you want to speak on some serious topics, then contact Russian translator.

Have a good one...

The Legend of the Russian Empire's Cast-Iron Medal for Heavy Drinkers

Here's an interesting fact about drunkards in the Russian Empire during the Peter the Great times. They were commonly referred to as &qu...