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Watch on Netflix: Animated Soviet Propaganda

By Karyn Dubravetz on January 20th, 2010

I’m sure we’ve all discovered Netflix by now, but are you using it to practice your Russian? It’s one of the easiest and cheapest ways to catch up on all the Russian movies!!

Recently I tried something a little different: Animated Soviet Propaganda. There are four discs in all: 1. American Imperialists 2. Fascist Barbarians 3. Capitalist Sharks and 4. Onward to the Shining Future: Communism. Each disc has 10 or so animated shorts, followed by a “making of” documentary. So far I’m halfway through the series. (I’m on the cheap Netflix plan; two movies per month.)

I watched “American Imperialists” a while ago and really enjoyed it. It’s interesting to see what the stereotypes of your own culture are – or were – even if it was just propaganda. If you’re not a Netflix subscriber, you can find a lot of the shorts online. Here is one of my favorites from that disc:

Part 2 can be viewed here.

Two more of my favorites from disc 1 were Someone Else’s Voice and Mister Twister.

The other night, I finally got around to watching the second disc in the series, “Fascist Barbarians”. I’m sorry to say, I just didn’t enjoy this disc as much as the first one. There was one short, however, that is a must watch if you are interested in Russian culture and history. It’s called “To You Moscow” and was made to commemorate the 800th anniversary of Moscow. It depicts the history of Moscow up to that point. Here is part 1:

Link here for Part 2.

I am going to take a break from animated propaganda for now, but I’ll check in when I’ve watched the rest of the series. Has anyone seen any of these films? What did you think?

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Dirty Russian

By Karyn Dubravetz on January 13th, 2010

Have you ever wanted to know how to say “where can I buy some smack”, “let’s have an orgy”, or “I feel like shooting the shit with someone”? Then this may be the book for you!

(Note: This is a small, almost pocket-sized book.)

Don’t worry – it’s not all dirty words, and body part euphemisms. While much of the book does make me blush, there are still sections like ”Friendly Russian” and “Poppy Russian”. It even provides some basic language instruction at the beginning, including an alphabet pronunciation guide.

Here are some other things I like about the book:

They give you full phrases and sentences, not just one-word translations.
They tell you the feel of a word – whether it’s “kind of formal” or “cutesy”.
They relate it to specific English slang. They don’t just give you five ways to say you’re not feeling well – they tell you how to say “lousy as hell”, “pretty crappy”, or “really shitty”.
Quick reference charts, like a guide to name-calling.
Bits of info on Russian culture, for example, what their toilets are like.
And of course, cute illustrations!

My one criticism of the book is how the stresses are represented. As you might be able to make out in the photo above, the phrase is given in English, then transliterated, then in Russian. But the stress is only indicated on the transliteration. So for those of us who can read the Cyrillic alphabet, you still may need to look at the transliteration to find the stress – just a tad inconvenient. Oh, and there’s no index, which would’ve been helpful.

Published by Ulysses Press, you can find the book anywhere online, but here’s a link to Amazon.com, where you can get it brand new for about $5.

This photo has nothing to do with Russian other than it’s what I got to enjoy while I wrote this post – Thanks, Danny!

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I’m going to Russia this year!

By Karyn Dubravetz on January 6th, 2010

I think my post title speaks for itself, but let me just say it again: I am going to Russia this year!!!

Photo by quinn.anya

And I’m so excited. If you’ve read my about me page, you’ve seen that I already spent 4 months there in 2003. This will be my first time back since then. But I’m only going for 2 or 3 weeks, and who knows when I’ll be back, so I need to make it count. Researching for this trip is going to be my big project for the next few months and I’ll need your help. When should I go? Where should I stay? And what should I DO?

So many decisions! So please, send me your tips, your success stories, or even better – your horror stories about your travels to Russia. I’m also looking for helpful books, websites, travel agencies, anything that can help me have a better trip. I’ll return the favor and report back as I figure things out.

I do have a couple things figured out already. We (my husband and I) are going sometime in the summer – probably July or August. Part of me will miss the charm of the beautiful Russian winter, but the rest of me wants to be able to spend a lot of time doing my favorite travel activity: walking around outside in between sitting in cafes drinking coffee.

The other thing we know is our main destinations – we’ll spend some time in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. I’ve been to Moscow, but this will be my first time in St. Petersburg, so any advice will be much appreciated!! I’m really looking forward to sharing my “passion for Russian” culture with my husband, who’s never been there. I want to be a great tour guide – and interpreter (which makes me a little nervous, but mostly excited) so help me out if you can!

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The 3 blogs I never read

By Karyn Dubravetz on December 30th, 2009

Okay, that title may be a little misleading. The point of this post is to introduce you to the 3 most useful blogs I have found (other than mine of course!) that help with Russian language study. They’re so good, in fact, that I almost never read them. What I mean is that I follow so many blogs, I usually just breeze over most of them. But these 3 are so good that I like to wait to look at them until I have enough time to really read them, which doesn’t happen as often as I’d like. But don’t worry – I eventually get caught up with them. Maybe this is a good idea for a New Year’s resolution?

Anyway, here are the best 3 Russian language learning blogs I’ve found (so far):

#1. Transparent Language Russian Blog

And yes, these are presented in a particular order: this one’s my favorite. It is written by Josefina, a Swedish woman who moved to Russia 6 years ago to study Russian literature. (This post provides more info about Josefina.) Each post covers a cultural topic and gives examples of Russian words and phrases. What I really like about the blog, is how the author’s personality really shines through. It’s like you’ve made a new friend that can help you with your Russian. The material is also very useful and she provides stress marks on Russian words.

#2. Russificate

Well, the main reason I like this blog is that it’s actually written in Russian. So it may not be the best blog for beginners, but for me it’s perfect. It’s written as if the author is the teacher and we are the students. Sometimes she even gives homework assignments (which I have to admit, I don’t usually do).

#3. Russian Word of the Day

As you might guess from the title, this blog gives the reader one new word each day. It also provides other interesting tidbits about the word, and its usage. One thing I love about this blog is that it always provides the declensions of the nouns and conjugations of the verbs. And the info is always presented in nicely organized charts! Stress on the Russian words is indicated by red print.

If you are studying Russian, I recommend that you check out these three blogs. Feel free to let me know what you think. And I’ll try to do a better job of keeping up with them myself!

Are there any Russian language study blogs that I’ve missed? Let me know!

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Happy holiday movies!

By Karyn Dubravetz on December 23rd, 2009

I’ve always loved to see how American movie titles are translated into Russian. The translations reveal tidbits about the Russian culture and language, and you can usually learn a new word or two. And I love seeing how the translator solves linguistic problems, like a play on words.

Since it’s the holiday season, I thought I’d start us off with a few holiday movies.

First, one of my favorite movies of all time: “It’s a Wonderful Life”. The Russian version is pretty much a direct translation from English: “Эта замечательная жизнь”.

Эта замечательная жизнь/It's a Wonderful Life

The next one is also pretty straightforward: “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is translated as “Гринч – похититель Рождества”. This (loosely) translates back into English as “The Grinch – Thief of Christmas”. I’d never seen the word похититель before. The online dictionary I mentioned in a previous post gives the definition, thief; kidnapper; abductor; hijacker.

Гринч - похититель Рождества/How the Grinch Stole Christmas

“Shrek the Halls” poses one of the translation problems I mentioned early. But I love how they handle it.

If you’re familiar with Russian culture, you know that Дед Мороз (Father Frost) brings the gifts, not Santa. So they’ve combined Дед Мороз with Shrek to come up with Шрек Мороз, then added Зеленый Нос (green nose) for a little rhyming action: “Шрек Мороз Зеленый Нос” – I love it!

What’s your favorite holiday movie??

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PassionForRussian.com

Watch on Netflix: Animated Soviet Propaganda

Dirty Russian

I’m going to Russia this year!