The 3 blogs I never read

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

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

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

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!

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”.

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.

“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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Set your phasers to Russian

One thing you can do to learn a few extra words in Russian without working too hard, is change the language settings on your favorite gadgets to Russian. I know it can be scary – what if you change all your settings, and can’t figure out how to get them back? Will you be stuck listening to “Russian Roulette” on repeat forever? Well, don’t worry – PassionForRussian is here to help. Below is a quick guide to using your iPod in Russian.

Set your phasers on Russian
Photo by Conneee

***One note before we get started – You should probably get all your settings (настройки) how you want them while still in English mode. Then switch to Russian for daily use.

First, memorize these 4 words:

settings – настройки
language – язык
save – сохранить
cancel – отменить

Those should keep you safe, but just in case (and this goes for most gadgets):

To switch from English to Russian: Main menu –> Settings –> Language –> Русский
To switch from Russian to English: Главное меню –> Hастройки –> Язык –> English

Other than that, if you can’t figure things out, refer to this list:
(I am assuming we all know the Cyrillic alphabet here, so I’m going to leave out the cognates.) And I’m only including words you’d need on a daily basis.

дополнения – extras
исполнители – performers
перемешать – shuffle
повторить – repeat
поиск – search
сборники – albums (collections)
сейчас исполняется – now playing

Did I miss any words that might be important?? Let me know!

Stay tuned for similar guides on other devices. Please let me know if there is a specific one you’d like to see next!

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What do you drink your beer out of?

Are there any groups of Russian words that you often get confused?

Last week, someone in my meetup group tried to ask for a mug, but couldn’t remember what it was called. When he asked, three people each gave a different answer. This led to a discussion about these three words, and which one was correct – I love these types of discussions. (All in Russian, of course!)

So in case you didn’t know, here’s a quick vocab lesson for ya…

Cтакан

Cтакан
Photo by bepcyc

Чашка

Чашка
Photo by neoroma

And the correct answer…

Кружка

Кружка
Photo by piker77

As long as we’re mentioning Russian drink ware, I didn’t want to leave out one of my favorite Russian items -

Подстаканник

Подстаканник
Photo by Matthijs Gall

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My favorite online dictionary

Hello, my fellow Russian students! I had much to be thankful for over the holiday. But apparently “extra time for blogging” wasn’t one of them!!

One thing I am thankful for however, is my favorite online Russian-English dictionary, ABBYY Online. I was first turned on to this site when I was studying at Middlebury and had a ton of reading to do – what a time saver! One thing I really like about it is that there is no need to select which is the target language and which is the source language. If you type a word in English, it automatically gives you the Russian definition and vice versa. Some sites require you to choose the languages from a dropdown every time you look up a word, which is a pain. This feature makes it easy to copy a word from the Russian definition, and paste it in to get the English equivilant.

ABBYY Lingvo

Like other online dictionaries, Lingvo includes an on-screen keyboard if you need to enter the search word in Russian. I also use this as shortcut (actually, it’s more of a longcut) for getting the Cyrillic alphabet when I’m not on my home computer.

Apparently ABBYY Lingvo also offers dictionaries and software for sale, but unfortunately for them, their online version is so great, I’ve never had the need to purchase anything! My guess is that the for-sale products are good, as well.

Has anyone found any other online dictionaries that you like? Please share!

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