Posted by Josefina
If you are wondering where Russian found me, you should look to a basement at Beloit College. This basement housed classes in many languages, but I spent most of my early time there on Ancient Greek, which I was sure I wanted to continue through college. It’s one goofy language. But that first year, I didn’t get the intro geology class that I wanted, and the only thing that would fit my schedule was Russian. So I studied Russian and Ancient Greek in the basement.
In comparison to Ancient Greek, beginning Russian is really boring.
Read More »
Posted by Josefina
<img src=”http://www.monulent.ru/images/photo/634.jpg”height=”200″width=”300″align=”right”
Russian has lots of long words, and the syllables get hard to keep track of. I remember I had to learn the word достопримечательность only a few months into taking Russian. It means “point of interest,” which I couldn’t ever fathom needing.
Read More »
Posted by Josefina
The trains in the Moscow Metropolitan runs over 9000 trips on a given day, and now those trains can run to a new station, “Trubnaya.” They quit working on this station about 20 years ago, but now they’ve refurbished it and opened it to the public. It’s stylized after a Moscow street from the 20s, but since much of the Moscow Metro dates from the 30s anyway, I think that means it’s meant to match.
HТВ (en teh veh), a television network, has posted the clip to the right with a transcription. There’s also a longer one. They talk really fast, but I recommend taking a look. The only way I got to understand newscasters was by listening to it every day.
The most exciting thing about this station is that you can pay your fare at the turnstile with your cell phone.
Read More »
Posted by Josefina
![]()
This is compote, or rather, компот. Don’t be afraid of it!
Compote is not a thick fruit desert, but a watery fruity drink with fruit on the bottom. It’s like juice, but lighter. You boil fruit in water with sugar to make it. The fruit on the bottom looks suspicious, but it’s good.
I’ve seen it most often in cafeteria lines. There are usually a few flavors. Cherry, apricot, apple, and plum are the most common. You will see rows of glasses with exactly the same amount of liquid in each one, although some of them may not have fruit. People often make it at home as well.
Read More »
)
I was just commenting on the fact that the term itself is a problematic one, in the context of what I said about Jews reading the Christian Bible. Sorry if I was unclear."
