It has happened again, and this time it happened rather suddenly – I found something in Russian language that I haven’t given much thought to as of late but which amused me to such an extreme that I could not refrain from sharing it with you all. The other day I was browsing through a thick book on Russian grammar in Norwegian [it is one of those eccentric, unexplainable twists of fate that Norway should be the country to produce the best grammar book of Russian for people with a Scandinavian language as their mother tongue, because they truly have, sometimes I even wonder if it’s not the best book of Russian grammar in the whole world, that’s how good it is, this Russisk grammatikk by Terje Mathiassen. Plus, Norwegian is a hilarious language, just as amusing to read as Ukrainan is to a Russian, I suppose] and it dawned on me that I have never discussed the very intriguing «сравнительная степень прилагательных» [comparative of adjectives] here. How bizarre! How shameful! «Стыдно мне» [I’m ashamed] or even «стыд и срам!» [(for) shame!], as a native of Russian would be sure to put it, after making further aqientence with this my slip-up. Maybe you’re asking yourself, what’s the big deal? What could possibly be so interesting (though I would personally in this case use ‘fascinating’) about dealing a little bit with the comparative of adjectives? Well, if it sometimes gets as complicated as ‘this book is good, but this book is better’ in English, then who knows just how linguistically juicy things could get in an advanced Slavic language?

Continue reading "Let’s Go Grammar Crazy & Do Comparative! [или кое-что о сравнительной степени прилагательных]" »

Да, дамы и господа [Yes, ladies and gentlemen] – it's been too long since a classic picturepost was posted in this blog. That’s why I thought I’d take today to post a couple of pictures of the things I miss most about Russia, well aware that this will most likely make it rather biased. So be it! After almost two months away from the Motherland, I am craving all things Russian and can’t wait to go back. Yes, Sweden is good (as are many other Western countries, like the Netherlands and USA, for example) – streets and air are clean, there is always toilet paper in public restrooms, people excuse themselves when YOU bump into them, you can pay with your creditcard everywhere (even in church!) and order prevails in all areas of life and society. In other words – скучно [it is boring]! After all, can a fellow Russophile fail to understand why I wake up craving thick, deep red borsh with smetana and cheap tickets to see Swan Lake in the middle of the night? No, I didn’t think so. So here it is – «Русские вещи, по которым я скучаю» [Russian things that I miss]:

Continue reading "PicturePost: Missing Russia..." »

During the spring of 2008 positive images of Russia dominated the media worldwide. So much was coming from Russia that was postive, and I think I'm far from alone when I honestly say that it makes me feel sad to see everything change so drastically. Beacuse of a war. And I can't ignore this war - I'm going back to Russia in less than three weeks - I'll have to go right through it. It doesn't matter "who" started it. What matters is that this war very fast changed how Russia is percieved in the world today. It took many years for the country to work itself up to getting all that good 'pr' it got during this year. And now it will take even longer to get it back. The picture above I found in a post called "Ossetia" on EnglishRussia. (The pictures posted there are originally from a site with the name "Альманах: Искусство войны" [Almanac: The Art of War]). It caught my attention because the banner in it contained the sentence "Год приднестровья в Южной Осетии" [The Year of transdniestria in South Ossetia]. I had never come across the word приднестровье before, let alone the English translation of it. What does transdniestra mean? Of course my first reaction was to run as fast as I could to wikipedia, which explained it to me in the following terms: "Transnistria, also known as Trans-Dniester, Transdniestria, and Pridnestrovie (full name: Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic), is a breakaway republic within the internationally recognised borders of Moldova, with the official status of an autonomous territory." The Russian version of the article is pretty much the same. And I guess there is no need for me to elaborate on why this banner is hanging between trees across a street in South Ossetia.

Wisdom is meant to be shared with others. No piece of advice given to me proved to be so wise in regards to learning Russian as the one I am about to share with you today. Back in the days when I was biding my time in Sweden after studying one semester in Saint Petersburg and before heading out into the wild unknown in Siberia, I managed to spend an entire week attending classes in Russian Language at Gothenburg University’s Department of Slavic Languages. (Little did I know back then that I was to receive my Bachelor from that very same department roughly three years later without attending any more classes, but that’s a whole other story!) The professor who taught Russian grammar told us this during our first class: “If you’re only going to buy one book about Russian language while in Russia, let it be a «толковый словарь русского языка» [Explanatory Dictionary of Russian Language], and I bet you’ll never regret it.” I put his words to the test as soon as I arrived in Omsk and the first thing I aquired at the book store was a big green dictionary of some 940 pages by С. И. Ожегов and Н. Ю. Шведова for 220 rubles. It proved to come in handy so often that I brought it with me back home to Sweden, and bought yet another one just like it when I moved to Yekaterinburg, this time black and for 10 rubles less. If you’re going to Russia, be it for a short period of time or to study a couple of months at a Russian university, it is now also my most wise advice for you to bring one of these babies back home with you.

Continue reading "Dictionary Must-Have: Толковый Словарь Русского Языка" »