By Michele A. Berdy

Враскорячку: an awkwardly splayed, bow-legged pose/position/stance

I have to admit that my ears perked up the other day when I heard Prime Minister Vladimir Putin say: “ … у нас в народе есть такое не очень литературное слово … ” (Our people have a word that isn’t exactly standard literary language … ). Oh, boy. Time for another Russian lesson.

The context for this week’s lesson was this: Before his trip to Moscow, U.S. President Barack Obama said that he thought “Putin had one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new.” Putin responded with his “nonliterary” (read: not quite fit to print) phrase: Мы враскорячку не умеем стоять.” ( Read more... )

hi netizen!
i was just asked if there is an argument of soljenitsyn's  'odin den ivana denisovicha'  in spanish or in english ?

Hello,

if any of you speak German and want to learn or improve your Norwegian or if any of you speak Norwegian and want to learn or improve your German, then you should join this group.   In the community only German or Norwegian is spoken. There's many more possibilities in the community besides learning new vocabulary.  Come check the community out and see for yourselves.  : )  Here is the link. http://community.livejournal.com/tysk_norsk/

   I hope to see you there.  : )

I'm trying to translate something from Arabic (fusHa) to English, and I came across this:

" متعودة دائما"

I guess it's a reference to an Adel Imam movie? Could someone explain the context of the joke for me? And how would you translate this? 

Is "вы" always capitalized in writing when you are addressing only a single person?  Or is this optional and you can leave it uncapitalized? Also, what about other forms of the word, such as

вас / вами /вам...

I assume they are also capitalized just as "вы" is?

What about the "вы"-based adjectives : ваш / ваши / ваша / ваше?

Thanks!

I am trying to find a way to say that the Russian-speaking community in Washington is very friendly, and I'm not sure which word I want - I guess I'm trying to say welcoming and open to friendship. What are the differences between the words below? Are my impressions of them correct?

дружелюбный - This seems to me like a good word to describe a person, like "he's a friendly guy."

дружественный - Maybe this is what I want? I'm worried it sounds a little too abstract, like something that would be between organizations or countries instead of people.

дружеский - This seems like friendly in the sense of being on good terms, like дружеские отношения.

As I understand it дружный means "close" or "tight-knit," as in у нас очень дружная семья (our family is very close).

I keep coming back to this prologue. I should probably just leave it alone, considering its length and its semi-poetic, invoking-the-muse style, and the fact that it's not on the audio book, but I guess I'm just a masochist.

...навести продуманныи лоск на щенячью угловатость...

What are we talking about here? Thanks.

Hi!

I hope I'm posting this in the right place. Could anyone, please, tell me if this is how you say "magic" in arabic? And if not, what does this word mean:   سحر
Thank you in advance and sorry if I posted in the wrong place. It is very important for me to find the meaning of this word:)

I'll be starting Arabic classes at a local college come late August, after I finish the bar exam at the end of July. I'll be doing a road trip through California in August, and thus will have a lot of free time to read, as I'm not the one driving :).

For the brief summary - I learn languages basically for the fun of it and for self-enrichment - when I lived in LA's Koreatown, I took a Korean class from the local Embassy-sponsored Korean Cultural Center, at least until my work schedule and commute conflicted with the times, basically because I wanted to be able to be a more responsible part of my community. Anyhow, I seem to take to learning languages as a general rule, and my undergraduate major before law school was a history degree with a strong focus in Arab and Islamic studies, but I never had an opportunity to take Arabic before, and from what I've heard I'm in for a challenge, which isn't a bad thing, I could use one right now.

So through my undergraduate degree I'm familiar with Arab and Islamic culture, concepts, history, etc. (insomuch as one can be when one hasn't been to an Arab country before) but only know as much of the language as you glean from academic texts and subtitled films - not much. My really long-term goal is to get enough of a working knowledge that I can communicate in both oral and written form, especially if I'm able to apply that to the practice of law, although I accept that'll take many years to get to that point, if I'm able to at all with the resources in the Phoenix area.

At any rate. Is it worth it to work on the alphabet ahead of time? I'll be ordering the book I'm getting online, Al-Kitaab fii Ta'allum al-'Arabiyya, which is apparently the book most American learners use - I e-mailed the professor to ask what book was used, and he said only that one, didn't mention Alif Baa. Alif Baa is rather expensive, $36, but I did find The Arabic Alphabet: How to Read & Write It for only $8.50 with a pile of good reviews. I'll be getting Al-Kitaab from Amazon anyhow to save money and time, so should I look at getting that or another supplement? I'm holding off on a dictionary for now until I determine if that's actually going to be useful in the near-to-medium term as compared to any potential online dictionaries, as well as to get advice fmor the professor as to which dictionary might be appropriate for a learner, so that's really not on the table until late fall.

Any other advice or things to watch out for?

Thanks. :)

What is hope?

What hope means.

Hope is bright shining light which keeps darkness at the bay,
Hope is gentle cold breeze on a hot summer day.

Hope is to remain positive when the going gets tough,
Hope is seeking more when others think you've had enough.

What hope means

Hope is dreaming of tommorow,
Hope is simmering under your sorrow.

Hope is the sparkle when tears are in our eyes,
Hope is a beautiful thing & beutiful things never die.

What hope means

Hope is as light as a feather,
Hope keeps all of us together

Hope is ubiquitous and free of cost,
Hope is the last thing ever lost.

It's my birthday, bitches!

I am getting my tongue pierced tomorrow, and honestly I am getting fucking HATED ON. My parents I expected, but my friends? Why do I have to justify something unimportant to so many people? It's not like I'm getting a giant "Fuck the Police" tattoo on my face or something. I'm getting a discreet piercing INSIDE MY MOUTH, where nobody will see it unless you are looking for it. So whooooo cares?? The only reason that should matter is "Because I want to."

I am still not over Michael Jackson. At all. The only good thing I can think of is that his death is causing me to revisit a lot of stuff I haven't heard in a while; when you listen to an artist all the time, like I have with MJ, you tend to weed out a lot of songs and just listen to a select bunch of them repeatedly, all your favorites. I had maybe 3 or 4 on each album that I would listen to all the time, and the rest was background. I do that with everyone. I rarely sit and listen to an album all the way through. NOW, I'm listening to EVERYTHING, and remembering exactly how fantastic each song is. But that makes me even sadder...

I have two great jobs coming up in August. One is another TV pilot with C Squared Pictures... I was an assistant set decorator on their last pilot, Accidental Heroes, which has turned into a webisode because it hasn't gotten picked up by a network. The new one is called Extra-Extra, which isn't a superb title but it is a good script and stars Ron Palillo, who I am infatuated with because he was Arnold Horshack on Welcome Back Kotter. ("OOOHHHH!!! OOOOOOOOHHH!!! MR. KOTTER!!!"). I'm going to be the head decorator, and perhaps the only decorator, because there seems to be no room for me to have an assistant. Uh oh.

The other is a short film by my friend Phil Giordano, he needs me to design basically the only set in the whole thing. It's a pretty intense 4-pager about a sort of Lolita-esque situation with someone who has potential to become an active pedophile. I met Phil earlier this year when I propped another one of his shorts, called Chinatown Rain, which is maybe the best short I've ever worked on. Really clever. I give him a lot of respect for pulling great stuff off with little or no resources at his disposal.

Well I corrected what I could in that post I posted and here are the results:

http://leakingbucket.livejournal.com/3155.html

I would be really glad if you would point out the things I missed, thanks. ^^

 I am planning to go to Damascus this fall/winter, and I'd like to be able to bring my cell phone with me. I am currently with Verizon Wireless, though I am at the point where I can upgrade and switch or change services. I like Verizon's service at home, and I can get a great deal on a blackberry, but I don't know if Verizon would work in Syria. Can anyone answer this for me?

Thanks!

aw I got this anon email just right now.

"Anonymous Remailer (austria)
to me

show details 1:30 PM (5 minutes ago)


Reply

Follow up message

You are the coolest person in here, I swear! I hope you have tons of fun in Sweden, and hook up with some hot Swedes!;)"

Who ever you are you just made my day. Thanks so much.

I am in the first part of two beginning summer Russian courses at my university. This is my third week. I am wondering if someone can explain the difference in usage between:

она / oн

and

её / его 

The course I am taking is taught with the Начало text which can be a bit frustrating at times because it doesn't explain all the words it uses.

Also, any tips about learning Russian? I hope to get a pen-pal/chat thing going on sometime later in the year when I can actually say more than a few sentences but mostly I am pretty bad at pronunciation. The course moves really fast (one Начало chapter a week out of seven that comprise the book) and sometimes I'll only hear a word spoken by the professor once--in passing-- if it is not on the CDs that accompy the book.

Are there any good russian dictionaries with audio online?

спасибо!

You guys, I am REALLY fucked up about Michael Jackson.

I've worshiped MJ since I was about 8 years old. I was given Bad by my dad, and shortly after that History came out. I missed the whole "Black Kennedys" phenomenon, where an entire community of people watched him grow up and succeed, and became the world's little brother. But I know he crossed racial divides, and I know that if you go up to ANY random person and ask them what their favorite Michael Jackson song is, they'll have an answer. There's no music out there that can even compare, until Justin Timberlake copped his shit on his first album (which I liked BECAUSE it sounded like Michael Jackson).

I found out when I got home on Thursday, from a casual email from my mom that said "Wow, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson in the same day..." I think I literally had a heart palpitation, and immediately emailed Cleon, who responded within minutes that he'd just found out and was about on the verge of tears, watching his videos on MTV. Neither of us has been able to get over it in any way, and we've spent most of our time since then talking about MJ and how important he is to us.

This is really bad guys. This is a really bad thing for me. I listened to Will You Be There and I fucking CRIED.

I need a flat/room/room in student housing for a year from September in Stockholm/Flemingsberg. Does anyone have an idea where I can look for one? (at the web-sites of student housing organisations such as sssb.se it says that to get one I need to stay in que for a year!) And may be there is someone who would like to share flat? Tack!