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Writing Russian

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45 messages over 6 pages: 1 2 3 46  Next >>
elysandler
Triglot
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 5404 days ago

22 posts - 25 votes
Speaks: Modern Hebrew, English*, French
Studies: Latin, Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 33 of 45
22 February 2010 at 8:27pm | IP Logged 
OlafP wrote:
elysandler wrote:
OlafP wrote:

You have to fight dragons of different breeds when learning Russian


I've never heard this idiom before - and I'm British. Might I ask where you heard it (its meaning being obvious)?


I never heard this either but made it up in a moment of literary epiphany. May it be an idiom henceforth. It's free
of copyright.



How intriguing. Is there nothing similar in your native language which you may have accidentally transposed?
Hmmm. I intend to use this idiom, it sounds somewhat... epic.
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OlafP
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
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261 posts - 667 votes 
Speaks: German*, French, English

 
 Message 34 of 45
23 February 2010 at 1:39pm | IP Logged 
It's quite hard to come up with a German translation that sounds at least half as theatrical as the English version. I have the DVD series of the complete Shakespeare plays made by the BBC in the 70s and early 80s, watched all of them at least once, and maybe this starts to pay off. However, the only reference to dragons that I can recall at the moment is from King Lear: "Come not between the dragon and his wrath!"

I found a Russian audiobook of Nietzsche's "Thus spake Zarathustra" around the time when I wrote the post. It's quite interesting to see how people try to translate something that is untranslatable because of its many puns. Nietzsche imitates the epic language of Martin Luther's translation of the Bible, turning things upside down and inside out, and creating some jaw-droppers that way.

From the chapter "The bestowing virtue":
"The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends. One requiteth a teacher badly if one remain merely a scholar. And why will ye not pluck at my wreath? Ye venerate me; but what if your veneration should some day collapse? Take heed lest a statue crush you! Ye say, ye believe in Zarathustra? But of what account is Zarathustra! Ye are my believers: but of what account are all believers! Ye had not yet sought yourselves: then did ye find me. So do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account. Now do I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when ye have all denied me, will I return unto you."

In a thread about writing Russian I must have had some of his turns in mind, given the fact that I had just found the audiobook in Russian. Even in Zarathustra there are only few dragons, but quite a few dwarfs, giants, serpents, and eagles.
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Felidae
Diglot
Newbie
BrazilRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5407 days ago

28 posts - 34 votes
Speaks: Portuguese*, English
Studies: French

 
 Message 35 of 45
24 February 2010 at 9:55pm | IP Logged 
In portuguese we say "Kill a lion everyday"
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Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5395 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 36 of 45
06 March 2010 at 4:08am | IP Logged 
cordelia0507 wrote:
Just buy a kids exercise book or download some sheets. Believe me this is the easiest thing about Russian.


Is there someone on the web with writing sheets like this? I know there are plenty for English, but I don't know of any Russian ones, even though I've looked for them recently.
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dantalian
Diglot
Senior Member
Bouvet Island
Joined 5682 days ago

125 posts - 156 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 37 of 45
06 March 2010 at 10:02pm | IP Logged 
Kerrie wrote:
cordelia0507 wrote:
Just buy a kids exercise book or download some sheets. Believe me this is the easiest thing about Russian.


Is there someone on the web with writing sheets like this? I know there are plenty for English, but I don't know of any Russian ones, even though I've looked for them recently.

You can download pdfs with samples of cursive writing and a blank lined sheet for practicing with this link

http://nekin.narod.ru/e24.htm
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Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5395 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 38 of 45
12 March 2010 at 9:34pm | IP Logged 
Thank you, dantalian!
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Siberiano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6493 days ago

465 posts - 696 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Serbian

 
 Message 39 of 45
14 March 2010 at 7:20pm | IP Logged 
Cherepaha wrote:
The ability to read other people's handwriting did not come right away, it took a number of years and maturing in our handwriting, but then it all of a sudden clicked, and I always found it a fun challenge to see if I could read the handwriting others had given up on. The style of cursive that was taught in schools differed from decade to decade a bit, so once you were familiar enough with those differences, you could not only decipher rapid script handwriting, but you could also roughly guess the age of the person who wrote it, i.e. your grandmother's generation, or your parents' generation, or, finally, your own.

People aren't equal in this ability. I have bad handrwiting, and my father isn't good at reading cursive, so several times he quite creatively misread what I wrote him. E.g. 9 years ago when he had unlimited internet access at work, while at home we paid per megabyte, I asked him to download an album "Внештатный командир земли". He called me that day and said he couldn't find "Витаминный помидор земли". My sister still quotes this one.
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1qaz2wsx
Diglot
Groupie
Greece
Joined 5373 days ago

98 posts - 124 votes 
Speaks: Greek*, EnglishC1
Studies: Russian, Albanian

 
 Message 40 of 45
15 March 2010 at 7:42am | IP Logged 
Russian cursive can be very frustrating ,for me at least.I have seen different styles of cursive writing.Sometimes I can more or less make out what is been written but sometimes I simply haven't got a clue.All letters look the same.So my guess is that native russian s do not read each letter independently but they are just familiar with different handwritings and know what words look like.
I figure russian handwriting,as far as reading it is concerned,is kind of logographic!     


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