Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Word game

  My husband and I sometimes play this simple word game. He is a Finn and he studies Russian. I'm a Russian who studies Finnish. So we play it in Finnish or Russian. The rules are simple. You say a word, the next person says a word starting from the last letter of the first word, and so on.

машина — ананас — сок — кожа — апельсин — норма — авария — яхта

If you are learning Russian, you could play this game with someone. You will have to recall all the Russian words you know and pay attention to how words are spelled, so it's good practice. Russians usually have a rule of using only nouns, but it's up to you how you want to play it. If the word ends with ь (there are no words in Russian language that start with it), then you need to use previous letter.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Wings, legs and tails

  I'm making videos for this blog now (there'll be a special Youtube channel for 33 letters ^^), so while I'm busy with them you can watch this wonderful and a bit crazy Russian cartoon. Enjoy!

Wings, legs and tails
Крылья, ноги и хвосты



Tuesday, January 10, 2012

A Funny Russian Word

  The other day we had guests from Russia, and they wondered how to translate a certain Russian word to English. We couldn't find an exact translation :). The word is хомячить (homyachit'), made from хомяк — a hamster. It's a verb that describes eating greedily, stuffing your mouth like a hamster.

I guess we can translate it as 'to hamster'? :) It's a pretty new word, you probably will not find it in Pushkin's poems, but isn't the word cute? It seems to me it's usually used when talking about people, not other animals. Hard to imagine a hamstering cat :).

Examples:
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