таня и юрий и стефан

[ljplicease]

• Someone asked why Таня pronounced something in a certain way today and she said “I don’t pronounce it that way; it just sounds like I do.” (Russians often spell things one way, but then pronounce them another, to the bemusement of Australians who pronounce them the way they are spelled regardless of what language they came from: witness news anchors saying “junta”).
• The young bloke in the front row with a Guns and Roses T-Shirt didn’t know who Юрий Гагарин was.
• I was watching the Colbert Report today and I got the munchies for Doritos. I know I am a couple of weeks late.
• There was an article in the Sydney mX today about Stephen Colbert’s (Стефан Колбер) run for the White House. mX is brought to you by the same corporate overlords that bring you Faux News. It did mention it was a joke, but it didn’t mention that he was only running in South Carolina.
• I wonder if Sydneysiders even know where South Carolina is. Then again, I know Americans have no idea where New South Wales is.
• My Internet is for shit tonight speed wise :(

Comments

[hammer-reality.livejournal.com]

I shouldn't be on livejournal during work hours. Now that i got the guilt out of the way, that's sad about him not knowing who Yuri Gagarin was. But then, my teacher from one of my subjects at uni didn't know who Copernicus was (I will NEVER get over that one). Copernicus! He only changed the way we viewed the solar system.

Anyhoo, I may be ignorant in other respects, because you may have mentioned why you study Russian and I may have forgotten. But I think it's very cool. So why the Russian? Was it out of sheer curiosity or was there a work related purpose?

Or are you learning it to communicate better with your future Russian wife? *wink wink* etc etc

....I'm just passing time. :D

[plicease]

tisk tisk! doing the lj thing at work! not that i ever do that *whistle* *eyes look up* *whistle*

er.

why i am taking russian: kind of a long story, and there really isn’t just one. when i took german in college i met this pretty russian major and decided that i was in totally the wrong majors (maths and computer science, which is what i ended up graduating as). kinda silly i know, but it got learning russian in the back of my head. when i moved to new york i met by chance a russian speaking woman from ukraine who i became good friends with (she and her husband and another russian speaking friend went to new mexico with me in august), and by extension i made some more russian speaking friends through her. i am really terrible at human languages, and while i am always up for a challenge, if i don’t use something then it tends to atrophy (just like my german has). now i know people that i can actually talk to in russian (assuming i ever get good enough to be able to do that), or maybe just understand a little bit of what they are saying, so it felt like finally it was a good time to learn.

russian culture and history is interesting too. in high school they would always offer a class in russian history and i would always sign up for it, but they would always cancel it because not enough people signed up for it. :(

i was also interested in learning cantonese, which would also be challenging, but i don’t know anyone that i can practice with. which is funny because the number of cantonese speakers in sydney has got to be way larger than the number of russian speakers.