Idea - Word of the Day

[rosh]

i had this idea ... perhaps some input necessary before implementation. since this is a forum divided into russian and english ...

how about a "word of the day" in both languages ? then those of us who are english speaking and want to learn russian vocab, can get a russian word of the day from the russian speakers, and the non english-first-language speakers if they want to learn new english words, can get a word of the day from the english speakers ...

or just anyone who knows russian and english and wants to contribute a word and its meaning, can

just a thought.

anyone game ?

[kishkash]

cataclysmic <-- wot a sexy word

errr...in russian that would be [hoping someone would come in and help me before i look like an ignorant ass...oh wait...hehe *sick laugh*...too late]

[rosh]

hehe kishy i fink we need to add a meaning of the word too luv ! *offers you a biccie*


cataclysmic

1 : A violent upheaval that causes great destruction or brings about a fundamental change.
2 : A violent and sudden change in the earth's crust.
3 : A devastating flood.


can anyone offer us a russian alternative ?

[kishkash]

Originally Posted by rosh

3 : A devastating flood.


can anyone offer us a russian alternative ?

hmmmm....flood...wot could be an effective russian word for that

[Unplugged]

Offtop:
kishkash reply to my e-mail and PMs!

[kishkash]

Offtop:
kay me go check

[Kate]

Photophotosphorylation

Have to remember it for the exam next week.

[dare2dream28]

Originally Posted by katbeidar

Photophotosphorylation

Have to remember it for the exam next week.

That reminds me of when I had to remember pseudohermaphroditism for a bio exam. It's a condition where a person is born female, but with male parts still inside the body. At puberty, those male parts actually descend and the person is now a male. Weird, eh? On an island in the Carribean (don't remember) this is actually sort of common. The local population is quite custom to knowing someone as a female when they are a kid, only for them to be a male as an adult. Just a little interesting fact.

[Kate]

dare2dream28, what the hell is pseudohermaphroditism? Hermaphrosidtes are organisms that can produce sperm AND eggs, if it's a "fake" hermaphrodite, won't it make it a normal organism that produces either sperm or eggs?

ANYWAY, at least you remembered the word, so that's good.

EDIT: never mind. Just read the rest of your post. It is very interesting. probably that little Carribian island's gene pool is, like, really tiny.

[goku]

Speaking of class.. here's one I needed to know:

consociationalism

dare2dream28, like in the novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides? Ever read it?

[rosh]

hey guys....some russian words ? hehe

glad to see there is activity here thanks for posting!

also ...was thinking, how about basic russian words in the thread too ? like words for days of the week or some nouns or fruit or whatever i for one would love to improve my paltry nonexistant russian vocab

[dare2dream28]

kat...LOL. I typed how I remember my professor explained it in class. Something as bizzare as that tends to stick with you. And yes, the gene pool on the island was rather small. I'm not sure of the percentage, but it was common enough for people not to be all that surprised when they found out someone they knew had the condition.

goku...sorry, never read that novel.

rosh...yeah, I would like to learn some common Russian words too! Since you want some russian in here, I'll type out one of the few russian/english words I know.

spaceba=thank you.

[haku]

Originally Posted by rosh

how about basic russian words

Your idea is to have a thread about basic glossary, right?

Ok, I'll start with those 6 words:

head - голова [golova]
hair - волосы [volosi]
face - лицо [l'itso]
eye - глаз [glaz]
nose - нос [nos]
mouth - рот [rot]

More tomorrow

[rosh]

haku right on

n general id prefer the words in cyrillic rather than transliterated to english though, as haku has done although the translit will help those who cant read cyrillic.


and i will start posting words once i am home =)

[haku]

A few more...

body - тело [t'elo]
arm/hand - рука [ruka]
finger - палец [pal'ets]
leg/foot - нога [noga]

[dare2dream28]

Can people post russian words in both cryllic and transliterated english? I have absolutely no idea how to read/pronounce cryllic. Thanks!

[haku]

I've added a transliteration in my previous posts.

But i strongly recommend to anyone who wants to learn some Russian words to also learn the Cyrillic alphabet.
From now on, i'll add explanations on how to pronounce the letters in my posts.

Let's start with the vowels.

Russian has 5 vowel sounds, and each vowel sound can be written with two different letters (i'll explain why later).

а / я - [a] (Latin "a", or as in "cat")
э / е - [e] (Latin "e", or as in "pen")
ы / и - [i] (Latin "i", or as in "teen")
о / ё - [o] (Latin "o", or as in "boat")
у / ю - [u] (Latin "u", or as in "pool")

The first column is the "hard series".
The second column is the "soft series".
The third column is the pronunciation in Latin letters. Attention! Pronounce them as you would do in Latin, Spanish, or Italian, NOT as you pronounce those letters in English.

Now, you're probably wondering why there are 2 series of letters if they are pronounced the same way.

Here's why.
In Russian, almost all consonants have 2 pronunciations, a "hard" one, and a "soft" one (i'll explain later the difference). If a consonant is followed by a vowel of the "hard" series, it means the consonant has to be pronounced "hard"; if a consonant is followed by a vowel of the "soft" series, it means the consonant has to be pronounced "soft".

In strict transliteration (the one i used in my previous posts), it is common usage to indicate the "softness" of a consonant by putting a ' after the letter (instead of a "i" or a "y" as in loose transliteration, which is a totally inaccurate system).

Which gives for example:

да / дя - transliterated > [da] / [d'a]
дэ / де - transliterated > [de] / [d'e]
ды / ди - transliterated > [di] / [d'i]
до / дё - transliterated > [do] / [d'o]
ду / дю - transliterated > [du] / [d'u]

Remember! The vowel, even though it's written differently, is actually pronounced the same. It's the previous consonant that is pronounced differently.

Now, you may be wondering what is the difference between the hard and the soft pronunciation of a consonant.

Hard pronunciation:
This is the easy one, it's actually how consonants are pronounced in western European languages (English only has hard consonants). Basically, pronounce hard consonants as you would do in any western European language.

Soft pronunciation:
Much more difficult to explain.
If you know French, Spanish, or Italian, you have an advantage. Those 3 languages have one consonant that can be pronounced hard or soft, the consonant "N".

In Spanish, a hard "n" is written simply "n", but a soft "n" is written "ñ".
In French and Italian, a hard "n" is also written simply "n", but a soft "n" is written "gn".

Examples:
In Spanish, España and cañon both have a soft "n". If they were Russian words, they would be transliterated [Espan'a] and [can'on].
In French, Espagne and champagne both have a soft "n" too. If they were Russian words, they would be transliterated [Espan'] and [shampan'].

In Russian, almost all consonants have that kind of double pronunciation. If you don't know any of those 3 languages, basically, to pronounce a soft consonant, you have to merge the hard consonant with a "Y" sound.


And just to give you an example on how inaccurate "common" transliteration can be, i'll simply take Yulia and Lena's names. In strict transliteration Yulia is written [Yul'a] and Lena is written [L'ena].
As you can see, the consonant "L" is soft in *both* names. For some weird reason, the softness of the "L" at the beginning of Lena was not transliterated, as a result, people in the west pronounce Lena's name with a hard "L" when in fact it should be pronounced soft! Lena is always very happy when someone in the West pronounces her name right (which is something like "Lyena").


I hope it's clear enough, if it's not, just tell me, i'll try to explain better.

[rosh]

mmm lets revive this thread shall we

peccant \PEK-unt\, adjective:
1. Sinning; guilty of transgression.
2. Violating a rule or a principle

example in a sentence ...

"There must be redemption even for a formerly peccant father."

so who wants to contribute some russian words .... pwease ? for whoever does

[rosh]

russian days of the week :

Monday - понедельник [pan'idel'n'ik]
Tuesday - вторник [ftorn'ik]
Wednesday - среда [sr'ida]
Thursday - четверг [tchitv'erk]
Friday - пятница [p'atn'itsa]
Saturday - суббота [subota]
Sunday - воскресенье [vaskr'is'enje]

bold means stressed so the preceding consonant is soft.

[QueenBee]

body - тело [t'elo]
arm/hand - рука [ruka]
finger - палец [pal'ets]
leg/foot - нога [noga]

YAY! Same as in Polish, pretty much.

Haku, yikes, brings me back to the Russian thread.. I totally suck at this.