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Afrikaans!
Cape Town. Or, as they say in Afrikaans, Kaapstad. Well, people, I’m doing it. Remember how I did that six-week challenge with the Afrikaans language? And how I fell in love with it? But then I didn’t...
View ArticleSaturday Night Poetry: Pushkin
Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these. That’s sad, as I used to do this nearly every week when I had my old blog. Tonight’s poem is by Aleksandr Pushkin, the father of Russian...
View ArticleSaturday Night Music: ‘My Address is the Soviet Union’
This song has been stuck in my head for almost twenty-four hours now. I suppose I shouldn’t complain: if I have to have a song stuck in my head, I’d much prefer a Russian one to some annoying (and bad)...
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What is the Best Language to Learn?
I don’t like Ukrainian quite as much as Russian, but it’s a close second. Corinne McKay, a translator whose blog I’ve been reading for a while, has a post on which language is “the best” to learn. She...
View ArticlePimsleur Retweeted My Post!
This is a big deal, people. Pimsleur retweeted my post about which language to learn. I’m so happy! Can be answered using so many criteria, but a great Q! RT @natalie_ What’s the Best #Language to...
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Are You a Different Person When Speaking Different Languages?
I’ve been thinking about this idea for a while but finally decided to write about it when I stumbled across a post on Alex Rawlings’ blog. Alex, who is studying German and Russian at Oxford, was named...
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The State of the Russian Language
Where is Russian spoken? Official language (dark blue) and unofficial (light blue) I’ve encountered the idea occasionally that learning Russian is a useless endeavor because it is a “dying language”....
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KGB Slang
I read a book recently called Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century by Sergei Kostin and Eric Raynaud. It was really, really good, as is the excellent film that is loosely based on...
View ArticleThe Five Most Useful Languages to Learn
Zach Crawley, a language blogger I recently discovered, posted an article about the five most useful languages to learn. I don’t agree with all his choices (lists like this are a matter of opinion), so...
View ArticleInterpretations of Tyutchev’s ‘Cicero’
I’ve been meaning to post about this fabulous Russian poem, “Cicero” by Fyodor Tyutchev, for some time now, but I kept forgetting. I discovered it in a book about here (I modified the line spacing and...
View ArticleThe Closing of RIA Novosti: End of an Era
If you came into my dorm room when I was a second-year university student, you most likely would have seen me cheerfully reading and taking notes for my classes, all the while listening to Voice of...
View ArticleNatasha’s Guide to the Russian Opposition
One thing we Russian students can’t escape hearing about the “opposition” in Russia. People in the field talk about it all the time. Journalists talk about the opposition, too: they’ll mention how the...
View ArticleResources for Learning Russian
Friend and fellow language blogger Donovan of The Mezzofanti Guild is in yet another new country learning a new language: Russian. Donovan is a great blogger who writes really great posts about...
View ArticleA Concert for the Romanovs
I just found this fantastic video on the Royal Russia blog I talked about before. Apparently, there was a concert at the Hermitage museum in Russia to honor the four-hundredth anniversary of the...
View ArticleIsaak Babel
I am asking for only one thing—let me finish my work. –Isaak Babel’s last words at his trial before being shot Executed Today, a delightfully historical but very morbid blog, reminded me via Twitter...
View ArticleA Paradox
I have observed a strange paradox: the better I have become at Russian, the worse I have become at translation. I can’t figure out if I am assimilating the knowledge of Russian at such a deep,...
View ArticleTake That, Rosetta!
At long last, the Daily Post (a blog about blogging) has a prompt I actually want to answer! Okay, that sounds mean, but I don’t usually get inspired by writing prompts. Anyway, here’s today’s prompt:...
View ArticleMonolingual
Americans have such a reputation for being monolingual that sometimes people mistake me for non-American when they find out I know Russian. “Wow, that’s so cool you know multiple languages!” someone...
View ArticleStalingrad: The Film
This is happening tomorrow, people. Yes, that’s right: I’m going to see Fyodor Bondarchuk’s epic Stalingrad tomorrow and I can’t wait. It’s only playing in IMAX 3D where I live, so I’ll have to pay an...
View ArticleMy Latest Obsession: the LanguageLearning subreddit
So remember when I talked about language lust and my fondness for reading language learning forums? Well, I have found another language learning forum to read. It’s actually on Reddit, so it’s a...
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