(no subject)

[kittydesade]

Describe the people/things in the picture:

この女の人はうめたそうですね。
忙しそうな女の人ですね。
たのしそうな本ですね。
この人は元気そうですね。

... that's all I did last night? Really?



How would you do the following?
1. Greet someone on a holiday. (Well, that's misleading. "On a holiday" in American English would mean, on a day that is a holiday. But in British English it might mean, someone who is on a vacation. As with many other things, context helps.) С праздником!
2. Respond to a holiday greeting. И вас/тебя тоже.
3. Invite guests to come inside. Заходите! или Проходите!
4. Offer to take a guest's coat. Раздевайтесь!
5. Ask guests to put on house slippers in place of their shoes. Берите тапочки.
6. Say how good all the food looks. Всё выглядит (так) вкусно
7. Indicate what is the biggest holiday of the year in your country. У нас самый большой праздник (...)
8. Say that Christmas is normally celebrated within the family. Рождество обычно отмечают в семье.
9. Apologize for being late. Извините, что мы опоздали. Or also: Простите за опоздание
10. Offer a toast to your hostess. Я хотела бы тост поднять за хозяйку дома.
11. Say it is five minutes to twelve. ЕстьБез пяти двенадцать.
12. Invite a Russian friend to spend Thanksgiving (Fourth of July, Christmas, New Year's) with you. Я/Мы хотела/хотели бы пригласить тебя/вас на День благодарения (День независимости, Рождество, Новый год).
13. Say you are organizing a big dinner (a party). Устраиваем/Устраиваю большой обед (вечер for the formal term, a formal party, вечеринка for a get-together, probably more applicable for your daily life).
14. Accept an invitation. Я с удовольствием приду.
15. Ask if you can bring anything. Что принести? (Is the 'what should I bring', i.e. you've been told it's a pot-luck so you know you should bring something, but you don't know what.) Принести что-нибудь? is the more literal/applicable.(... in English that would be the conditional or the volitional. I'm not sure if it would be, in Russian.)
16. Say it smells good. Всё пахнет (так) вкусно/Так вкусно пахнет!
17. Offer to put turkey (potatoes, vegetables) on someone's plate. Положить тебе индейку? is more customary, inviting the person to decline. Я тебе индейку положу (картошку, овощи). as extrapolated from the dialogue indicates you are sure the person wants turkey/potatoes/vegetables.
18. Invite guests to help themselves to salad (meat, potatoes, turkey). (Пожалуйста?) салат (котлету, картошку, положу) бери(те).

(I'm using котлета because I'm assuming what they mean is cooked portions of meat, rather than 'meat' as a general word or category. I'm not sure if мясо would be appropriate. Same with vegetables above. Nuances! Semantics! Why are you so difficult.)

Behemoth notes: For the last two: Пожалуйста is not strictly nesessary, this diffes from English. Мясо is appropriate as cooked meat, котлета is something like a hamburger, a portion of fried ground meat. Овощи is correct too.


I would like you all to know that I successfully did not write nous sommes or s'il vous plait or anything like that up there, because I managed to toggle the language switch appropriately, even if not always the first time. I consider this a great achievement because half the time I was translating into French. For some unknown reason. And then when I was typing up the French I was thinking in Spanish and god knows what the hell is going on in my head. My brain, how does it work.

Better this morning than yesterday, though! I stayed up long enough to see lireavue get home, then slept in through my usual morning writing and running. Did the rest of my exercises though, so nyah. Fuck you, sleepy impulses, I will be awesome. I managed four sets of six push-ups today, which, considering I thought I would be up to four sets of five a couple days ago, is damn quick. Of course, now my shoulder is tight in some weird way. But! I did notice a thing the other day and this morning. When I shake paint bottles, mustard bottles, dressing bottles, whichever, my upper arm used to jiggle 'cause of not actually having much other than bone and fat and a thin layer of muscle? It don't jiggle no more. Because I am in fucking superhero training and I have muscles now. It's the little things, seriously.

No Exploding Head last night. Thank god. Some weird dreams I can't remember anymore that involved my grandparents, including my thirteen-years-passed grandmother (only she wasn't dead in the dream so it wasn't nearly as creepy as it sounds) for some reason. And my old walking route between school and home. But no Exploding Head.

I still need to check in for the week, yesterday it didn't so much happen because there were gig jitters to discuss and I was exhausted, but need to check in. And then need to figure out how I'm going to cram an entire chapter of Russian into two weeks. I forsee weekend study sessions. And possibly typing up all the rules in one night so I can just read over, copy, and paste into a journal entry, because that's a week's morning's worth of typing right there.

And now, I'm off to see an Elf Lord about a guitar!

Comments

[behe_moth]

>> И вас/тебя тоже (?)
Correct in most cases.

>>Apologize for being late. Извините, что мы опоздали.
A variant - Простите за опоздание. Both are correct.

>>Offer a toast to your hostess. Я хотела бы тост поднять за хозяйку дома.
Я хотела бы поднять тост за хозяйку (дома). Word order and the last word can be skipped.

>>Say it is five minutes to twelve. Есть пяти двенадцать.
Без пяти двенадцать )

>>Say you are organizing a big dinner (a party). Устраиваем/Устраиваю большой обед (вечер).
Well in modern Russian вечер rather means something more formal. If you're just inviting people to have fun it would be вечеринка.

Ask if you can bring anything. Что принести? (... in English that would be the conditional or the volitional. I'm not sure if it would be, in Russian.)
Rather 'Принести что-нибудь?' 'Что принести' implyes that you're sure that you have to bring something, but don't know what exactly.

>> Offer to put turkey (potatoes, vegetables) on someone's plate. Я тебе индейку положу (картошку, овощи).
The same intonational thing. This variant implyes that you're sure that the person won't declines the turkey. If you're not sure then say Положить тебе индейку? (or something else).

>>Invite guests to help themselves to salad (meat, potatoes, turkey). (Пожалуйста?) салат (котлету, картошку, положу) бери. (I'm using котлета because I'm assuming what they mean is cooked portions of meat, rather than 'meat' as a general word or category. I'm not sure if мясо would be appropriate. Same with vegetables above. Nuances! Semantics! Why are you so difficult.)
Бери(те)(I'm not sure you know about the using of ты и вы) мясо, (пожалуйста). Пожалуйста is not strictly nesessary, this diffes from English. Мясо is appropriate as cooked meat, котлета is something like a hamburger, a portion of fried ground meat. Овощи is correct too.

[kittydesade]

Notes, notes, so many notes to remember. Thank you! The book did teach about ты и вы at some point back there, and I try to put it in, but sometimes my caterpillar brain runs away with me and I forget.

One of the problems I have with learning languages isn't that it doesn't make sense, because it does. But when I stop and think about every grammar point I learn, I become overwhelmed and think, how can I remember all of this at once? and it all falls apart. It's like an (American? It probably exists in other languages and cultures.) story about the caterpillar who's walking along until someone asks, "Hey, Mr. Caterpillar. How do you move all those legs at once and not fall down?" and then the caterpillar falls over because, thinking about it, suddenly it forgets how. Thus, caterpillar brain!

And thus lots of practicing and learning and studying, and reading books when this is all over and so on. But you know that importance already. ;)

[behe_moth]

Yes, this story about caterpillar exists in Russian culture too. But without any memes like caterpillar brain.