Questions that are partly about languages other than Russian.
1
vote
2answers
99 views
“Ne pas” and “не раз”
I'm an English speaker learning Russian and from the little bit of French that I know the negation construct "ne pas" feels quite similar to "не раз".
Is there in fact a historical connection between ...
8
votes
1answer
974 views
Describe a Language Without the Noun for “Language”
In English it is rare to use the noun "language" when describing them. It is most common to name the language as such:
Engl -ish
Span -ish
French
Russi -an
Germ -an
Is it acceptable/common/...
2
votes
2answers
184 views
What is the correct name of the ship, Il'men or Il'mena?
About 1814 the Russian-American Company renamed an old ship, called "Il'men" or "Il'mena" in works written in English. Ильмень is of course a famous lake.
Boris Dralyuk suggested to Susan Morris that ...
5
votes
3answers
305 views
The value of translation at a beginner level [closed]
I started learning Russian about a month ago. I'm a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, but i'm using English as a 'base' language.
I think i'm doing well. I've used this one month period just to ...
1
vote
3answers
172 views
Russian speaking at the ending credits track from “Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014) [closed]
In this https://youtu.be/H22fZWySJ50?t=2m9s video, which I believe is a new arrangement of famous Russian folksong, someone speaks in Russian for 2 seconds. Can someone translate this saying to ...
2
votes
0answers
58 views
where can I learn everyday Russian for free? [duplicate]
I want to improve my Russian language skills (esp. speaking). Could you please post any useful online sources (for example: language chats, poscasts, videos..)
11
votes
2answers
1k views
Why are there letters which look similar but are pronounced differently between the English alphabet and Russian Cyrillic?
Gadling teaches you to read the Cyrillic alphabet in 5 minutes mentions that there's some letters in Cyrillic that look like letters in the English alphabet, but their pronunciation in Russian is ...
4
votes
6answers
4k views
How similar are Mongolian Cyrillic and Russian Cyrillic?
I'm considering learning Mongolian Cyrillic. One thing I'd like to know is whether learning Mongolian Cyrillic will help me understand Russian Cyrillic. If I learn Mongolian Cyrillic, will I be able ...
8
votes
3answers
1k views
What are the actual linguistic similarities between Russian and Belarusian?
I lived in Belarus for some time, and my wife is from there. We spoke only Russian while in the country, but most signs, public transportation announcements ("next stop", etc.) and documents were in ...
9
votes
4answers
611 views
Why Russians use adjective when speaking about their nation and nouns for the rest of the world?
how come that russian (русский) in context of ethnic group is adjective, but all(?) other ethic groups are called using nouns, американец, серб, эстонец, латыш, казах ...
Are there similar examples in ...
5
votes
1answer
361 views
Is the Russian word «рейс» related to the German word “Reise”?
Both words have similar meanings and they both seem phonetically similar as well. So, it seems to me that there's the possibility of some relation between the two words.
I'm curious if one of the ...
11
votes
1answer
873 views
Why is the numero sign (знак номера) «№» used in Russian when the letter “N” is not in the Cyrillic alphabet?
It seems strange to me that the numero sign (знак номера) № is used in Russian, despite the fact that the letter N is not present in the Cyrillic alphabet.
Not knowing any better, I would have ...
9
votes
3answers
695 views
Can someone tell whether this Russian swear word derives from German?
Лох is a word that I heard among Russians and Ukrainians who never visited Germany. So it’s not quite clear whether the German language is the origin. Can anyone shed any light on the origin of this ...
3
votes
1answer
272 views
Is Ogulsabyr a male or female name? [closed]
I received an email from someone called Ogulsabyr, and I’m not sure whether to use Mr. or Ms. in my reply. That is, I was wondering whether Ogulsabyr is a male or female name. I’ve tried search ...
11
votes
2answers
600 views
Are the Russian “рыжий” and French “rouge” (red) related? / Как связаны русское «рыжий» и французское «rouge»?
While I since had learned that linguistics works in much more mysterious ways than simply “if words sounds alike, or also mean similar things, they must be related”, for a long time I presumed that ...
11
votes
6answers
777 views
“Пока чайник закипит” or “пока чайник не закипит”
There is a russian joke the optimist is that who says "Ждать, пока чайник закипит" and pessimist is, in turn, a person who'd prefer to say "Ждать, пока чайник не закипит".
Those two form are opposite ...
9
votes
5answers
504 views
Was ever “сладкий” synonymous to “пресный” in Russian
Fresh (non-salt) water is also called sweet in English.
Surprisingly, the word sweet is also used in some Slavic languages.
To be precise:
in Polish, woda słodka
in Czech, sladká voda
in Croatian (...
5
votes
4answers
3k views
What is the understanding of church slavonic among russian native speakers?
Let's say we have a native russian speaker, who never learned or heard church slavonic. If he listens to a text in this language (I mean contemporary CS as used by today Orthodox Church and with ...
