purrkele-learns-languages-blog

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For your reference: Ending system for the declension type one. Declension I unites masculine nouns ending with a hard or soft consonant and all neuter nouns.

Every time you learn endings, refer to this table and find the cell for each particular case/ending. This will help you to think about endings as about a system (and they really work as a system).

Please note, some variations occur. There are a bunch of irregular endings or alternative endings, particulalry for plural.

More to come.

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Tips on how to memorize Russian handwriting? I'm really thrown off by it. I can read Russian and type in Russian but I'm struggling to memorize handwritten letters

Hi! The best thing would be to understand how letters are built, how the cursive letters are connected to the usual ones. For example, in this post I explained how the letters л and п are built. Understanding is the key to better memorizing.

You can download прописи - exercise books that are used in elementary schools. Here is the link for free pdf files. This may help you to memorize letters as well as practice handwriting. 

And here we discussed this topic a while ago. 

And last but not least - you can use the bookmarks with the Russian alphabet. Bookmarks work particularly well as a mnemonic device, because they are always handy and you loot at them frequently. 

Good luck!

[purrkele-learns-languages-blog]

All the three tables in one slide show. The presentation looks a bit blurry (I don’t know why), but you can download it as a pdf file, which is quite sharp.

Enjoy!

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Ciao, thanks for explaining. I'm imperfetto anon again :) For example, "ieri prima di entrare nel cinema ti ho aspettato per più di mezz'ora". I have been told that it should be 'ho aspettato' but I was thinking it should be 'aspettavo', this is where I was wrong. Or "ho vissuto a Roma per quasi 7 anni", I would say "vivevo a Roma per quasi 7 anni" but I was, once again, told that it's passato prossimo.

Both of the corrections are right, but I can see why you would get confused.

Ieri, prima di entrare nel cinema ti ho aspettato per più di mezz'ora.

You use passato prossimo here because it isn’t a repeated action. In fact, you say prima, which is only a small portion of your time during which you waited. After that, you met with the person you were waiting for, so there is nothing habitual about that. Most of the times, repeated actions translate into English with the phrasal verb to be used to or with the modal verb would. An habitual action is:

Quando ero un bambino, andavo a scuola con la bici.

Now let’s analyse the second sentence.

Ho vissuto a Roma per quasi 7 anni

You use passato prossimo here because, even though you repeated the action of living for 7 years in one place, now the situation is different and probably the speaker lives somewhere else. If they were still living in Rome they would have used vivo instead, but they didn’t because apparently they moved.

Usually you use passato prossimo when you see specific time and duration (per 7 anni). That’s because when the speaker uses such construction, it means that their personal relation to that event has changed but is still affecting them in the present. Ho vissuto a Roma per quasi 7 anni, ma ora vivo a Perugia means that, even though they had lived in Rome for 7 years, they’re now living in Perugia, so the situation is completely changed now, and that’s what the speaker in the second sentence in referring two.

By the way, if you type “passato prossimo imperfetto” into google you will get a lot of websites with exercises. I hope this helped!

[purrkele-learns-languages-blog]

Embarrassing Language Time

by Yours Truly

One time, I tried to tell my boyfriend to drink water and tried to say “пейте воду” but I screwed up the intonation

So Alyosha was like “Umm… you just told me to go drink in hell” Like “пейте в аду”

This happened weeks ago but it still keeps me up at night.

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video:  Finnish Weatherman Presents Weather ‘Game of Thrones’-Style

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Siis jos ette oo jo nähny tätä mahtavaa videota suomen luonnosta, ni nyt kannattais klikata

I think we Finns often forget that we live in a beautiful country as well.

[purrkele-learns-languages-blog]

I’ve seen this going around as a good way to explain cultural appropriation, and I think it’s a sensible approach. 

I don’t understand culture appropriation

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How to introduce yourself in Finnish

Minun nimeni on [nimi]. My name is [name]. Minä olen [numero] vuotta vanha. Minä olen [numero]-vuotias. I am [number] years old. Minä olen [kansalaisuus]. I am [nationality]. Minä harrastan [harrastus (partitiivissa)]. I enjoy [the name of the hobby in the partitive case] as a hobby. Minä opiskelen suomea. I study Finnish.

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In what situations what cases to use. Genitive case See the English version of a table and other cases here - http://www.ruspeach.com/en/learning/course220/lesson3466/ В каком случае какой падеж использовать. Родительный падеж Смотри английскую версию таблицы и другие падежи тут - http://www.ruspeach.com/learning/course220/lesson3466/ www.ruspeach.com

[purrkele-learns-languages-blog]

1140: Leccarsi i baffi

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Елена Фролова - Дурочка

Я сижу одна на крылечке, на крылечке, И стараюсь песенку тинькать. В голове бегает, кружится человечек И какой-то поворачивает винтик. Я слежу вот за этой серенькой птичкой… Здесь меня не увидит никто. Человечек в голове перебирает вещички, В голове непрестанное: ток, ток. «Это дурочка», – вчера про меня шепнули, И никто не может подумать о нём. А, чудесная птичка! Гуленьки, гули! Человечек шепчет: «Подожги-ка свой дом». Голова болит из-за тебя, человечек. Какой вертлявый ты, жужжащий! Как тонок! Вытащу тебя, подожгу на свечке, Запищишь ты, проклятый, как мышонок.

[purrkele-learns-languages-blog]

Noun declension table.

Were they the best three words you heard today? I think so.

This is pretty much all you’ll need in terms of Russian noun declensions.

Here is the best noun declension table you’ll ever see, made by yours truly. The only way it could be any more awesome would be if unicorns and rainbows were added to it, but I decided to keep it professional.

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“really?” I say to inanimate objects that are not working like they usually do

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I only liken it to torture because I’m far too intimidated to try myself. xD I’d end up choking halfway through and cursing for 7 straight minutes afterwards. I look forwards to your Finnish version! ♥

I said if this post got 100 notes I would upload a recording of me saying this very long German word…

Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung

regulation of the delegation of authority concerning land conveyance permissions

At 67 letters long, it’s one of the longest words to be included in the Duden. I can pronounce all 19 syllables in under 4 seconds, how quickly can you say it? Here it is broken down into syllables and IPA if you’d like to give it a try…

Grund-stücks-ver-kehrs-ge-nehm-i-gungs-zu-ständ-ig-keits-üb-er-trag-ungs-ver-ord-nung

/grʊntʃtʏksfɛrke:rsgəne:mɪgʊŋst͡su:ʃtɛndɪçkaɪt͡sy:bɐtra:gʊŋsfɛrɔrdnu:ŋ/

(The above syllabic breakdown is based on the way the word is pronounced, not morpheme boundaries, hence the “i-gungs” instead of “ig-ungs”. Also if anyone finds any problems with my IPA transcription please let me know because I honestly am not very good at IPA yet and I am not sure whether this is acceptable.)

Your challenge: find a really long/difficult to pronounce word in your target language and upload a recording of yourself trying to say saying it.

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omfg

a headline i never thought i would see