(no subject)

[realplayer.livejournal.com]

Hi. I wrote it for my English-speaking friends some time ago and I thought it can be interesting for you too.
I don't pretend to be a great linguist or something, I just tried to explain what few people asked me about.
I know that my English is far from perfect so any correctons are very appreciated ;-).
And sorry if it's an off-topic or just boring. Hope it's not and you'll find it useful.


Do you know, that Russian livejournal community calls livejournal "ЖЖ"? It comes from the direct translation of the name of the service "Живой Журнал".
Мой день начинается с того, что я включаю компьютер и открываю жж.

We don't really call people who are in our friends list "друзья", though it's the translation. There even were controversies about the term, because "друзья" is too personal a concept, while lj-friends are just journals you like to read.
How do we call them is "френды". I'm sure you can easily reveal the etymology of this neologism ;-).
Первым делом я открываю френд-ленту и смотрю, что написали за ночь мои френды.

Of course, some people say "добавить в друзья" (add to friends), but "зафрендить" is more popular, as far as I can tell. Or just "добавить".
За последние два дня меня зафрендила уйма народу. Не пойму, что произошло. Наверно кто-то меня отрекламировал в своем журнале и они решили меня добавить.

The word for community is (try to guess!!!) "комьюнити". Some people call it "общество" or even "сообщество", but for me it sounds a little in soviet style and I prefer "комьюнити". Most of people use it just like me.
Недавно появилось новое комьюнити для тех, кто учит латынь.

What else?

When we mean information page, we can say "инфа".
Посмотри номер моей аськи в инфе

By the way, do you know what "аська" is?? It's ICQ! Also it's a girl's name: Ася - Аська. It comes from the spelling: айсикью doesn't sounds too smoothly, while "аська" is nice and funny.
Ты в сети? Включи аську! Я не могу до тебя дозвониться полдня.







There are many words in modern Russian that comes from English, not only lj-slang. Such adopted words have always been in any language, but I think this tendency has increased in the last few years owing to informational technologies. Especially many words appears in the business and computer sphere or in the colloquial language.
Like Пиар (PR - public relations),
Прайваси (privacy),
Флэшбэк (flash back),
and others.

Some of them are declined as if they were Russian words, some of them can't be declined at all.
Like indeclinable "Ты не защитник прайваси, а параноик"
and declinable "Как же мне надоели эти флэшбэки!".

Etc.

In most cases the type of the noun can be defined from whether the word can or cannot be referred to any of Russian declension. Like "флэшбэк" can be defined as the word of second dexlension (мужской род без окончания. второе склонение.), while "прайваси" cannot be reffered to any of them.

(It's my thoughts about the subject. Corrections of Russian friends are very appreciated, if needed.)




As usual
1 If you want to take part, translate the red sentences and I'll check your translation :-)
2 Correct my mistakes, please!
3 Ask questions!

Comments

[med99.livejournal.com]

Without meaning to offend you or deprecate your effort, my personal opinion is that most of Russian internetspeak is so trashy I don't see the point of teaching it to anyone.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Neither can I see the point to teach native English speakers to understand broken English words which become "slang units" in other languages.

[realplayer.livejournal.com]

what?

[realplayer.livejournal.com]

If I'm not mistaken, you both are Russian, right? ;-)

Ok, you can delete it if you want. I just post it here too, because my friends asked me about such words and I wrote it.

[realplayer.livejournal.com]

But it is a language that exists!

[silentreverie.livejournal.com]

Actually, I thought it was very interesting to read. Thanks for posting! :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Well, there is also the professional argot of carpenters, or the fighter pilots lingo, or the police jargon. Is there the point to study them instead of the, er, general interest language? ;-)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I don't say it's not interesting. Some police slang might be interesting and useful as well :) I only doubted that these parts of the language should be studied ahead of the "main course" :))

[realplayer.livejournal.com]

Thanks )

[realplayer.livejournal.com]

The whole consists of parts. There's no doubt, I can't explain all basics of Russian grammar or make people learn a big amount of words just at once. I choose this part this time. I was asked about it by few people.

We're not carpenters here, we use internet and involved in this sphere. My close friend tries to read Russian livejournals and asks me many questions. Question about this slang can be answered in one post.

I didn't say that it was the main words people must learn. I didn't say it will be hard to understand this broken English. I said maybe it could be interested for somebody or even useful.

We have to admit, this community doesn't teach nobody. Nobody gives lessons regulary and from the beginning step by step. Does it mean I must start with alphabet if I want to share my thoughts about lj-slang?

[realplayer.livejournal.com]

Ahead? I didn't say it.
By the way, degrees of people here differ...

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Again, I'm here not to permit or to restrict. All I say is that I see no point in it. This doesn't mean you can't do it. I (I personally!) only doubt that it's good for those who learn Russian, because I seriously doubt that this is the part of my native language really worth promoting it.
I personally try to use this slang as seldom and selective as I can.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

yes, some are B.A.'s, some M.A.'s, Im sure we can find a couple of PhD's as well.... ;-)))))))))

[margorand.livejournal.com]

It might be slang, but it's relevant slang for those of us learners who read Russian-language livejournals!

Thanks for posting :)

[realplayer.livejournal.com]

I understood it and just tried to explain my opinion to you. Nothing about your status here

[realplayer.livejournal.com]

Ох. Я пыталась сказать, что у всех разный уровень языка. Неправильно так?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Да, получилось, что у всех - разные степени :) People are on a different level of study, я бы так сказал, but I'm not a pro in English since I have never studied it formally.

[realplayer.livejournal.com]

I'm glad :-)

[kasak.livejournal.com]

One of the biggest problems for students of Russian is that no such list of technological and internet terms exist, so we are sort of in the dark on such words.

I forgot to thank you earlier when you posted these to your journal, Lena, because for non-natives, these words are both informative and helpful.

Спасибо!

[ex-evengar540.livejournal.com]

As far as I heard, there are new editions of the official dictionaries of Russian, which include many neologisms. But I don't know if they're easily reachable. I was never interested in it though.

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

No offense intended, but I personally didn't find it useful, either. I mean, words that essentially sound the same in Russian as they do in English are pretty self-explanatory. The very first pages of the very first unit of the textbook from my very first semester studying Russian had a list similar to this (including American city names, technological gear, simple terms, etc.). The whole point of it, I assume, was to calm beginners' anxieties about how difficult it would be to learn Russian. "Look! See how many Russian words YOU ALREADY KNOW???!"

The word for "roast beef" especially appealed to me. :)

I'm just saying, that particular part of the post was a little too much of the Stating-the-Obvious variety.

Neat tidbit about the ICQ thing, though. I don't see myself ever needing to know that, but, it may come in useful someday. :)

[wondergurl-77.livejournal.com]

You've got an awfully silly bunch of comments with this post. :)

Oh well, I thought this was interesting. Thank-you :)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

If you're going to be practicing carpentry or going to be a fighter pilot/policeman in Russia, or talk to them in their language, it might be a good idea to study them-- likewise I think that it's a good idea to know some stuff about Russian netspeak. I wouldn't take it any more seriously than the English-speakers' netspeak like "ppl" for people or "ur" for "you're/your"... but it's good to know, just to understand. :)

[cema.livejournal.com]

This posting is definitely relevant to this group.

And it may be useful to Russian learners who presumably spend a substantial portion of life online.

[realplayer.livejournal.com]

Good points are made! =) I meant not only to explain this slang to people, but also make them know how widespread here English is and how interesting ethymology of some words can be for us, who know one of this languages and trying to learn another.

(Oh, may I ask you to check the word order in this sentence? I'm not sure I wrote it correct)

However, I don't know why people jumped on me. I didn't mean I was a great teacher or something, but for sure this post can be more useful that "just came to say hello, I'm new to this community", isn't it? These words are obvious of course. If somebosy wants to find rare words, he can look in the dictionary. There are plenty of them in it. If somebody wants a proper practice, he can translate what I wrote in red. These sentences contains not only 'trashy' vocabulary. If it's too easy for him, he can try to translate some works on - don't know - study of language and literature. How do you think?

WoW

[ex-bluejuly.livejournal.com]

I don't know what is the problem with some people here, but not everyone here is Russian and not everyone here knows everything. Also,

IT'S A GODDAMN POST, GIVE IT A BREAK.

Whether it has a point of not, why does it matter? It's a board and people write things. Some people find it useful, some people don't. If you appreciate do comment so. If you don't, just shut up or nicely put, LEAVE IT ALONE.