(no subject)

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Is there a difference in emphasis between words such as недалеко - близко, некрасивый - уродливый, нетрудно - легко, and the rest of the не-word - synonym combinations?

And I don't get this following verb tense usage "...голосок звонкий, как песню запоёт - заслушаешься."

As well as this whole sentence "Работа у неё в руках так и спорится"

Yes, still with the Снегурочка...

Comments

[ex-evengar540.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, there's a very little difference. "Недалеко" feels a little bit farther than "близко"; "некрасивый" is just for a smth that is not beautiful, but it doesn't mean that it's ugly (or "уродливый"); "нетрудно" does not exactly means "легко", it can be used as smth in between of "трудно" and "легко" (closer to "легко").

Logically, the part "не" means that something does not have this attribute.

Compare:
Это сделать нетрудно.
Это сделать легко.

It's not hard to do it.
It's easy to do it.

"...голосок звонкий, как песню запоёт - заслушаешься."
In this sentence, they say that the voice is so good that you'll want to listen to it if the person sings.

"Работа у неё в руках так и спорится"
She does her job well.

[oryx_and_crake]

голосок звонкий, как песню запоёт - заслушаешься.
her voice is clear (audible, melodic), when she starts singing, you start listening and forget about everything else

Работа у неё в руках так и спорится
she works so fast and well, as if with no effort at all

[buddah-gautama.livejournal.com]

Снегурочка - is the granddaughter of russian Santa Claus - Дед Мороз...

[oryx_and_crake]

Don't you confuse wolfie_18! The Snegurochka from the tale she reads has nothing to do with this dubious assistant of a dubious person who never existed at all (unlike Santa Claus).

[buddah-gautama.livejournal.com]

:))

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I'd say, this ever-hasty assistant of that ever-drunk person with a fake dirty-yellow beard who comes to congratulate your kids somewhere between December 20 and January 15, if you only pay for it in advance :)))

[solito.livejournal.com]

> ...the tale she reads...

SHE???

[oryx_and_crake]

Is it a he? Oops, I am so sorry. We just had a heated discussion in linguaphiles where someone argued that feminine, not masculine, should be used for generic ;-)

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

hmph! Thank you for the correction. )))

[solito.livejournal.com]

I know you're a boy :-)

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

A boy??? I don't know how to take that... I'd say I'm more of a молодой человек.

[solito.livejournal.com]

Well, I mean not a girl... As a masterpiece of Ilf and Petrov says: "Кто скажет, что это девочка - пусть первый бросит в меня камень"...

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>Работа у неё в руках так и спорится
Работа спорится is a steady expression, quite old-fashioned, which means that somebody is really quick and reliable in doing his/her work. And when their work спорится, it normally does so right in their hands (в руках), though I cannot explain the ethymology of this expression.

"...голосок звонкий, как песню запоёт - заслушаешься."
Note that in Russian you put a dot OUTSIDE of parentheses, not INSIDE, this is not English :))
"Her little voice is ringing [clear], as soon as she starts to sing a song, you listen stunned [and forget anything else]."
There is a couple of verbs like this: заслушаться (to listen stunned, forgetting anything else), засмотреться (to watch stunned, forgetting... etc.,) задуматься (to go very deep in thoughts so that you can't hear or see anything else,) and even заговориться (to lose yourself in a conversation; to forget about anything while you are busy speaking with somebody.) There's also заиграться (to take the game too seriously, to lose the sense of reality while playing a game) etc.

[oryx_and_crake]

спорый = скорый, быстрый

[ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com]

Note that in Russian you put a dot OUTSIDE of parentheses, not INSIDE, this is not English

Minor correction: first of all, these are quotes, not parentheses, and second, this general rule doesn't apply if the whole sentence is quoted.

[ex-evengar540.livejournal.com]

It does apply, actually. Or you have the rule nearby? It's interesting for me, as for a Russian, to read it.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Quotation marks, that's right :)))

This general rule DOES apply if the whole sentence is quoted INSIDE a paragraph. If it's standalone, then you're right.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

Do these have any connotations (negative, positive) when you use them? заслушаться, засмотреться. Or does it depend on context?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

It really depends on the context.
BTW note that there are verbs which look exactly the same except that they have no -ся in the end -- and they mean something completely different! Задумать is to decide to do something, to plan something (я задумал написать книгу - I decided to write a book); заслушать is an ugly "official speech" term that means the official hearing (заслушать показания свидетеля - to bring the witness's evidence before the court); it also has another meaning -- to listen to something too much or too often (этот диск мы заслушали до дыр -- literally, we listened to this CD until it's got holes in it); засмотреть might mean almost the same concerning something visual, not aural, like a theatre play, a movie etc., though this verb is rarely used.... ooops, I think I've overloaded you :)))

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Does the и in так и спорится add emphasis or does it serve as something else?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

It's only a typical "fairy tale" expression which adds some "folklore" or "old-times" flavor to the text. I have never heard anybody using it in real speech (well, if it wasn't a mockery which involved this fake "old-times" style.)

[oryx_and_crake]

No, why? "Так и" is a set phrase used quite often, like

Мы так и покатились со смеху.
Остановился, да так и застыл на месте.

and so on, meaning, maybe, the suddenness of change? I really don't know how to explain.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

You're right, I misunderstood the question. I thought it was about "работа так и спорилась", not about "так и" inside it.

[simonff.livejournal.com]

1. For your purposes - no. One word out of each of those two is selected in writing based on criteria which are extremely difficult to verbalize and that have to do with the flow and feel of a sentence. In speaking, they don't matter at all.
Well, некрасивый is just "not beautiful", though maybe not exceedingly so, while уродливый is emphatically "ugly". The rest are virtually identical.

2. Strangely, it's best translated in the present (simple, not continuous) tense. "Every time she sings, you can't stop listening". It's a slightly archaic construct and not used in normal speech.

3. "She is extremely proficient in her tasks", "the work is almost doing itself in her hands"

"Спориться" is very archaic.

From Dal's dictionary (http://infolio.asf.ru/Sprav/Dal/01/1630.htm):
СПОРИТЬ кому, чему чем (от пора), помогать, способствовать и пользить, приносить пользу, или улучшать, удобрять; усиливать, увеличивать; приносить счастье, удачу, идти впрок.

[marmazetka.livejournal.com]

а не от "спорый" = быстрый, скорый?
she does her work very fast

[oryx_and_crake]

Это же однокоренные слова.

[oryx_and_crake]

Sorry - I mean спорый and спорить according to the simonff's quote are words from the same root, meaning fast, to help someone, smth. become faster.
Not to be confused with спорить which means to argue.

[nbuwe.livejournal.com]

What might be confusing you is that "спориться" (succeed) is not related to "спорить" (argue). These are two different verbs.

"спорый" (-> "спориться") is cognate to "prosper" and "spare".

"спорить" is cognate to "spear" and German "sperren" (to bar, to block, to disable).

[simonff.livejournal.com]

You are overqualified for this community. :)

[nbuwe.livejournal.com]

lol.

I hope this might be helpful for someone. This kind of information certainly does help me (when learning other languages, of course :). May be I'm just wired that way...

[http://users.livejournal.com/__marginal/]

Well, fairytales may be interesting, but you should understand that language of them is not the same as modern literary Russian.
Definitely it is not more simple

Maybe you could read some literature, of 19th or 20th century. Probably you know this address, but I'll give it anyway: http://lib.ru . But beware of typos, there are a lot of them.

Also there is some classic Russian literature here - http://rvb.ru/ . Such as 10-volume собрание сочинений (don't know English word) of Pushkin. They say, there is no typos at all.