Some help

[socialsodomy.livejournal.com]

Hi! I am writting a letter to my friend in Tatarstan and I need some help with a few phrases. Thanks in advance!

• Describing authorship: I mailed her a bunch of CDs and now I want to tell her about them. So, how would I say like "the disk by Leonard Cohen"? I suppose I could put his name in genitive case, like: "диск Леонарда Коэна." But then again, I would like to put his name in English because who is this "Леонард Коэн" guy?!?!


• How do I say "airplane ticket" and "train ticket"? I know that "билет" is ticket but I don't know how to attach the mode of transportation to it ...


• What is the gender of the city Казань?

Also, she uses the word "здорово" a lot, which I am told means like "fun." I have never heard this word spoken, but I am under the impression that it has a different accent than the word "здорОво" (accent on the 2nd "О") which means like "healthy." So, where does the accent go when it means like "fun"?

Thank you!

Comments

[socialsodomy.livejournal.com]

Well, she has never heard of him before and the CDs I sent her were labeled in English. Although, I suppose the transliteration is obvious in this case. It could get more intersting with making another some of the other artists, like, "Heidi Spencer" into Russian alphabet: Хайди or just Айди or something. I just don't want to confuse her with using different names in my e-mail.

[ob-ivan.livejournal.com]

Concerning Heidi: modern tradition is to transcribe English [h] sound with Russian letter х. Thus you'd write Хайди, not Айди.

[kart.livejournal.com]

Why not Гайди?

When it comes to transliterations of US cities, there appears to be more than one way to do it:
Гаррисбург, Пенсильвания
Хьюстон, Техас

[ob-ivan.livejournal.com]

Usage of Х is a modern way.
The [h]->Г tradition comes up to the transliteration of German words (where [h] is a voiced sound, unlike English one), it was wide spread in XIX, thus all the words with H that were translitted at that time (including Harrisburg, Penn) come out with Г, and they remain in this way. Though concerning Harrisburg, I believe, it's possible to write Харрисбург, this should be understood as well.

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

Yes, some names can be confusing yet for me it usually happens with the french ones.
I'm 100% sure she will understand you if you transliterate this name.