Two questions.

[arian-archer.livejournal.com]

1.) in my Russian class today we were discussing things we like to do during certain seasons and skiing inevitably came up. Only one person in my class was a skiier, but we had a few snowboarders. Unfortunately my professor didn't know the word for snowboard. So in anycase, what's the word for snowboard.

2. No back story, but how do you say chopsticks?

Comments

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

I've never heard anyone saying "палочки для еды". Are you from St.Petersburg? In Moscow other places I know everybody say either just "палочки" or "китайские палочки".

P.S. Checked your profile and found my guess about Spb was correct. Surprisingly, I'm not surprised (pun intended). :)

P.P.S. To all the learners of Russian: this is something for you to note, if you see battles over some word, check the profiles to see what cities the people are from. If you see some are from St.Petersburg, put their answers into a special notepad. Use the words from that notepad when you go to St.Petersburg and never use them in other places as you won't be understood or will be misunderstood. :)

[belaja-belka.livejournal.com]

You want to say, that if one will come in some Moscow supermarket and ask for just "палочки", he'll be understood immediately? Палочки means sticks, and they can be many different sorts, from orchestra director's stick to old lady's walking-stick. Surely, if you go to chinese or japanese restaurant, you can expect to be understood asking "палочки" without specification of their sort.

P.S. Many people from Moscow for some obscured reason are very proud to being from Moscow. Sometimes it becomes rather funny, like in this case.

P.P.S. Checked your profile and found my guess about Moscow was correct. Surprisingly, I'm not surprised.

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

Of course if you come to a supermarket (in either Spb or Msk) and ask for "палочки", you won't be understood immediately. But you will be understood immediately if you ask for "палочки" in a chinese/japanese restaurant. That depends on the context and I thought it was obvious. The thing is that if you come to a supermarket in Moscow and ask for "палочки для еды", you won't be understood either as nobody knows what sticks you like to eat. :) It may be, crab sticks or fish sticks. :) Same thing will happen in most other Russian cities except Spb and it's nearest neighborhood. However, I'm not sure if you'll be understood in Spb if you ask for "китайские палочки" in a supermarket. :) You have a special (rather funny and nice) flavour of Russian there. But I'm not going to start that usual holy war here. If you prefer eating "пышки" instead of "пончики", "пончики" instead of "булки", "булки" instead of "батоны хлеба" and "хлеб" instead of "буханка", you're welcome to do so, but just don't say to foreigners that those are norms of Russian language. :)

As to being proud, that's a usual property of Spb citizens, but that wasn't the point of my original post. I just wanted to show the learners that there are different flavours of Russian in our big country.

[belaja-belka.livejournal.com]

About context I told in my first comment, read above.
What about norms of Russian language... one should be completely nuts expecting one norms for this huge country!
Nevertheless, пышка, пончик, булка, хлеб и буханка - all these are normal Russian words, see any dictionary.
Do not disorient people, in Saint-Petersburg people do not speak some different Russian, they do speak in NORMAL Russian, like in Moscow, in Siberia and Vladivostok - with small local differences, what is absolutely normal for any living language. But, thank to broadcast TV, same school program of USSR and so on, this differences really are small. Do not make a mountain out of a molehill, please.

Pretending that any city hold "only proper" Russian is at least unwise.