OT

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

Hope you don't mind my off-topic post. I'm leaving for Moldova on Tuesday. Any of you have any advice, suggestions about things to see, or funny stories? I'll be there for nine days, mostly working, with some travel time here and there.

Thanks!

Вопрос про знаки ударения

[kasak.livejournal.com]

I have a question regarding accent marks in printed Russian. I know that no newspaper or novel (aside from those directed at learners) will be printed with accent marks on words, but dictionaries and textbooks for learning the Russian language will. Is there any way, or any font that anyone knows of, that will allow me to type out Russian with accents on words?

I've tried using accented Roman characters for the a, o, e, and у, but it's impossible to convincingly do so with я, ю, и, and ы (ё is a moot point, since it's always accented).

Anyone else encountered this problem and figured out a satisfactory answer, or know how I can get a font that has these Russian vowels with accent marks?

Also, I have a side question, regarding the usage of "быть" in the present tense (есмь, еси, есть, есмы, есте, суть); when exactly did these words get dropped from everyday use? Was it recent, or is it older than a hundred years in the making? Was there any sort of context for how these forms were dropped from formal language? Just curious.

Russian screen readers

[moria923.livejournal.com]

Since I happen to be blind, I use a screen reader to convert the text on my computer screen to speech. Though I've been monitoring this community for awhile, it's been frustrating because my screen reader can't read the Russian, so I hear something like: "How do you translate dash, dash, dash . . . "

Does anyone know of any technology that could help me? I know that JAWS, the most popular screen reader and the one that I now use, does have a Russian version, but the company told my hussband that the Russians won't let it be sold here because of copyright issues. I realize that in the foreseeable future there's little hope of finding something that can easily switch between Russian and English, to read, for instance, most of the posts in this community. But if I could find a screenreader that can read Cyrillic, then I can read Russian communities on LJ and establish some friendships with Russian speakers. I guess to do that I'd have to set up a separate Russian LJ because the Russian screen reader probably wouldn't be able to deal with English.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Pronouns and the imperative

[dzhozef-derfler.livejournal.com]

In many songs, I've seen a pronoun followed by an imperative verb. Does this change the meaning of the phrase, such as making the pronoun and word of direct address? Or does it change how the verb is read?
Here are brief examples (from songs* I like):
А ты вспомнимай меня...
Ты не люби его.
Ты не верь им.
Ты это знай.
Ты не отпускай.


*And those are all by the same artist, but I won't name her. According to a friend of mine, she mispronounces things and disliked by quite a few. This is, of course, from the same friend that absolutely despises the singer. If you recognize the songs/lyrics and don't like the singer, then please just pretend they are made up example sentences. In no way am I intending to use people to do something against their will. I just want to know how the phrases work so I can translate the songs on my own...

Thank you!
**EDIT: At some point, I changed the font size, and it screwed up the rest of the journal. That's why some words are bigger than others...**