On dubbing in Russia.

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

I know this is slightly off-topic, but please bear with me.
The recent discussion on translation and cultural differences got me thinking...

A few of the countries I have visited in Europe, Russia included, have a tendency to dub most of the films coming in foreign languages (as opposed to adding subtitles to them).

They do that where I live too, but not quite as often and there are laws that compel cinemas to have at least one theatre with the original version.

I guess dubbing is done to make it easier for average people to understand films; to protect the local film industry and to preserve the language but...

Am I the only one here who believes that by substituting the voice of an actor for another you are inevitably and completely altering the artistic value of a given cinematic piece?

I mean, an actor's inflections, enunciation and verbal expression in general may account for as much as 75% of his performance.
How will you really know how good an actor Sir Lawrence Olivier was if, instead of his voice, you hear some other person speaking his parts? And in another language?

Any thoughts?

Total Beginner Question

[elf-inside.livejournal.com]

Does anyone have tips on learning the Russian Alphabet? Should I learn it fully and ignore transliterations (phoenetic spelling using the English alphabet), thus not learning ANY Russian until I master Cyrillic? Are there any good learning aids for this?

I've learned Latin, German and Spanish in the past so I should be able to handle yet another language (and Russian is different enough to avoid cross-contamination of vocabularies in my head, unlike Latin which got obliterated by learning Spanish - oops). However, none of those required learning a new alphabet so that's something that is remarkably harder than I expected. I have reviewed it numerous times, but I just don't "see" the words... it still looks like a mess to me so I think I need a new tactic :).. Advice?

Get off my ass!

[imyourrushmore.livejournal.com]

haha a funny bumper sticker i saw in israel last month:



certainly not as funny in english, but "don't look at asses, but look at stop signs"

сызмальствa?

[serialcondition.livejournal.com]

I came across this word -- сызмальства -- from the context (сызмальства почти, от молодых ногтей, любимым словом моим было "дерзание") I am thinking it's "from childhood"
how do I take this word apart : is сыз- a prefix? and, if yes, what other constructions can it be used in?
is сыз- like с or из?

I hope this makes sense

t.

update:

с + из = сыз -- prefix that means from beginning or origin; for example сыздавна, сыздетства, сызнова; this usage is antiquated

thank you for your help

advice needed on writing professional business correspondence in Russian

[red-kitti.livejournal.com]

Does anyone have any advice on how to begin and end a formal business letter in Russian? Up until this point, the only letters I've written in Russian have been to friends and I know there must be a difference... Any advice or urls for pages giving advice would be welcome. Спасибо!

Russian Television in the States.

[kaersaij.livejournal.com]

My friend recently moved to Washington DC. (She doesn't do the Lj thing). We met in Russian class in Indiana, and she's interested in having some Russian television available in her apartment to keep up with the language. I figure its possible, but don't know how to research that. I wanted to first see if anyone in this community who lives in DC is knowledgeable of this. At IU, we only had the RTVi channel, which the school had to order a card for, and that was alright. I'm wondering, what are the options with both channels and availability?