Russian mat vs. English racial slurs

[zombie-laika.livejournal.com]

Whenever the topic of mat comes up, I'm told that it should be avoided at all costs. I've been given two reasons: 1) as a non-native speaker, it's extremely difficult to understand how to use mat; 2) mat is much stronger than its English equivalents. The second reason is harder for me to grasp than the first since I am completely numb to this type of quality in Russian.

The following question is to help me understand the strength of mat in Russian. How would you (native speakers) compare the strength of Russian mat to the strength of the word nigger in English? Note that I'm not asking for a comparison of meaning (obviously mat is sexual and nigger is racial), but instead for a comparison of the magnitude of the words' impacts.

(no subject)

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Can someone please explain the participle -то after nouns and verbs. This is NOT in reference to когда-то, где-то, что-то, кто-то, куда-то and basically any of its variants. The -то I am referring to is usually in more colloquial speech. I hear snippets of it everytime, and I am trying to recall some examples...

My host mother once asked me "А ты что вчера делал-то?" In Oblomov movie, in one scene a man says "Это Лука-то строил" or perhaps I am misremembering and it was "Кто это построил-то?"

And I often see "А я-то думал, что..." usually it ends up being иначе.

Invitation Letters

[stpetersburg.livejournal.com]

Everyone,

I'm looking to visit my girlfriend in Russia over spring break. However, that bane of the Russian visa, the invitation letter, is giving me issues. I'd rather not have to spend the money on a tourist agency so that they can give me a visa (I'm hoping to stay in her homestay), but I've heard that private visas are notoriously difficult to obtain. Does anyone have any advice on how to get a letter of invitation without having to committ myself to a tourist agency or the like?

Thanks in advance,
Josh.

(no subject)

[korolyeva525.livejournal.com]

I thought this may be of interest to some members of the community.

Every semester, the Russian Club at my university holds a potluck dinner. We're encouraged to cook traditional Russian dishes for the event. I did not make a traditional dish, but I thought I would share my creation with everyone. Photos, and rough Russian translation of what I tried to say in this paragraph... under the cut (please correct my grammar if I say things wrong!!)

( фотки и текст )

x-posted to Eng_Ru_exchange and my journal

Essay

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

So I have this essay I have to do, but I wanted to run it through you guys first. It started off with good intentions, but my teacher is making us follow this sort of scheme for essays full of shtampy, so that both my writing style is cramped and dry. And it ends up sounding disgustingly American. Nonetheless

( Help would be gratefully greatly appreciated )

Corrections

[zombie-laika.livejournal.com]

Tomorrow I'm giving a presentation on Andrei Sakharov to my Russian class. Would anyone be interested in looking at my slides and seeing if there are any glaring errors? Here's a URL to the slides in PDF format: http://www.umich.edu/~afader/sakharov_slides.pdf.

I'm also writing an essay to go along with the presentation, although it's currently incomplete. If anyone wants to look at that in a few days, I'd be very thankful. I hope that I'm not taking advantage of this generous community...