2008-01-21

(no subject)

Привет (hello!),

I am a 22 year old female college student from New York. I have always been interested in everything Russian as my ancestors came from Russia three generations ago. I recently decided to teach myself the language and am still in the stage of studying the alphabet. I have found the differences between cyrillic block letters and the script frustrating mostly because I'm not entirely confident I am making my script letters correctly (legibly). Any advice?

So far I really enjoy Russian and am curious to see how much I can learn on my own.

What programs/books/websites are you guys using to help with your Russian? Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Sara

Russian culture question

One thing that I've remarked several times when reading the blogs of Scandinavians or other westeners who've spent some time in Russia, is that they comment on how Russians don't smile. I've read lots of "I went home for the holidays and once again I was met with a smile when I went to the store to shop" etc. etc. Also one girl commented that some railroad personnel at a station where trains come in from Finland greeted her with a smile because "that's what they know westerners expect as good service". Do clerks and shop personnel in Russia not smile? As a clerk in Sweden or Norway it's practically written in your contract that "YOU SHOULD ALWAYS SMILE AT CUSTOMERS" ;)

At the same time, I met this Russian travel agent who's lived in the Caribbeans for the last 10 years and who thought service in Norway was completely awful. But perhaps he was comparing it to that of the Caribbeans, and not to the Russian one?

Random question

So...I am looking at my Russian syllabus for the week, and have no clue what a доклад is. I typed it into a translator, and it says a report. Now my syllabus indicates no other instructions that would indicate I am writing a report.......is there an alternate meeting for this word? lol