the Lipson textbook

[yers.livejournal.com]

This link has been all over the Russian-speaking LJ in the last few days, and I feel I should share it with you. Thanks to doriy for pointing me to the whole thing, most posts just link to individual bits and pieces... so here goes, undisputedly the most hilarious Russian textbook ever.

Not that it has any serious mistakes... it's just, well, psychedelic. I'm sure it was deliberately written this way, as a satire both on the simplistic language of textbooks and on Soviet reality.

I particularly recommend the two poems in prose about concrete mixers (one, two), and to those who don't need an English translation, this dialogue (very silly, but with a sublime touch of Gogol).

Comments

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Это - атас!
I leave the translation of these two words for those of greater level of expertise :)

[yers.livejournal.com]

by the way, does the word come from the French attends?
in Pristavkin's "Ночевала тучка золотая", another form of the word is mentioned: атанда. from attendez?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

mmmmm... I would rather say that it derived from Turkish "atats", "atatsy", though I could not really explain why this exclamation should mean either what attends meant in French or father (the meaning of the word "atatsy"). "Atanda" in fact means "alarm!", "beware!" in many Turkish languages.

[costumier.livejournal.com]

thanks for sharing! :-D i've passed it on my friends already.

[commiegirl.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! Thank you very much! If anybody is interested, the all-Russian pages are in English at my journal here here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/commiegirl/107767.html). Forgive me, but even in something so simple I am not sure I did the best translation possible. :-)

I wish my textbook had been this much fun. ;-)

[belacane.livejournal.com]

the dialogue made me laugh... i needed to laugh.
speaking and reading russian makes me happy anyhow.
I just found out the porter at work speaks russian, so i have someoen to talk to and it made my day.

thank you :)

Update

[doriy.livejournal.com]

By the way, you can buy the Lipson textbook at Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/089357080X/qid%3D1073566586/002-0314722-2280858) :))