(no subject)

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Hey can someone please tell me the Russian word for homework? I was trying to say "I'm not very good when it comes to homework" since I am a major procrastinator, but I could only get as far as

Я не очень хорощо когда ________ к _______ . Much thanks if you can help me out!

Also, what is the word for procrastinator?

Comments

[imma2qoot4u.livejournal.com]

I believe there is the verb <заниматься> which means to study or to do homework if that helps. im a beginner myself... and also a procrastinator! lol

My two cents

[nale.livejournal.com]

У меня не очень хорошо получаются домашние задания.
С домашними заданиями у меня не очень.

Re: My two cents

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Cпасиба, но что вы говорите не что Я хочу.

Re: My two cents

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

(I hope i said that right lol.)

Re: My two cents

[nale.livejournal.com]

Almost. :)))) As it is a community for learning Russian, I'll take liberty of correcting you a bit:

"Cпасибо, но это не то, что мне нужно." ( = Thank you, but it's not what I want.)

Your phrase is quite all right, too (save two misprints: it is спасиб_о_ and _я_), but it would be even better like this:

"Спасибо, но вы говорите не то, что я хочу."

Although this is put a little too straightforward and may sound not very polite. :))))) Sorry. :)))

Re: My two cents

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I never get the whole politeness thing right. I almost put it all in the ты form, and then changed it cuz I thought that that might have been a little rude lol. Also, я isn't capitalized like I in english? I wasn't sure about that one. The commas in Russian... I still don't know when to and when not to use them. Cuz in English, that would definately be a misuse of it.

BTW: My phrase was so bad because I have a small vocabulary when it come to Russian. I'm just glad I got it half right lol.

Re: My two cents

[nale.livejournal.com]

No, я is never capitalized. In official documents and important letters one should capitalaize Вы and its derivatives, if the paper is addressed to a single person. When there are several addressees, Вы is not capitalized. In poetry, in Scripture and things like that one capitalizes all pronouns referring to God.

As for Russian punctuation - it really is obscure sometimes. :)))) I think you'll get used to it as you progress; may be I shouldn't trouble you with all the details here. But rest assured that many native-speakers don't know it either. :))

Re: My two cents

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And as for punctuation, I totally understand. I didn't really learn the rules for English commas until last year (I'm now in 10th grade). And I am sure that there are plenty of people who don't know the English rules either lol.

Thing about English is that people put commas all the time when they aren't supposed to. In Russian, I try to not put too many commas because I don't want to break the English rules, when I should really be putting them more often. I guess I have just to get used to it and get over it.

Re: My two cents

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Hey, most of Russians do not really know where to put all those commas. When I was in the high school (alas, too many years ago now,) most of my classmates would either put it as thick as possible (like, Вчера, я, со своим, другом, Мишей, ходил в кино.) or simply use none (like, Скажи кто это тот который приходил вчера или тот который пришел сегодня.) The only problem is that the musise of commas seriously changes the meaning of the sentence sometimes (the famous example is казнить нельзя помиловать - if you put a comma between 1st and 2nd word you kill a man, and if you put it between 2nd and 3rd, you save his life.)

Re: My two cents

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Aw, I should also show the correct versions of two phrases I have used as examples:
Вчера я со своим другом Мишей ходил в кино. (No commas required, in fact.) -- Yesterday I went to the cinema with my friend Misha.
Скажи, кто это - тот, который приходил вчера, или тот, который пришел сегодня? Tell me, who is it - the one who had came (those English verb forms are going to finish me one day!!!!!!) yesterday, or the one who came earlier today?

Re: My two cents

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Can you please tell em the translations for казнить нельзя помиловать so taht I can better understand that example?

Re: My two cents

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Is домашними the Russian word for homework? I look at it now and I realize it could be, in which case it IS what I wanted lol.

Re: My two cents

[ieles.livejournal.com]

домашние задания or домашняя работа
use either one for homework

Re: My two cents

[nale.livejournal.com]

"Домашнее задание" is the Russian for "homework". :)

So, I guess, it really might be close to what you were looking for. :)

Re: My two cents

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

So how is this:

У меня не очень хорошо получаются домашние задания! Хочу Я нормально получаются домашние задания.

(I was trying to say I wish I was normal about doing [my] homework) in that last part.

thanks for your help!

My pleasure :)

[nale.livejournal.com]

There is a trick here. "I wish" phrases are ususally translated into Russian beginning with "Как жаль, что..." + negation: I wish I could sing = Как жаль, что я не умею петь.

So, if you want to say what you want to say :)))), you could just go with "Как жаль, что у меня так плохо получаются домашние задания." (= I wish I did my homework better.)

Back to your phrase. Literally: "У меня не очень хорошо получаются домашние задания, а хотелось бы их делать нормально". This might also do.

Re: My pleasure :)

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Wow this is getting much more complicated than I was hoping for. Thank you though! I don't see how the negation comes in there; that is totally new to me. BTW: I'm not aiming for saying that I wish I did my homework better, but more that I was better about doing it (ie, that I didn't procrasintate as much(which is ironically what I am doing right now.))

Как жаль, что... + negation

[beowabbit]

The negation is because Как жаль, что... means (approximately) literally "What a shame that...", so to say "I wish I had a million dollars, my own private island, and a pony," you’re literally saying "What a shame that I don’t have a million dollars, my own private island, and a pony." :-)

Re: Как жаль, что... + negation

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

ohhh ok. Thank you. I understand it better now lol

Re: My pleasure :)

[kruglov.livejournal.com]

I wish I could sing = Хотел бы я уметь петь.

[nale.livejournal.com]

As for procrastinator - there's no word for it. ;-)

But that reminds me of a set expression "тянуть кота за хвост" (= "to pull the cat by it's tail"), meaning "to do something reluctantly, slowly, without enthusiasm" or "to hesitate".

E.g.:
Ну говори, не тяни кота за хвост! = Do speak up!
Давно бы сделал все и гулял, чем так тянуть кота за хвост. = You should have done it all before and be free to go, instead of procrastinating like that.

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Haha! my first Russian idiom! lol. But thats sad that there is no word for procrastinator. I would have used it often lol.

[moon-aka-sun.livejournal.com]

ИМХО, скорее подходит "откладывать в долгий ящик" (don't start doing something as long as possible), чем "тянуть кота за хвост" (doing something but very slowly and unwillingly).

[nale.livejournal.com]

Very good point. :)
Well, at least there will be options.

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

haha these idioms are pretty funny if translated literally. Thank you!

[sonick-rnd.livejournal.com]

>As for procrastinator - there's no word for it. ;-)
Can't agree ^_^
Not often used and maybe too old, but exits. ^_^

волокитчик
муж.; разг.
red-tapist, red-tape merchant/monger, procrastinator

http://lingvo.yandex.ru/cgi-bin/lingvo.pl?text=procrastinator&l=%D1%A0

To say truth - I never saw it before ^_^

[mokele-mbembe.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can use когда like you would in English there, because "when it comes to" is an English idiom and doesn't make sense when literally translated. BTW the phrase I use to mean homework is домашнее задание.

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

yea, I really wasn't too sure about using kogda there (too lazy to do cyrillic now lol, sorry). I figured that since you could use shto similarly, that kogda could also be used like that. Thanks.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Homework: домашняя работа or домашнее задание. The former has an emphasis on what you are supposed to be doing and the latter on what was required from you. (Just a different shade of meaning.)

I am not sure there is a special word for procrastinator. Лентяй is more generic and refers to any sloth (except the animal kind which is ленивец). To procrastinate would be откладывать (работу), as in: не откладывай на завтра то, что можно сделать послезавтра сегодня.

Now, what you are trying to say you can say in many ways. У меня с домашней работой нелады, or Ничего-то у меня с домашним заданием не выходит, etc, etc. :-)

Would this work?

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

Я не очень хорошо, когда дело доходит до домашнего задания.

And, копун/копуша seems to be a possibility for procrastinator (male and female, respectively).

(I'm just a beginner, so please forgive any glaring errors.)

Re: Would this work?

[nale.livejournal.com]

Копуша! How could I not remember this! :) You are great. :)

But копуша is of common gender.

Re: Would this work?

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

So as I male I would still use копуша?

Re: Would this work?

[cema.livejournal.com]

Yes. I think this is true for all words with this suffix.

Good question...

[kolik.livejournal.com]

This is the interesting case when "копуша" and "копун" may be used for characterizing a male person (Ты такой копуша! Ты такой копун! - You are so slow!), but for female one may use "копуша" only (Ты такая копуша!).

This is because "копуша" is of common gender, and "копун" is of male gender.

Re: Would this work?

[noser.livejournal.com]

> Я не очень хорошо, когда дело доходит до домашнего задания.

You need to use a short adjective in place of "хорошо", i.e. "Я не очень хорош/хороша" (why is another question). But it still sounds awkward, like something borrowed from another language. "У меня не очень хорошо получаются д.з." sounds better.

After comma it's fine.

Re: Would this work?

[cema.livejournal.com]

Копуша is a good word! Slang, but good. The verb is копаться, not in the literal meaning of digging around, but in the meaning getting things done too slow; tarrying. And the suffix is useful to create endearing forms of nouns: дорогуша, Андрюша, etc. (But don't get confused; there is no word *лягуша, which is a back-formation from лягушка.)

Why do you consider "копуша" a slang?

[kolik.livejournal.com]

It is of common use unlike the words used by certain social or professional groups. I also doubt about the case 2 (http://mega.km.ru/bes_98/encyclop.asp?topicnumber=59062&search=%u0441%u043B%u0435%u043D%u0433#srch0).

Good stuff!

[kolik.livejournal.com]

"копун/копуша" is very adequate as well as "тянучка" (delayer), but the teenagers would rather use "тормоз" (literally - "brake") now.