Goodbye, You’re Welcome, What’s Your Name?, Thank You and All the Best in Russian

No farewells said and no goodbyes, no looking back and wondering why.
As we sail on alone into the night, Let us not dwell on that which might,
Or might not be, if truth is to be true, I am who I am and so I am to miss you.

You’ll miss me if I am gone Marina ;)

Nice videos. I started Rosetta Stone lessons for Russian, not an easy language! Keep mixing up Машина with Мoшина, might get a slap in the face for that mistake, lol

Hmm you know that is a problem about your videos getting lost. I confess I have not seen them all because of this. Perhaps you should set up a separate atom/rss feed to them and then link to it from this site. It would give a chance for new lessons to be announced above and beyond the normal comments on this site. I have an RSS plugin for my browser which I use all the time.

Just a thought..

Sorry about missing you veritanuda. I only had a couple minutest to meet James and didn’t want the shortness compounded if you had arrived as well. We can meet up the next time I am in London and have more time. PLUS.. I was worried you would drop a riddle on me and I wouldn’t be able to solve it and you’d think of me as a horrible philologist and all would be lost!

No worries dear teacher I TOTALLY understand :) You’re a brave girl to be in a London pub after the APPALLING performance by England in the World Cup. I expect there were many drunk and depressed fans about.

As for the the other thing… Hehe. you still do have a riddle to solve.. but that is between you and me ;) Don’t fret and check your email.

London can definitely not been seen in just a few days I’ve lived here all my life and still have a long list of things to do.

The important thing is DID YOU SEE ANY ELEPHANTS?

http://www.elephantfamily.org/how-can-you-help/events/elephant-parade-london-2010/

:)

Hi Marina I just want to say goodbye I might delete my account it’s been two years since I joined your site and it’s time for me to move on. you’ve been a great Teacher. you will be missed.

love you, your student Samuel. :sad: :sad: :sad:

That’s not the first time when you want to delete your account and you were always saddened with something in such situations. What do you worry about now?

Hello, Miss Marina.
Perhaps it is a good thing these videos are being lost, and attracting minimal views. These videos have a high potential for damaging your reputation and hurting your career. You appear to have made videos for the sole purpose of hearing yourself speak, with total disregard to the quality of the content of the videos. You are not a YouTube hobbyist who can get away with producing garbage. This is your career. You built a solid reputation by creating educational videos. Don’t be tempted to get away from quality educational content just to produce videos hoping to attract views and dollars by riding on your past reputation.

You did have a couple videos that were easier to understand, such as spasibo and do svidanya. These were your better Russian language videos. It seemed easier to understand the words in these videos because they are composed of sounds similar to English sounds, rather than the words being understood better because you had put more effort into enunciation and teaching. It just seemed to be luck that these words were easier to enunciate.

You put effort into looking nice. You put effort into the video special effects. You even put some effort into a plot line for entertainment value. You completely forgot to put effort into the educational value of the videos. The educational value should be the foundation of your videos, and the effort to look nice, special effects, and a plot line should just be adding icing to the cake, so to speak. These videos are all icing, and no cake.

You are not teaching us Russian words. You are mumbling Russian words, and the words are indistinct and unclear. If you want us to learn, you need to present information in a way that people can learn. You need to articulate the words, and make the enunciation very clear and distinct. When you look up a word in a dictionary, it provides a written pronunciation. Following that format would help your videos, as your spoken pronunciation is mumbled and unclear for many words.

As a general rule of thumb, women learn by hearing, and men learn by seeing. When 90% of your viewer students are men, it makes no sense to try to teach these men unfamiliar sounding foreign language words without using visual aids. A good teacher tailors their teaching methods to how their students learn best.

What is the Cyrillic writing you display on these videos? Is it intended to distract us, or is it intended to be an aid of some sort? The way it is presented, it is a distraction. I can find no use for it as a learning aid. I know that it is Cyrillic letters, but I do not know what sounds are associated with each letter. I think there are 36 letters in the Russian alphabet, and I don’t know how those correspond to the 26 letters in the English alphabet.

If you want to teach us the Cyrillic spellings of words, an idea would be to display the words on the screen as you are pronouncing the word in Russian. If you print the word on the screen at the same speed as you speak the word, people will begin to build a visual connection between the Cyrillic letter and the sound it represents.

There is a reason viewers have been so critical and thumbing down these videos. Putting your fake breasts in front of a camera isn’t enough by itself to make viewers happy. They want cake to go with the icing – good quality educational content. People will pay attention and they will learn if you present the information in a way that makes it easy for them to learn.

I tried giving you the benefit of the doubt at first, hoping the videos would improve. A couple were much better, but I still find myself thumbing down most of your Russian language videos because they are garbage.

This is not a personal attack on you, Miss Marina. I actually enjoy watching you and learning, but your presentation in these videos is garbage.

I love these lessons. I have been following them all along
and practicing the pronunciation and learning to recognize
the Cyrillic characters. The only way you could improve the
lessons would be to come over and tuck me into bed and read
me a bed time story in Russian. :grin: Other than that, I
love these lessons which are fun way to learn.

Marina, a method that you could use to aggregate the lessons is to place them into a YouTube playlist where they might be seen by more people. I did that over on my channel.

Here is my HotForWords Russian lessons in a YT Playlist.
The videos are in chronological order from oldest to newest starting from the top left video.
http://www.youtube.com/user/PedanticKarl#grid/user/4BF71DFC5D4500A9

You could either create a playlist on your main YT channel
or on the Hot4Words YT channel.

Can’t believe it. I randomly met Marina today!

http://twitpic.com/20k6ml
http://twitpic.com/20k6pk
http://twitpic.com/20k6z5

Marina, I recently watched the Russian movie “Burnt by the Sun” and I liked it a lot. For your students who are interested in Russian and Russia I recommend it. The Netflix version comes with subtitles in English which can be shut off if one so desires.

Also can you give us a little history of the Russian alphabet as it has many interesting characters which are quite different compared to Latin and Germanic languages.

Sorry, who made you police on what Marina can and can’t make! How dare you critisise her about pronounciation when she is speaking in her NATIVE LANGUAGE! :evil:

Calm down, James. Although he is a little harsh calling the lessons garbage, from the standpoint of a useful language lesson, he has valid criticisms. If the lesson doesn’t work, it doesn’t work no matter who’s doing it.

I assume your native language is English, and you made it to college, yet you misspelled two words. Just saying…

Hmm, I think the story most of us would like to hear would be, “How the Blonde Philogist Fell in Love with the American Twice Her Age.” :cool:

;-) Do svidaniya

:| so goodbye doesn’t really mean goodbye since it’s goodbye with until we meet again

& i thought english was confusing

Probably only one. James spelled the word criticise/criticize correctly. He’s from England and “criticise” is the British spelling. :)

BTW. I’ve found a very interesting and exhausting blog about the differences between British and American English – not only in spelling:
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/

Good one stigmatasaurus! :smile:
I think it would make a great story and a blockbuster
movie, even better than the Twilight {saga}.
Lots of twists and turns and suspense and
of course an explosive happy storybook ending. :grin:

Do svidania :)

Hey James, I don’t think it was random.
I think it was calculated stalking. You’re OK, right? :lol:
Just kidding. I’m glad that you finally got to meet Marina.
Love those photos.

Marina, I love the short hair and the slight highlighted streaks.
Looks awesome.

Hi senior, thanks for that movie recommendation.
I have it on my “to watch” list now.
I agree, a lesson on the history of {Cyrillic}
would be an excellent lesson.

I agree that Ohio Countryboy, even if he takes things too seriously, brings a lot of constructive and useful remarks that may improve Marina’s works if she thinks them over.

http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/583/P15/

I really AM trying to do a good job, and I hope that I have improved from my earlier videos. I would be HONORED if any of you, who are obviously better informed than I am on word origins, would like to help out?

I guess you could message me here… or there is a link on my website to email me at http://www.hotforwords.com

Thanks!

Marina

I believe the aforementioned Marina’s declaration from 12/05/2007 is still relevant.

{overload}…What’s Your Name – Lynyrd Skynyrd – Vicious Cycle Tour :lol: ~~~~~~~~~~~~I love learning in n RUSHIN’ fashion :P Cypress Hill – What’s your name…4 jimmy boy of island england

Cypress Hill – What’s your name

I like this song much, it’s hilarious, and I like Cypress Hill.

Here’s a better recorded version with the uncensored lyrics:

They obviously sampled the beat from The Clash – Guns Of Brixton Video, one of my favorite songs.

Hello, James.
I am a paying customer, which gives me every right to complain, criticize, and be the “police” concerning what I am willing to pay for, and what I am not willing to pay for. Miss Marina is running a capitalist enterprise, and the rules of economics do apply. It is irrelevant what videos she wishes to make – what is relevant is what kind of videos people are willing to buy.

The problem is that Miss Marina is pronouncing the words, when she needs to be enunciating them. It’s irrelevant how the words are supposed to be pronounced when you can’t tell what the words are. When your words are indistinct and unclear, it is known as mumbling. Mumbling words does not lend itself to be a very good way of teaching words.

When children are not taught how to properly pronounce words, their speech becomes slurred and they are very difficult to understand. This is sometimes known as talking dutchy. I have some cousins who talk very dutchy. It was almost impossible to understand them when we were children. After several years of speech classes in school, and over time, now that they are adults it is easier to understand what they are saying, but they still slur their words. They have also learned to speak slower, which helps people understand them.

thanks~~~{typhoon} :sad: His lack of royal blood didn’t prevent him from earning the admiration and respect of both his countrymen and enemies – his people elected him King, and his opponents referred to him as “The Lion of Poland.” And at a time when it seemed certain that the invading Ottoman Empire would conquer all of Europe, he led an army to defeat a force nearly double in size at the Battle of Vienna. This earned him the moniker, “The Savior of Western Civilization.” :cool:

whole bunch of cool leSSons-thanks hotforwords :smile: Panflute. Time To Say Goodbye. Gheorghe Zamfir …{invasion} :oops:

Hello, fglrx.
I believe that offer was for people to assist in researching word origins.

I have extended the offer to Miss Marina to proofread and offer editorial suggestions to help catch errors and to give a little more of a professional shine to things. I have not received any response from her, so I suspect she is too busy to respond, or she simply does not care about the errors or trying to avoid making amateurish mistakes, since I still see avoidable mistakes being made.

Hello, stigmatasaurus.
I can overlook alternate spellings due to someone using the King’s English, but it still never ceases to amaze me when people can’t tell the difference between an exclamation mark and a question mark. If you’re asking a question, you end the sentence with a question mark.

Dear Marina,
How interesting to get multiple homework assignments. So few of your students actually bother to do your homework. (Except me.) :razz:
Here’s “Thank you” in a few foreign languages:
1. French = Merci
2. German = Danke schoen
3. Dutch = Dank je
4. Czech = Dukuji
5. Danish = Tak
6. Swediah = Tack
7. Norwegian = Takk
8. Spanish = Gracias
9. Chinese = Dao Jie (Cantonese) or Tao Chie (Mandarin)
10. Japanese = Arigato
11. Italian = Grazie
12. Greek = Efharisto
13. Welch = Diolch
14. Russian = Spasibo
15. Koreran = Ko map sum ni da
16. Georgia (USA) = Thamks, Y’all. :mrgreen:
There probably are thousands of English words with multiple meanings. Most dictionaries have lists of definitions for certain words. For example “Lean” may describe a person who is thin as you are, or it could mean to be at an incline instead of upright, as in the leaning tower of Pisa. Or it could mean a cut of beef that hasn’t much fat, such as a flank steak compared to a Filet Mignon.
The word “Rock” can refer to a type of hard stone, or projectile. It’s also a slang word for a diamond, a valuable gem. As a verb, to rock means to operate a roaking chair or baby crib built with runners that permit. Also, “Rock and Roll” refers to a type of music popular with young people.
This might help you andn your students find your lessons on YouTube: Russia Today will post them. In teh YouTube search bos, just type “RT Learn Russian.” This will bring up the lessons they posted.
I hope you’re enjoying your trip to London. I hope your students there give you lots of presents, and I hope you have a safe trip back home to us in California! :mrgreen:
Seesixcm6

Aaaand I just caught myself misspelling ‘philologist!’ :x

For those of you who want to find the new lessons every day,
I find these two methods work the best for me.

1. Go to: http://www.youtube.com/rtamerica
To the right of the featured video is a Search box. Enter: hotforwords
That will bring up all of the HotForWords Russian lessons.
Optionally, you can also click the Grid View icon at the far right
which will give you a different view of the lessons.

2. Another way to view the lessons is to click on the pink/violet image
with the words “Learn Russian with HotForWords” over at the far
right section where it says Learn Russian.
That image can be found on page on this site

No problem. I knew what you meant, so no biggie. :grin:
Even with spell check, it is easy to make errors
when one is in a hurry or edits with two thumbs.

Correction:
Hmmm, I did an edit correction, but it didn’t take.
So, here is the correction to the last sentence.

That “Learn Russian” image over at the far right
can be found on any page on this site.

To both fglrx and Ohio Countryboy–
I understand the British have some different spellings, e.g., ‘gaol’ for ‘jail,’ but James didn’t spell ‘criticise’ correctly even by their convention; he used two s’s.

As for his second use of the exclamation mark, I think he meant it to add heat to the somewhat rhetorical question. I probably would have used it along with a question mark or like this: :?: :!:
He’s obviously very protective of his Lady Marina.

Was having problems seeing the { speck } what with the log in my own eye!

Hello, stigmatasaurus.
Good catch on the double s’s. James comes across as foul mouthed, whiny, and immature, so I don’t pay very close attention to his posts. I don’t wish to reward that kind of behavior.

Both the first and second usages of the exclamation mark were on sentences that posited a question. Rhetoric or not, a question is a question, and should end with a question mark.

Exclamation marks were originally used in the middle of sentences to add emphasis to specific words. I believe it was only rather recently that exclamation marks were placed at the end of sentences to add emphasis to the entire sentence. {!}

Sorry, now I see he spelled it “critisise”. Sorry again :oops:

He’s obviously very protective of his Lady Marina.

He is a novice comedian and I think the most of his may should be interpreted as a comic expression.

Although, I see the problem that you see. Many guys from this site worship Marina as a goddess or something and fight like bulldogs against anyone who ventures to constructively criticize her.

Too much emotions and too little rational thinking goes from the guys flocked around HFW.

I’m sorry once again for not spotting the first incorrect “s” in James’ spelling and assuming that you might be wrong.

That should have been placed as an answer to stigmatasaurus’ post.

Too much emotions and too little rational thinking goes

I committed a grammatical error here. :(

..

I dare say that Marina is not a philologist any more. She is a showman, not a philologist! After the commercialization, etymological explanations in her etymology videos became shallow. In the old videos she traced the words origins from Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Germanic etc., but now she don’t even try to dig so deeply. For this reason, I have found her old amateurish videos much more informative and more professional than the recent (when we speak about the philologist’s profession, not about filmmaking).

I like your notice about the icing and cake. Now the HFW videos contain only few lines of linguistic knowledge, the rest is just a comedy show.

*of his posts

James, You lucky bastard!

Hey, have you heard these songs by these fellow bastards. :twisted:

Moțrhead РAce of Spades (Mad Max Tribute)

:arrow: Life’s A Bitch :cool:

P.S. Just kiddin’ with the bastard remarks ;-)
Hey thanks for sharing the twitpics James and of course thank you too Marina for sharing.
You guys look adorable. :smile:

Sorry Karl, I put a comment in the wrong place. oO

17. Polish = Dziękuję
18. English spoken by Germans = Sank you
19. English spoken by Poles = Fank you

:mrgreen:

I would posit that it is the former rather than the later. But intelligent discourse is not frowned on here. Not by the members or Marina herself. It is true a lot of people see the image rather than the substance but no one should underestimate both her qualifications and the effort she puts into what she is doing. For the most part she does the production herself and has done so from the beginning, and while it is a great opportunity for her to spread a more entente cordiale (in a Russian manner of course) feeling I don’t think she approached RT rather they approached her.

I can see and stomach your criticism, though I would like to see the research that substantiates the claim that

” women learn by hearing, and men learn by seeing.”

Seems rather a vapid point to me. I am sure you are well aware one of the most popular methods for learning languages is through audio lessons. If this was not a popular and effective method then Pimsleur (method) would not exist.
Are you saying only women listen to audio-books? And only mean read?

Don’t mistake veracity for clarity. You have some good points but you cloud the issue with what sounds like rhetoric.

It is early days yet and sure there will be improvements. But I for one don’t want to learn language like I did at school. 6 years of French and I am still appalling. I’d expect I can live anywhere in the world for 6 years and learn the native language quicker than that.

Perhaps you can be a little more considerate and concise next time?
:)

I hope that RT America allows you to continue doing more of these ‘Learn Russian with HotForWords’ segments. :cool:

I know “Thank You” in:
1. Japanese = formal-Domo Arigato pronounced: Doh mo ardei ga toe
informal-Arigato pronounced: Ardei ga toe
2. Japanese Slang for Thank You in english = San Kyu
3. Chinese = Mandarin-Toa chie, Cantonese-Doh je
4. Spanish = Gracias or Muchas Gracias
5. German = Danke
6. And now in Russian = Spasibo
7. “wham bam thank you maam” :mrgreen:

Spasibo bolshoye Marina! :smile:

Polish: Dziękuję
Belarusian: Dziakuju
Ukrainian: Diakuju

Almost the same words :smile:

Dear Marina,

I like to listen to you and to watch your videos, but I want to mention that I do not really want to learn Russian.

Hello, Karl.
Since you are a Teacher’s Assistant, perhaps you would be so kind as to help me understand what I seem to be missing.

How are you learning to recognize the Cyrillic characters, as Miss Marina doesn’t explain them individually? Are you learning to recognize the entire Cyrillic spelled word by rote memory, or is there something I am missing which helps teach the individual Cyrillic characters and their associated sound?

How are you learning the enunciation of these words, so that you can practice proper pronunciation? Many consonant formations in these Russian words are unfamiliar to English, and she speaks the words much to fast for me to be able to distinctly hear how she enunciates the word.

What am I missing from her lessons? What is it about these Russian language videos makes them a fun way for you to learn? For me, I find they are neither fun nor educational.

Hello, stigmatasaurus.
While it does sometimes happen to see an older man with a young girl, one of the major deciding factors is the economic security the older man offers the young girl. I think it is safe to say that Miss Marina does not need to look for an older man for her economic security. She seems to be doing quite well financially.

I would hope that no guy remotely close to Miss Marina’s age would seriously entertain the fantasy of her having a relationship with them. A good dose of reality is in order for any older man who is even considering pursuing Miss Marina. Miss Marina has made comments that not only show an interest in having children, she has made comments that seemed to convey a sense of angst in not having children.

How are these guys planning on helping raise the kids, when they will be getting knee and hip replacements? How do these guys plan to reconcile the differences in life stages? They are looking at retirement and the relaxed life, while Miss Marina is building a career and would be trying to handle the kids and domestic life as well. How do these older guys plan to grow old together, when they will be gone in 10 or 15 years, while Miss Marina will still be young and the kids not even out of high school yet?

Miss Marina has made it clear that she is looking for a good and decent man, not a dirty old man.

Miss Marina, I’d like to request the phrase {dirty old men} in reference to sexually perverted men who want to seduce or have an affair with a girl young enough to be their daughter. Are they trying to act out incestuous fantasies, or is this the most legal form of child molestation they can get away with?

Hello, fglrx.
Please keep in mind that bulldogs were bred for the purpose of killing a defenseless bull which was tied to a post. In a real fight against something that would fight back, bulldogs were almost worthless.

Excellent analogy.

Hello, fglrx.
I’m also partial to Miss Marina’s original style, where her focus was on education. Now, it often seems that her focus is on entertainment.

Sex sells though, and perhaps she finds sex appeal and entertainment to be a more profitable sale than educational content. She alone is the one who has to accept the consequences and rewards of her decisions, but she also is the one who gets to cash the paychecks. She makes the bed she lies in, good or bad.

Hello, veritanuda.
Here is a good article on how girls and boys differ in their learning methods.
http://www.leapfrog.com/en/leapfrog_parents/infant/learning_for_life/article__how_boys.html

A good example is what sexually arouses people. Guys are visually stimulated. We get turned on by what we see. Women may like what they see, but that doesn’t get them all hot and bothered. What you say to them is a totally different story.

There are always exceptions to the rule. Yes, men can learn from audio lessons, but it is often much more difficult for them to learn than it is for a girl. Yes, girls can learn by seeing, but it tends to be easier for boys to learn by watching.

Some people learn easiest by visual learning (seeing). Males tend to find it easiest to learn this way. Some people learn easiest by auditory (hearing). Women tend to find it easier to learn this way. It also helps some people if they can do what they learned in a hands-on method.

Men and womens’ brains function differently. Women have more neural connectors between the halves of the brain, which makes it far easier for them to multi-task. Guys have fewer connections, which makes it easier for them to concentrate on one thing at a time. If they try to multi-task, they quickly end up feeling overwhelmed mentally. When women try to focus on just one thing, they often have considerate difficulty blocking out everything else.

Hi Ohio Countryboy,
I just want say, regardless of whether I am a TA or not, I would still help you understand the questions that you are asking.

First some background. I wasn’t born in the US. My first language is German. I came to the US at age 10 not knowing a single word of English. Within three years, I placed second in a spelling bee contest (8th grade), and my grades were mostly all A’s and some B’s In fact, I excelled in English graduating in the top of all of my classes. I had two years of French in High School, two years of Spanish at the University level and have some informal training in Hebrew.

I’m not here to impress you with any brilliance, but I am here to impress upon you that I am far from it. What I am is very passionate and driven and obsessive about stuff, or I just don’t do it. It’s that simple. I don’t have time to complain about things that don’t interest me. I do respect courteous and honest criticism, but, just because such a thing exists, doesn’t mean I have to invoke it. There is a time and season for everything.

Regarding the Cyrillic characters:
I have never had the opportunity to learn Russian in any form or venue, but in the back of my mind, there had always been some interest, but that interest had never been kindled until Marina did a video on the AK-47 in Russian. Hearing her talk and seeing the English translation, it was as if I could almost understand Russian as many of the sounds were familiar to me in German.

So, two years ago, I took it upon myself to learn about Russia and the language and culture and especially the Cyrillic script. I grew up with German script in order to write to my grandmother. Without a teacher, learning a language on my own is very tough as there is no structure. In other words, I just went about it haphazardly. I made some progress in recognizing the characters and learning to pronounce them. The RT site as well as other sites have audio lessons that teach Cyrillic.

So, Marina’s lesson have some structure to it and the fact that Marina places the Cyrillic script on the screen is a perfect template for me to see how the Cyrillic relates to the Latin letters of the words that Marina teaches. I also use the Google translator and other sites to help me understand the connection between the Cyrillic and Latin script.

About the Russian pronunciation:
Many of the Russian words that Marina has gone over have been fairly easy for me to pronounce. There are some words that I do trip over, and I do have to practice. I am one of those people that will never become a perfect speaker of any language. Even with practice, I am sure that I will have a heavy accent in any language. I think French comes a little bit easier for me than Spanish, which I practice every day.

So, what I do is to put the cursor on the timeline of the video and as soon as Marina says the word, I click the mouse and the word is repeated. I do that for several minutes. First, I watch to see how Marina pronounces the word, then I close my eyes and then listen to see if I can mimic the word. For some words it requires much more than a few minutes of practice. So far, I have not had any problems with Marina’s pronunciation. I watch the videos in HD, so I can clearly see Marina’s lip and throat movements. After that, it is strictly listening to the sound of the word.
I also record myself and then listen next day to see how close I come to Marina’s pronunciation.

About Marina’s videos:
Why are the fun? Marina’s videos are simple and bite sized which means I can take the time out of my busy day and practice the lessons. I found some other lessons on the web that were audio only. They work, but are not as much fun. The reason that Marina’s videos are fun is because I can relate to the visual presentation of the lesson such as the restaurant, her mother on the phone, and so on. Marina also has an infectious personality that is engaging which reminds me of my Spanish teacher in college.

About how one learns:
I can understand that the lessons are not everyone’s cup of tea as each person learns differently. I am a self learner. All I need is for someone to open the door and I walk right through it. Marina has opened the door for which I am appreciative.

The method by which one learns is typically based on the dominant learning style which may be auditory, visual or kinesthetic. I am predominantly a visual learner and I have to make an extra effort to work with material that deal with sounds. For example, I have male friends that are predominantly auditory types. When I try to teach them computer concepts, if I talk using words with a visual component, their eyes gloss over. I have to make a concerted effort to gear my language to an auditory style.

Now, having said that, at age 14 I became a Ham Radio operator and I had mastered Morse Code at 5 words per minute and within a year I was able to receive 21 words per minute. Am I brilliant? Heck no. My buddy beat the heck out of me by going from 5 words to 21 words in two months. Even though I was a slow poke, I did master Morse Code at 21 words per minute. Morse Code is an auditory medium, right? The only reason I was able to master it is because I came up with a technique that I was able to teach to others, and the technique required someone to also be a visual learner.
Learning Morse Code was one of the hardest things I have done, and I came close to giving up many times as it was very frustrating. Sending code was easy. Hearing it was almost impossible, but it was determination and tenacity that helped me achieve my goal.

So, for me these lessons are fun because it is something I have never done before. That in of itself is exciting and a challenge to see if I can do it. These lessons are a way to stretch myself and learn something new every day, which is one of my daily goals.

Ohio Countryboy
If your time is so freaking valuable that you consider yourself a paying customer (?) and are entitled to insult people thinly disguised as constructive criticism, and you’re so worried about FAP, why do you waste your time going here and You Tube just to make a pain in the ass of yourself? Go smoke a bee, jerkwad.

Why are you lying, Karl? One moment you are telling Miss Marina that her lessons could not be improved short of tucking you into bed, and the next moment you are telling me that you find it necessary to use the Google translator and other sites to help you understand the Cyrillic characters in Miss Marina’s lessons?

Being that you are a Teacher’s Assistant, your comments are a direct reflection on the HotForWords label. Dishonesty will cause damage to the credibility and reputation of Miss Marina. I would hope TA’s would try to enhance the integrity of HFW, rather than to tarnish it.

You said, “I do respect courteous and honest criticism, but, just because such a thing exists, doesn’t mean I have to invoke it. There is a time and season for everything.” While it is true that there is a season for everything, being critical is necessary to being honest. If one chooses to ignore critical analysis, they will never see the true picture. They see what they want to see, which is not completely honest and truthful.

You say you watch to see how Miss Marina pronounces a word. You also say you watch her lip and throat movements to learn how the word sounds. Will you please explain that? That makes about as much sense as saying you watch thunder and listen to lightning.

How does listening to pronunciation help to understand enunciation? That’s the problem I’m having. The fast spoken pronunciation is unclear and indistinct in parts of many words. I’d like to learn enunciation before I try learning proper pronunciation.

You asked if Morse Code was an auditory medium. You are asking for a yes or no answer that cannot be truthfully answered with a yes or no. It can be sometimes, but it is also visual when dots and dashes are written down.

It’s probably worth mentioning that obsession is one of the most common forms of mental illness. Obsessions are very destructive behavior. Since you feel you are obsessive about things, you may want to consider seeking help.

Hello, Angry Man.
It appears that you do not understand how I am a paying customer. The capitalist economic system is often difficult for people to understand when they have been raised in a socialist country.

People produce videos on YouTube. These videos are the product they are marketing. Paying customers are the people who watch the videos. They are buying the product by paying with their time, in which advertisers are given the opportunity to market their products to the customer. The advertisers pay YouTube for the privilege of ad exposure, and YouTube distributes part of this ad revenue to the video producers.

If a YouTube video producer also has a website, they can generate income by advertisements on their website. If you click on a banner ad, the website owner gets paid. This also makes you a paying customer.

http://www.mises.org is an excellent resource if you would like to learn more about how the American economic system was intended to operate.

If customers are unhappy with a product, they can either stop purchasing the product, or they can complain and give the producer the opportunity to fix the problems before they take their business elsewhere, and encourage their friends and family to take their business elsewhere also. One happy customer may tell 5 people, but an unhappy customer will tell 20.

I ‘waste my time’ here because I feel I can offer a valuable contribution.

My religious convictions also lead me to believe that I need to contribute here also. The religious teachings I follow have a word for people who don’t own land. It calls them poor. It is my understanding that Miss Marina does not own land yet, and is saving up to buy a house. That sounds to me like a poor person. The religious teachings also have words for unmarried women who do not live under their father’s roof. It calls them orphans, or fatherless. Miss Marina also is a sojourner, as this is not her homeland.

The religious teachings I follow instruct me to be a servant to, protect, and look after the sojourners, the poor, and the orphans. In my own way, this is what I am trying to do.

I feel a sense of compassion and sympathy for Miss Marina. There seems to be many perverse, dirty old men and guys who want to tell Miss Marina what they think she wants to hear. Given the resistance I get from other guys for my honest opinion, it leads me to believe that perhaps my input is what Miss Marina really needs to hear. The bitter truth is far better than sweet lies.

hmmm…

I bet 99.99% (percent) of people that have done anything of major importance were completely obsessed with their work.

p.s. you are one nasty fuckin’ dude :evil:

Ohio Countryboy –
That “bitter truth” that you speak of is your concept of truth – your opinion – which you are entitled to. That does not make it a fact. Your “constructive criticism” – in my opinion – was meant to be at least a little bit hurtful to Ms. O, or you would have used a kinder word than “garbage” to describe those language videos, which, by the way were obviously all recorded several months ago, judging by the lady’s hair & makeup style in these videos.

Your concept of “paying customer” is odd, in my opinion. I perfectly well understand the capitalist economic system, being from FREAKING KANSAS, not a socialist nation, and old enough to be your father. I pay my ISP the same amount of money every month, whether I go here, or someplace to study. Clicking a banner or watching a video costs nothing, obviously, but time. I come here when I have time to waste and TRY to enjoy myself. If your idea of being a “paying customer” allows you to be rude to your hostess, I shudder to think what “extras” you get with your dinner when you go out to eat and foist your “truth” on your waitress by acting so superior. In my book, Ms. O is our hostess, and we are her guests. A little normal human respect seems to be in order here.

And also, I take GREAT offense at being labeled a “perverse, dirty old man” if I pay Ms. O a compliment. It may happen that I/we here LIKE what she does; just because you don’t does not make me/us wrong and you right, except in your mind. I’m not sure what religion you ascribe to and don’t want to know, if delusions of grandeur are part of its tenets.

I think your precious time would be better spent educating the bee keeping community.

@jamesington

I completely agree… how can someone tell marina she doesn’t pronounce Russian correctly? That’s ridiculous.

Then you misspelled something and they wrote a novel about it. If that’s not destructive obsession I don’t know what is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive-compulsive_disorder

“or you would have used a kinder word than “garbage” to describe those language videos,”

When something fails to perform its intended function, it is known as garbage. When videos are promoted as teaching Russian words, and they fail to teach; if that is not garbage, what is?

While I did say there seem to be many perverse, dirty old men around here, I did not label you specifically as one. You seem to have a guilty conscience for some reason. If the shoe fits, then wear it.

“I completely agree… how can someone tell marina she doesn’t pronounce Russian correctly? ”

Who is saying that Miss Marina is not pronouncing Russian words correctly? I have tried to make it very clear that the problem I’m having is her enunciation, and not her pronunciation.

Miss Marina’s pronunciation seems mumbled. The word sounds are unclear and indistinct. That may be the proper pronunciation, but it is poor enunciation, which is necessary to learn before one can learn to pronounce the word properly.

Hmmm that is some serious research you have there. Ahem.

That aside, it is too much of a generalisation to assume there is only one way to learn based on gender. Learning is a requisite for intelligence not the other way around.And it certainly should not stop anyone of any sex from learning ‘stuff’

Do you really expect anyone to believe that blind men cannot learn as fast as as sighted ones? Not wanting to become Cameronesque over this but… I personally know of a blind translator who is exceptionally good at picking up languages simply because he hears with much better clarity than I ever would.

Either way I still feel you are jumping the gun a little and although your comments are welcome, and even for the most part helpful, it would be more constructive if you could wrap it up with a positive statement rather than coming across all confrontational.

I know I learn a lot from Marina, her accent is different from other friends I have, but for the most part I find it still very easy to understand her, in Russian or English.

But let’s see what future lessons bring. I would like to see more phrases rather than individual words, though it is helpful to know there are different words that are used in the same context. The day I can hold a comfortable dinner conversation will be my personal goal.

Each to their own I say.

Maybe you just don’t have an ear for it yet.

I can distinctly hear the nuances of the Russian accent… this is absolutely needed to hear the words correctly.

Not so lucky with Chinese… I had a Chinese girlfriend that was trying to get me to pronounce Chinese words correctly and no matter how slow she said things or if she broke everything up into syllables it didn’t matter. From her point of view I was completely missing stuff and to her it sounded wrong.

If you really want to develop your ear and learn… just speak using regular English words with a Russian accent, like all of Marinas other videos.

Can you speak English with a fake Russian accent and make it believable? If you can it will also make it easier to hear things in actual Russian.

Good point. There is a reason for this as it was explained to me once. Russian has sounds in it that simply do not exist in English. Practising sounding like a Russian is really just getting your mouth used to those kind of shapes.

I had a devilish time wrapping my lips around nemnogo for example. In the end the only way I can say it is by effecting a pretty poor Russian drawl. Which, for a well spoken Brit, can be quite a challenge I can tell you. :)

Still practice makes perfect and learning to listen to the sounds have made it possible to emulate them sufficiently to not have complaints.

Have a long long way to go though..

I found a poem about Marina written by Marina Tsvetaeva, 23.05.1920 Silver Age of Russian Poetry
Here is in Russian
Кто создан из камня, кто создан из глины,-
А я серебрюсь и сверкаю!
Мне дело – измена, мне имя – Марина,
Я – бренная пена морская.

Кто создан из глины, кто создан из плоти -
Тем гроб и надгробные плиты…
- Ð’ купели морской крещена – и в полете
Своем – непрестанно разбита!

Сквозь каждое сердце, сквозь каждые сети
Пробьется мое своеволье.
Меня – видишь кудри беспутные эти? -
Земною не сделаешь солью.

Дробясь о гранитные ваши колена,
Я с каждой волной – воскресаю!
Да здравствует пена – веселая пена -
Высокая пена морская!

…and alternative translation for better understanding

Who’s made of stone, who’s made of clay
but I’m a shiny glint!
My name is Marina, my deal is betrayal,
I’m a fleeting foam of sea.

Who’s made of clay, who’s made of flesh,
they’ll get tombstones and a coffin.
In a sea font, I was baptized.
In flight, incessantly I’m broken!

Through every heart, through every swirls,
my self-will will break out forth.
Do you see these dissolute curls?
You will not make me the salt of the earth.

Crushing on your granitic knees,
I resurrect with each wave!
Long live the foam – the glad foam,
The high foam of the seas!

:!: don’t you think it all about Dear Teacher? :smile:

well that was beautiful and haunting enough to actually make me want to cry. great work and thank you also for showing us that there is an archive of poetry at the rt site, i had not looked hard enough to discover it myself. poets are an emotional, fragile and overly sensitive bunch aren’t they? probably often lonely as well. i always wonder about the origins of things like these, my imagination tells me that it was written on a piece of parchment and mailed away to break the heart of someone who was expecting something more upbeat. life is temporary, but connections are infinite. that’s how i read things. ahh but i am a romantic… thank you for sharing this good sir. it is always a pleasure. and yes i do believe that you are right, it is about our wonderful teacher, for her beauty will live on forever. (and i bet that it’s true about berries in a graveyard)

reminds me of this:

life’s too short to not be fearless.

As a native Russian, I can say that Dear Teacher speaks Russian well, with a regular pronunciation.
If you have serious intentions to learn the Russian language, you could start with the alphabet, the links for it have placed on this site more than once.
There are different methods to learn foreign languages and many of them start with a phonetic acquaintance.
It is good to hear a healthy criticism but when you go down to personal insults, it makes your comments useless and insulting for the rest members of this site.
Thank you for a good grammar and I sincerely hope to see polite English also.

my comment above for @Ohio Countryboy :roll:

Thank you deluxenn for your excellent
feedback. This is the first time that I am
learning the Russian language and I am
enjoying watching Marina’s lessons. You
have also helped me in the past, so I
appreciate your comments.

It’s a shame that some people have to
act like trolls. Constructive critiques are
always welcomed, and trolls can just be
ignored.

Because you are an expert of practical English usage, I would ask you what do you think of Marina’s accent in English. Should she try to get rid of it like her friend Olga Karavaeva or stick to her present heavy foreign accent?

Would her videos be better if she reduced her accent – or not?

hello deluxenn! i must apologize for my very rushed reply to your beautiful poem today, i have been VERY busy with a variety of things that i am working very hard on. unfortunately, i do not have time to dig into these wonderful forums everyday even though there is a huge amount of wonderful information from wonderful people here. i did want to tell you that the poem has most certainly haunted my ever since reading it and is so very beautiful! really. and i think that what i like most is about it is how strange the translation is to me to read in English. it makes me believe that Russians have a very different way of thinking from other westerners, sort of like how Asians do. AT ANY RATE i noticed you talking about the Russian language here and i am actually guessing that of all of the active commenters here, you know Russian the best and i was actually wondering if you might give me a hand with something that i’ve been working on these last 4 days. you see, our wonderful teacher inspired me so much with language that i have taken 300 or so excellent quotes about the topic of Love and translated them into 44 different languages for 44 different Twitter accounts that i am now maintaining as part of my online school’s language learning section. there are ten top languages that i have started with and Russian is one of them, but i just did the translations using Google translate and i’m sure there are errors. i was planning on twittering them out and letting the people send corrections to me in email, but i would really like to do a better job with Russian to make Marina proud since she was my inspiration. So if you or anyone else here who knows Russian could help me out, i can email you the entire list before i start sending it out to Twitter. i would greatly appreciate it. the email is found on the Twitter:
http://twitter.com/LoveInRussian and also checkout this master account where i will be sending out a mix of all languages! i do think my head will explode from this, but every language deserves LOVE http://twitter.com/LoveForLanguage. and just yesterday i also finished compiling our quotes on Peace, so i will also need to translate those. Twitter people can check it out too. Love and Peace are equally important! http://twitter.com/PeaceAndWisdom it’s not like i think it is going to be easy to bring the entire world together using Twitter, so i can really use all the help i can get and would be very appreciative!

i certainly don’t have the time to read all of the stuff in here, but it seems to me like some silly people are having a silly argument and insulting Marina, on Marina’s excellent website. frankly, that seems like a very ignorant and silly thing to do. and it certainly isn’t nice. i will excuse you for having a bad day silly people. and i hope that you all have a better one soon.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. ~ Dalai Lama

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The slogan “press on” has solved, and will always solve, the problems of the human race.

~Calvin Coolidge

Hello, deluxenn.
Please allow me to play {Devil’s Advocate} for a moment.

If it is necessary for me to go to other websites to gain supplementary education so I can learn from Miss Marina’s Russian language videos, what is the point in watching her videos? If someone needs to study other educational materials, that indicates Miss Marina’s videos are incomplete and deficient.

I have no problem with Miss Marina’s pronunciation. It is the lack of clear and distinct enunciation that is an obstacle to my learning.

Ohio Countryboy –
Simply because you lack the intelligence to learn anything from Ms. O’s Russian lessons doesn’t mean that many others – myself included – are unable to learn from them. Maybe to you, they are garbage. Probably you view many things that you don’t understand as garbage. As a born again Christian, I have no guilty conscience, so I’ll not wear your shoe, by the way. I personally think that you came over here just to be a pain in everyone’s ass, and you’re surely lowering the property values on this site by doing so. So I’ll enable you no longer by responding further to your OCD-laced ramblings. If YOU”RE lucky, you’ll soon grow tired of this and move on. The only downside to Ms. O’s Russian lessons that I know of is that they inadvertently dragged garbage like you over from You Tube.

¡Estudiaste el español! Ya hay dos lenguas en que podemos charlar! :grin:

No, obsessions are very constructive if one obsesses about positive, creative, constructive things. In fact, I’ll wager most great creations would not have been achieved without obsession. :smile:

Oh my, that’s admirably direct. I’ve been trying to be more tactful. :lol:

What’s up dood?

Do you really think this is an extensive course in learning the Russian language… or is this just a few 2 minute videos so you can learn a couple Russian words and phrases?

Do you think this is a college course?

Here ya go, OCB, Cyrillic with approximate English equivalents. Have fun.

http://www.ancientscripts.com/images/cyrillic.gif

(The s and c with the funny hats are “sh” and “ch”.) :smile:

Hello, fglrx.
While I am a native English user, I do not know that I would consider myself to be an expert of practical English usage.

My opinion of Miss Marina’s accent is that accents are likely to be of little importance in verbal communication, although there are a few exceptions, such as trying to understand Cockney British.

When speaking with people with a different accent, the important thing is to speak slowly, and to try to enunciate the words as best that you can, even if you don’t pronounce them perfectly. As long as people know what words you are trying to say, they can quickly adapt to your accent and understand what you are saying.

Everyone has an accent. Even among native English speakers, accents can differ greatly. People in the Southern parts of America speak slower, and drawl their words. New Englanders often speak very fast, and pronounce words crisply. Australians, Canadians, and British all have different accents.

There are several Amish and Mennonites in my area. They speak English with an accent, as their native language is a dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch. I have worked around British and Indians. I have been around people from all over America, with their different accents. I even know some people from Kenya. Despite these accents, you can understand them. (People from India can be difficult to understand. It has been my experience that they try to speak too fast, and can slur their words a little sometimes.)

I have some cousins whose parents did not teach them how to enunciate words properly. Both parents slurred their words, so the kids never learned how to speak properly. Just like the game of telephone, if you hear a mumbled word, you repeat that word even more mumbled and garbled.

My cousins never learned how to pronounce an “L” sound. They used a “W” instead of an L. They pronounced the “th” sound with an “f”, and they pronounced the “s” sound with a “sh” or “zh” sound. It was very, very difficult to understand them. You were always having to ask them to repeat themselves.

Accents are not the problem. The problem arises when you don’t learn how to enunciate the sounds in the word correctly. As long as you don’t speak too fast, and you enunciate the words fairly well, people will be able to understand you. Speaking slowly often comes quite easily for people learning English, as they have to think about what word they want to say.

I am not very familiar with Olga Kay. I’ve watched bits and pieces to a couple of her videos but it wasn’t anything to catch my attention. She still has hints of the Russian accent. It would serve her well to try to speak a little slower, but her enunciation is good enough that would not make a significant impact upon being able to understand her.

While Miss Marina does have an accent, I do not consider it a heavy accent. I would consider it more of a moderate accent.

People with accents are often considered exotic and even more appealing. An accent can add an air of extra sexiness. In my opinion, Miss Marina’s accent adds to her market appeal. It adds to her sexiness, which is part of her sales pitch to get you to watch her videos. I think her videos would be slightly less marketable if she did not have the accent.

However, if the accent causes Miss Marina to be extremely self conscious and insecure, I would recommend she work on reducing it. If she wants to do it for her own self confidence, that’s great, but I do not think she should try to get rid of it in the hopes of somehow making her videos better.

It’s so weird. I think I have found a Loophole in the HFW Site. Go to login, and Type “BobbyBananna” and type the same word for the password. It redirects you to an existing, but non existing account.

It’s so weird!!!!!

Oops. I forgot — the Germans have been the last to drop the formal form of address. Mexicans are much more casual. No disrespect intended, Karl — verstehen Sie? :smile:

Hello, gravityboy.
I’m not sure who or what dood is, but I received a notification that you were replying to me.

It was my understanding these were basic introductory lessons to learn a few Russian words and phrases. It appears one needs an extensive course in learning Russian prior to Miss Marina’s videos.

It appears everyone thinks these lessons are supposed to be a college course level, which requires studying other supplementary educational materials in order to gain educational value from what I thought were supposed to be simple videos to teach a few Russian words and phrases.

I’ve learned the English spelling of some Russian words and phrases from these videos, but I was only able to understand the enunciation of a couple Russian words in these videos.

The emperor has no clothes. People can sing praises about how beautiful the emperor’s clothes are, or how good these Russian videos are, but singing these praises do nothing to change the fact that the emperor has no clothes, and the Russian language videos are lacking. Simple, basic educational videos do not require someone to go studying other educational material to understand the basic lesson.

Yo estudio espanol en escuelo por tres anos…

Hey BB, how are you doing?
I tried what you said and I end up at the Home page.
I think what you may be seeing is a result of outdated cookies?
You could try your test again after you clear your cookies.
Some people don’t like to clear them as they have to re-enter
their credentials for all of their sites.

Hi deluxenn,
Thank you for sharing that site and the poem.
I’m a little bit familiar with Alexander Pushkin’s
writings and poems which I have always liked.

Wow… you did a complete 180.

Now you say everyone else thought these were high level college course level and you were the one that knew they are only basic introductory lessons.

You are such a dick :evil:

Ja, Ich verstehe es sehr gut.
You probably know, that you used the
formal version of the word “you”, which is “Sie”.
We know each other well enough
where you can say; Verstehst Du?

By the way, regarding the Mexicans being more casual, what I have noticed is that many of my Mexican friends, when they speak English, many of them have a certain kind of formality to their mannerisms and speech. They use many more adjectives and their speech seems more formal and elegant. It’s the kind of formal mannerisms that is reminiscent of Ricardo Montalbán.

Hi Ohio Countryboy,

I’m posting this link for you and for the others here to check out.
http://celestinechua.com/blog/2010/02/8-helpful-ways-to-deal-with-critical-people/

Criticism can be helpful if it’s delivered in a neutral or loving way. But when it becomes a constant form of nit-picking or is given with a JUDGMENTAL tone, it goes from constructive to critical. Not only does it hurt people, but it destroys relationships.
I do agree with many of your points Ohio Countryboy but maybe try being a little more tactful. You can take what I’m saying here with an open mind or you can find this to be garbage too. You’re entitled to “whatever.”

:| Nazis really have very little tolerance for just about anything.

:???: Highly Strung featuring Steve Vai :cool:

Although your intentions are good, your help could eventually just end up with this response….
According To You :sad:

….btw The Ludwig von Mises Institute website is excellent! :cool:

OMG Oh My God Orianthi My Goddess.
Wow… she’s really playing that gootar… smokin’ :cool:

Right oN—Buddha was well known for his ability to respond to evil with good. There was a man who knew about his reputation and he traveled miles and miles and miles to test Buddha. When he arrived and stood before Buddha, he verbally abused him constantly, he insulted him, he challenged him, he did everything he could to offend Buddha.

Buddha was unmoved, he simply turned to the man and said, “May I ask you a question?”

The man responded with “Well, what?”

Buddha said, “If someone offers you a gift and you decline to accept it to whom then does it belong?”

The man said, “Then it belongs to the person who offered it”

Buddha smiled, “That is correct. So if I decline to accept your abuse does it not then still belong to you?”

The man was speechless and walked away.
:lol: thanks :smile:

Hello, gravityboy.
Would you please explain how I did a 180?

From the very beginning, I have made my position clear that in order to learn to pronounce words correctly, you need to hear clear and distinct enunciation. These language videos lack the enunciation that a basic introductory lesson should have.

I also pointed out that the Cyrillic characters were a distraction as they were not explained. They should be eliminated or incorporated into the lesson.

Folks here seemed to think that I should study supplemental educational materials if I wanted to learn from the videos. To my way of thinking, a basic introductory lesson contains all of the information you need to learn from it.

Hello, VenomRock.
You said, “Criticism can be helpful if it’s delivered in a neutral or loving way. But when it becomes a constant form of nit-picking or is given with a JUDGMENTAL tone, it goes from constructive to critical.”

That doesn’t make sense. It’s impossible for criticism to not be judgemental and critical. Criticism and critical having the same root word should clue you in that they mean the same thing, which is to pass judgement.

I know that I am not the most tactful, and it is something that I work at. However, while I usually try not to intentionally hurt someone’s feelings, part of my problem is that I simply don’t care if someone’s feelings are hurt because I didn’t cater to their expectations of being babied and molly coddled.

I am disgusted by shallow and insincere flattery. My close friends know that I am not going to shower them with insincere flattery and false compliments. They know that when I do compliment, I mean what I say. They may not always like what I say, but they know they can trust me not to say what I think they want to hear.

I think society places far too much emphasis on not hurting people’s feelings. Society teaches that what you feel is more important than what you know or do. Life has harsh realities and bitter truths. Adversity builds character. Is it any wonder we have a culture that opposes any kind of adversity, and we have ended up with people who have no character?

I’ll leave you with one final thought. Dr. Spock achieved fame with his book on his ideas of proper parenting. He believed it was wrong to spank children, as it could warp their little psyches.

Dr. Spock had a child. He raised his son just like he recommended in his book. As soon as his son grew up and hit the real world, his son promptly committed suicide as he was unprepared to face the harsh realities of the real world.

Dr. Spock published another book, recanting his first book. After his son’s suicide, Dr. Spock came to realize that discipline is necessary to teach kids to learn how to deal with real life, and a slightly painful spanking now is far better than the excruciating pain later.

His second book was swept under the rug. His first book is still touted as the proper way of raising kids and preparing them for the real world.

@jp
There is nothing to apologize in your comments. I would glad to see any comments. The art must bring various emotions for different people and everyone take something from it. That was not my poem; I just made the second translation.
You are right about some Asiatic in Russians we have it. :cool:
I can help you with translation to Russian but I need the English original.

Here are some mistakes for example:

Who, being loved, is poor? Oscar Wilde
Кто, будучи влюблен, несчастен? (rhetorical)

Give all to love; obey thy heart. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Отдай всё любви, повинуйся своему сердцу.

the world is cheap and this proves… for what it is worth; the chickens are sold before the eggs are laid and sometimes the roosters never fertilizes(an ovum, for example). …freedom is boasted :!: yell at me to get out of the hotforwords light… street language :lol:

chew tobacco and try farting; a lawyer teaches to respond and then tax this cyber district

dirty water cleans nothing :???:

this thread will never end :mrgreen:

I notice the {thread} goes on and on. The string is stranded!

http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/d/diesease.asp ‘I don’t need to be wormed. I swallowed the early bird!’

Threads of Hope Fashion Event.. JUST saying: howdy :!: :razz: Thread (unit of measurement), a cotton yarn measure, equal to 54 inches (~137 cm)

….maybe I should’ve taken the advice of the article I posted in my original comment. :???:

I was just simply pointing out how you may be perceived by others here and possibly the hostess of this site. I have failed on my first point. You’re right, any type of criticism is ‘to pass judgement.’
Maybe some of your comments are perceived as starting out as constructive criticism and then ending up as an insult. From my view I see a lot of negativity in your comments. One example, on these recent lessons on Russian words/phrases Ms. Orlova did for RT America you expressed your concerns you were having with these segments and provided suggestions where maybe she could improve on them but then you slam the door on the ‘constructive part’ and just end it all with “well these are just garbage.”
I think you’re fairly new here at HFW and Ms. Orlova doesn’t really know you and you really don’t know her. Actually do any us here really know Marina? I’m just thinking you’ve have come on too strong on this site too early. Give her time to maybe fine tune these segments. I’m guessing these were done months ago and it is still something new.
I’m not saying don’t criticize. It is healthy to be critical. Marina does make mistakes and she has fessed up to them in the past.You did admit to working on being tactful though.
I agree with your point about insincere flattery and false compliments in which I maybe guilty of. I think you may have expressed things about what some people are really feeling on here.
You’re hardcore countryboy, but I sincerely believe you have a lot to offer to this
site. :smile:

On your final thought, I’ve heard of this Dr. Spock but I don’t really know a lot about him. When I hear the name Spock I think of the character ‘Mr. Spock’ from the t.v. show star trek. From what you describe of this doc he sounds like a liberal. And the libs would be the ones who swept his second book under the rug.

Maybe he is correct…

If he doesn’t criticize Marina she will be completely unprepared for the real world.

And Dr. Spocks son… that is the only suicide that has ever happened so it must be the book?

Whoops… son still alive… no recant…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Spock

Live long and prosper.

http://www.hotforwords.com/2010/06/28/bargain/#comment-179741

Хорошая работа Марина, госдеп будет доволен :cool: Почувствуйте силу 5й колонны! :lol:

Hmm….I found this from snopes.com
http://www.snopes.com/medical/doctor/drspock.asp

it pretty much says the same thing as wiki
I wonder if Ohio Countryboy got his info from a chain email. I’ve been burned a few times from those. I should’ve just left this alone. :roll:

One thing I got left to say here, I have to agree with leoNard and deluxenn, this thread is fucking long :lol:

@deluxenn well thank you. very cool, as i said, just email me. i do plan to learn Russian thanks to Marina.

i also really do value your friendship and i hope that we can become great comrades. i noticed from your youtube that you are five years older than me. i respect not just your comments, and Russian perspective, but also your age. with it comes wisdom.

again, the poem was so beautiful, it almost breaks my heart. there is a half of me that is overly fragile and sensitive while the other is tough as nails, damn Gemini… best regards.

justin

“In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?” ~ Igor Stravinsky

Hello Marina,

I think you are great! I love your videos. Keep up the great work.

Hot For Guitar,

Bruce

Hello, LeoNard.
I received an email notification that you had replied to my post. Did the website corrupt your reply, or was it intended to be nonsense babbling?

I’m unclear what thought you were trying to communicate.

I stand corrected. I had always heard it was his son who committed suicide. It appears it was his grandson.

You have to consider the source. If a child psychologist knew so much about raising kids and proper parenting, they would be able to teach their children how to do it correctly.

Yes! I’m uncleared with sorry {BABbLING}…There are two types of babbling. Most people are familiar with the characteristic sounds made during babbling, namely reduplicative and variegated babbling. The former consists of repeated syllables, such as /ba/ e.g. “Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba”, whereas variegated babbling consists of a mix of syllables, e.g. “ka-da-bu-ba-mi-doy-doy-doy”.

The consonants that babbling infants produce tend to be any of the following : /p, b, t, m, d, n, k, ɡ, s, h, w, j/. The following consonants tend to be infrequently produced during phonological development : /f, v, θ, ð, ʃ, tʃ, dʒ, l, r, ŋ/. The complex nature of sounds that developing children produce make them difficult to categorize, but the above rules tend to hold true regardless of the language to which children are exposed-[O'Grady and Archibald 2000]
sourced from above link…

GOD BLESS MARINA!!! and hotforwords is a good thing

… :smile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period

Hello, VenomRock.
For some reason, the site is not providing me a reply button to click on after your most recent reply to me, so I am replying to this comment of yours in response to that post. Perhaps it is due to the length of the thread.

I understand what you are trying to say about tact. However, I really don’t care how I am perceived here. 4 out of 5 Americans have English skills that are Intermediate or below. Only 1 out of 5 is proficient or better. Let those who have ears hear, and them that have eyes see. Only a select few people will ever understand my posts. I accept that.

I did give Miss Marina time to fine tune these videos. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt that they would improve. They didn’t.

It is irrelevant when the videos were recorded. They are being broadcast now, which is what is important. In normal business functions, there is something known as Quality Control, which seems to be missing for these videos. If a product doesn’t meet quality standards, the release of the product is immediately halted until the problem is fixed.

There were numerous other comments voicing displeasure with the videos. Miss Marina even asked people to counter all the nasty comments she was receiving. Rather than asking herself why they were leaving nasty comments, the problem was presented that people were being mean. Shame on you, Miss Marina.

It is easy for people to criticize something. People seldom offer constructive criticism which offers suggestions on how to improve or remedy the problem. I offered suggestions on how to improve the Russian language videos.

When the videos continued to be broadcast with unclear and indistinct enunciation, I called them garbage. A teaching lesson that fails to address the fundamental issues in teaching that subject should rightfully be called garbage.

By continuing to put out Russian language videos that lack good enunciation, Miss Marina gives the appearance of being interested in producing shoddy videos and hoping to ride her past reputation just to get more views. It appears that making a quick buck is a higher priority than making sure people get their money’s worth. That’s sad and unfortunate.

While that kind of approach can be damaging to a career, it is probably a good thing that Miss Marina’s language videos on RT America are not garnering very high view counts, compared to her regular videos.

Hello, LeoNard.
Babble also means:
To utter a meaningless confusion of words.
Inarticulate or meaningless talk.

@jp
Hi! Justin, if Stravinsky said it in Russian the translation may be not a like his original Russian saying but close.
In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?
Чтобы создавать, нам нужна мощная сила, но какая сила более мощная, чем любовь?

Sorry friend, I’ll always be late. I have different emails and have no time to check them, the same for my YouTube registration. The summer is too short in my area and I spend a lot of time on a countryside by a river, swimming, fishing, beer drinking…
I did send my email on your Twitter’s email address with translation of your English Twitter. I have made the translation last week but could not send it because of my business. If you need more, let me know.

love your videos!

We actually use these videos, linked back to here dont worry =), on our own website. here is the videos on our site = http://www.bridgetorussian.com/hot-for-words-videos.html =  thats how good we think this videos are! Because we take bridge to russian very seriously = )