A Quick Grammar Reference: What -ся May Mean And How To Use It.

When you listen to an entire song in your target language and one thing makes sense:

“There are certain things in the movie that are very Russian that is difficult for an American audience to pick up on. Like when [Kirk and Sulu] freefall and I capture them and I say something in Russian….[says Russian phrase]…it means “Oh man!” basically, which is something I ad-libbed. Which goes back to what I was saying. Chekov never speaks Russian in the series, and that was Russian slang. And that that is something I decided to add just for the hell of it, because JJ [Abrams] said ‘throw in some Russian, let’s do it for fun.’ It was just a moment that needed some kind of reaction, and they loved it out there. It is one of those things that Russian people get. I think Russian people are very happy with Chekov because he is one of the few Russian characters in American pop culture history that is not the Red Dawn kind of Russians.” — Anton Yelchin

About the Russian invasion - how is everyone feeling there? What can we do to help?

Thank you so much for asking!

A little bit of history: it's actually been 8 years since russia first invaded our country. But for the last years it was getting more and more quiet. And now BOOM again

Many people evacuated from the destroyed by war cities in 2014 and some still live there even though they support Ukraine. It's hard to leave your home. So it's emotionally different for everyone. There was a joke that people from Kyiv worry more than people from Eastern Ukraine. Because they have experienced a similar thing in 2014 and now they're more prepared than ever before.

Personally, I'm panicking from time to time, because, yup, it's stressful. Most people don't really speak about the war and evacuation because it's scary. But I feel like everyone's trying to be prepared for the evacuation or fighting. Every night does feel like a last one, after all.

Since the beginning of the war, our people have been giving money to military charity. One of the most famous military charities is "Return alive" (Povernysya zhivim). Many Ukrainians donate here every month. Here is a link for Facebook page of the charity, let me know if it translates to English or if i should make a post with translation:

There is also a charity that helps military. Yana Zinkevych, a Ukrainian politician and a commander of the Hospitallers Medical Battalion, leads this charity. In 2015 she was paralyzed during a mission and since then she has been using a wheelchair. She has personally saved more than 200 soldiers and she's awesome.

https://www.facebook.com/100020149602229/posts/914756185872693/

In her post here she makes a list of needed ammunition and the needed money.

I tried to write about the charities that Ukrainians trust in. They are famous, they have been trusted by people all these years, so as far as I am concerned, they can be trusted.

Here is a post by @everlasting-burnout who provided more links. They seem trustworthy.

Thank you so much for reading and I encourage to reblog. Just to remind you, I'm trying to tell about Ukrainian situation as objectively and as truthfully as I can

— Why do you always put parentheses in messages? — I feel more comfortable with them)) — What do you mean? — Parentheses look like they are hugging words and they become kinder))

Here's a list of great VK public pages in Russian that I adore: pt 1

If you're learning the language, I think these might help you get more familiar with not only reading and spelling, but with how Russians actually communicate. And these pages are pretty cool too, so you can just check them out even if learning the language isn't the main goal.

1. покажи нам кусочек своей жизни/show us a piece of your life

A rather cool page where people share random pictures from their phones with a bit of info about themselves. Every post has its own aesthetic but more importantly, these posts feel very real and authentic. Here's what some of these posts look like.

"I'm majoring in geo in Moscow, sing in choir, and right now I'm writing my thesis a bit worried about my future. But I'll be fine. Kindness to all"

"the life of a physics teacher 💫"

2. пушистые морды/fluffy faces

Another page that accepts post suggestions. Here you can share your adorable pet (it's mostly cats).

"his name is Oleg"

3. мам ну не читай/mom don't read it

Did you have a diary when you were a kid? I cringe every time I read my old diaries. But this page collects all the weird diary entries and posts them. Not sure where they take them from, but they're all pretty hilarious.

"the door to the future"

"the page of positivity"

I'll be back with a part two!

The LITTLE BIG moment that had me shook

LITTLE BIG music videos are unique and interesting to Russians not only because of all this crazy stuff they always come up with, but also because these guys invite tons of Russian YouTubers to every music video. I might even write a list of people who have been invited so far, if Russian YouTube is interesting to you.

But my favorite cameo happened in their “I’M OK” music video. 

You see, the character on the left is Arseniy Popov. He’s one of the actors in Russian TV show “Improvisation” (pretty much the Russian version of “Whose line is it anyway?”). The thing is, there is an inside joke in the show about Arseniy being homosexual.

In the LITTLE BIG's music video Arseniy Popov not only appeared as the first TV celebrity, but the band kept the inside joke that they were clearly aware of. 

As a big fan of both “Improvisation” and LITTLE BIG, I was absolutely thrilled. 

So I wanted to do something different and translate a scene from the Russian version of Howl’s moving castle! Hope you enjoy the voice acting just as much as I do.  *Бабка, бабки (babka sing., babki plur.) — rude way of saying ‘old woman’.  Бабушка, бабушки (babushka sing., babushki plur.) — neutral/polite way of saying ‘old woman’ or ‘grandmother’. Баба, бабы (baba sing., baby plur.) can refer to a grandma you already know (in this case the grandmas name is usually followed) or a woman (in a rude way). All the nouns are feminine.

Find yourself a partner who talks about you the same way the last guy talks about his girlfriend (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡