Idiot's Neck

[chomiji]

See, "it's snowing" in Russian is roughly "id'zyawt snyeg" - but you have to de-voice the g at the end of snyeg ("snow") until it's almost a "k." So ... "idiot's neck." It really means "Snow comes" or "Snow is coming."

Except by now it's really id'zyawt dozhd - rain. Or maybe sleet, but I never learned that in Russian. In any case, it's too much cold icy stuff on the ground, already!!! Winter is not my time of year - I like spring.

I should be able to say "it was snowing," but I forget even the simple imperfect past, and "go/come" is irregular anyway, as in most Indo-European languages. Maybe it's "shyol snyeg" - I think I remember that "ya shla" was "I went" for me ('cause I'm a female person) and I think the masculine/neuter for "shla" was "shyol."

I could just call up my friend K and get a real answer, you know - she speaks beautiful fluent Russian - but sometimes it's more fun just thrashing around ...

Spohkaineh nochi, rebyata! ("G'night, kids!")

Comments

[ipperne.livejournal.com]

Hi!
Just sneaking aroung your journal and learned that russian makes the depressing topic 'snow' sort of funny.
That's amazing.

[chomiji]

Well, I guess if you couldn't make snow funny in Russian, and you lived there, you'd have to either move or commit suicide ... pretty bad in the winter, Russia is!

Feel free to sneak through the journal all you like - it's a pretty new journal, so there isn't much of it yet.

- Cho

[ipperne.livejournal.com]

Guess you have a point there. glad that I don't live in Russia... too much snow and cold stuff.

Thanks, I will sneak around then, and I'll probably leave a comment or two...