Moscow forces U.S. to close down its aid mission in Russia

[panchul]

First, the news:

http://news.yahoo.com/moscow-forces-u-close-down-aid-mission-russia-000447314.htmlRead more... )

Comments

[fierceleaf]

I think that this aid wasn't helpful from the very beginning.

If opposition leader reveals that he receives US grants it will put an end on his/her career as an electable politician. People in Russia don't share extreme anti-american attitudes, like some Arabs, but people are very skeptical about the purity of USDep's intentions given the mess in the Middle East and all kinds of "Color Revolutions" and "Arab Springs".

[ddstory]

I wonder why Russian speakers never use the word "the" when speaking English.

[htpcl]

They don't have the definite article because the extensive system of verb cases in the Russian language substitutes it. I've seen many Russians who've lived for many years in Bulgaria still failing to grasp how the definite suffixes in our language work (we don't have definite articles before the words, instead we attach suffixes at the end of words to indicate them).

[ddstory]

At least you have something like a definite system, which explains why it's no trouble for you to put the "the" and "a" in their right places. :)

[htpcl]

Not only is it "something like", it's actually far more complex than the mere use of two types of articles. We conjugate all nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs according to gender, singular/plural and tense. And this changes the definite suffix, respectively. It could get pretty messy for a foreigner. Imagine if we had an inflected language like the Russians - they have 6 cases FFS! Would've been a grammatical harakiri. Fortunately our ancestors were lazy enough to drop all those weird cases, with just a few obscure traces of them remaining, mostly around the pronouns.

[fierceleaf]

We have no articles in our language. And it is really very hard to grasp how to use it and where to use it. And also we tend omit the word "a/an" or use it in the wrong places.

[abomvubuso]

Cuz they've never had it.

[panchul]

Russian language does not articles (although it has a lot of other stuff English language does not have).
When a Russian wants to stress that something is "the" or "a", he or she uses the equivalents of "this" or "some" in Russian.
The vast majority of Russians make mistakes in articles when they speak English since article usage is something native English speakers learn instinctively in their childhoods.

[sophia_sadek]

Some make the mistake of using the article too many of the times. I find that the mistake I make in the foreign language is the funny way that I say the thing more like the direct translation from the English.

[di_glossia]

Russian has no definite article. Aren't you multilingual yourself? You should be able to understand that some constructs and concepts don't exist in all languages.

[ddstory]

I get that, I just don't speak Russian and I'm not familiar with its intricacies.

Aren't you multilingual yourself?

Depends what counts for "multilingual". :)

[rjf_snyker]

You forgot that opposition leader's haven't sane unified position.

[fierceleaf]

On the one hand we have the seemingly inadequate president who builds authoritarian society and on the other hand we have a bunch of leftists, nazies and pseudo-liberals who claim themselves to be opposition. The choice is hard.

But that doesn't mean that people who want him to resign are just traitors or enemies. The question is not which choice is better. The question is which choice is worse.

[rjf_snyker]

Of course, only Pachul said that the U.S. govrnment supports unproductive force.