posted
My son Sasha needs a good Russian English dictionary. He speaks Russian as his native language from early childhood but is beginning to read serious literature in Russian now, and I guess he feels his Russian vocabulary is inadequate.
He wants one that's not too big but larger than pocket sized. Also if there is any good one which is available as Russian-English only and not English-Russian (which he doesn't need at this point) that would also be good.
I don't want to just pick one at random. Does anyone have a recommendation? Thanks!
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posted
That is exactly what I need too... And also a site with Russian Folk Tales in Russian and English and the poems of Yevgeny Yevtushenko. I will hunt for one, especially one online... Ask him, please how to say my White Dawn, My Red Sun, My Dark Night in Russian.
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Syn, I found this one that looks like the best to me. $25 used (plus shipping) and there are multiple copies. I would go with the 1987 edition, I guess, not the first one which is from 1975.
Oh, and I emailed him to ask for a translation. He usually gives me phonetic translations using english spelling but I suppose you need it spelled correctly in cyrillic. I'll ask him if he can do that, too.
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That first one seems to me to be for conjugations mostly. 5000 is very few words. Compare your second link which has 26,000 entries in the English Russian section and 40,000 in the Russian English part. And it's paperback so that can't be that huge. The second one seems better to me.
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Here is the Oxford paperback, which has 500 pages. Why is it so cheap? Wow, $2.67 + $1.99 sourcing fee + shipping? That's for a new one? Sounds like a bargain!
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There are a couple of "Oxford" dictionaries, including a "condensed" version and a "pocket" version, neither of which is the same as the version which I recommend.
My recommendation would be the Wheeler Oxford Russian-English dictionary, which has a lot of "literary" vocabulary. 82,000 wds/129,000 translations.
This Oxford dictionary is available as an EN<>RU hardcover, but the EN>RU and RU>EN were also released as two separate paperback volumes, which is the set I have. T's friend needs only the RU>EN volume.
I recall that I didn't like the Smirnitsky dictionary very much, but it's been so long ago that I forget why.
The Katzner (linked to in a post above) is a good single-volume dictionary that goes both ways, but Tatiana said her friend needed only the RU>EN version.
[ November 29, 2004, 03:39 PM: Message edited by: Yozhik ]
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'Tis cheap because it's a "minidictionary." The author of this version is Della Thompson; you want the full-fledged, scholarly "Oxford" dictionary by Marcus Wheeler.
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YOZHIK! *grab* you speak russian, don't you? Tell me how to say My Bright Dawn, My Red Sun, My Black Night in Russian. *shakes*
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My bright dawn: день мой ясный My Red Sun: солнышко моё красное My black night: ночь моя тёмная
That's how Baba-Yaga says it in the fairy tale; however, usually the adjectives in Russian precede the nouns.
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And here is a version of that fairy tale in English. It seems to be a translation of the text in the Bilibin-illustrated version, with some minor changes (perhaps due to Soviet censorship; in the 1992 Russian version I have, the doll says "eat your supper, say your prayers, and go to bed").
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Oh oh oh! Sasha taught me the word "Spasibo." I Spasibo him very much for that (excuse my totally imporper use of that word). And he also taught me how to say, "Candy only ruins your teeth, and also makes you pregnant." A phrase he thought would be important for me to know in Russian. I believe Tatiana heard me say that in my horribly garbled, French-accented Russian.
The lessons are slow, but Russian them would be counterproductive. Posts: 326 | Registered: Aug 2004
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BunnV, he calls it preventing pregnancy to work out on the abs machines at the gym. He says male pregnancy is a terrible problem in the U.S. I figured out that "candy makes you pregnant" is really just Sasha's colorful metaphor for "candy makes you fat".
Oh, and if you intend to turn this into a pun thread, then soVIet, however, some people might think that was a crimea.
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Two more brilliant Sashaisms of late: (since Dan Raven gets to brag about his Sasha, and thinks he's so smart and stuff. )
First, he gave the name Lubeefka to a very large beefy cat character he invented. This is a Russian-English word made out of the Russian word for love + english beef + ka (familiar suffix). I'm totally calling Aragorn that as a pet name! It fits him so well! <laughs> Ah, my little Lubeefka!
Second, he invented the idea of a suicide robot which first kills you, then animates your corpse to go around to all your friends and relatives, passing out copies of your suicide note and telling them it was their fault. What can I say? He has a sick, sick sense of humor.
Oh, and by the way, he's really feeling terrible lately, with anxiety and depression and stress, so any prayers and good wishes sent out for him are greatly appreciated.
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Haha, yes he told me about "male pregnancy" being analagous to a beer belly, I just figured I'd add that bit of information if anyone asked.
And I enjoy, every now and then, phrases out of context. Like that chatroom conversation that I was pretending to be you and half my messages were appearing blank. Then the messages that were appearing made it seem like I was portraying you as a very non-Tatiana person. Good times. Haha.
Tatiana, I see how you like to fight Fyodar with Fyodar. ;D
Edit: Yeah, Sasha seemed a bit down when I talked to him today. He was telling me about the "Pushkin Museum".. I asked him who "Pushkin" was since I wasn't familiar with his work. First he told me that Pushkin eats people. After asking him if that was true he said "No, he writes stories." He laughed when I told him, "Oh, OK. Writing is usually a lot more creative than cannibalism."
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JE is certainly real, as many have fallen under its sway. I'm in Stage I, I think, and I do believe Linda's in stage II (since we know the symptoms of that one.) (Oh, and how could you forget Art Vandelay?) There was speculation that one of your hs friends was in Stage III, remember? My goodness, have you forgotten the JE Staging Scheme? Next you'll be forgetting the life cycle of leishmaniases.
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