Grumpy cats, those Russians

I read a book recently about semantics (again). It says foreigners see my people abroad as grumpy and sad because of words we use when speak English. It's interesting cultural concept which I'd like to share now.

First, polite form in Russian contains negation. "Could you" will be "Don't you can" in Russian. Politeness is here: it's easier if you can say "Yes, I cannot" than "No, I couldn't". For example, a hobo asked for money today with the phrase "Don't you have 5 rubles?". It's more polite than "Do you have?" because your interlocutor can assume you're pushing. 

Second, Russian language allows multiple negative constructions in a sentence. Even more, you can use as many as you want. It works mathematically: if you count negative expressions (no one + never + doesn't + ...) and the quantity is even, the whole meaning is positive. If it's odd number, then you have negative meaning. "I never don't" = I do. "I never wanted not to help" = I wanted to help. 

So guess what. When Russians live in Russian language long enough and then speak English, they subconsciously use natural Russian word sequence and other constructions. So their English seem too depressive. 

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