What other languages can a Russian speaker understand?

Angela asked:

What other languages can a Russian speaker understand? A Russian friend I had once told me that to her, Ukranians sound very feminine or like children while speaking their language. Do you agree?

Hello Angela!

I think that Ukrainian or Belorussian languages sound for a Russian person like Portuguese to Italian or Spanish-speaking one. There are many words that look similar and if written, you’ll sure will understand the main points but when spoken, it’s weirdly unusual to listen to.

Some Polish or Czech or Slovak or Serbian words may seem familiar but they often have another meaning so it's dangerous to feel free to avoid dictionaries behind. "Attention" in Polish is similar to "shame" in Russia, "Shop" to "Vault"; not logical and a bit creepy.

I’ve seen the «Rock wave» movie in Kiev once. It was in Ukrainian and I didn’t get anything from it. Some words sounded similar to Russian ones but funnier. I even didn’t get the plot. My Russian friend told me she understood it pretty good. Both we do not speak Ukrainian, but I am not sure why our perception was so different.

Did she really understand or maybe she got the same as I did and thought it to be sufficient while I stated I understood nothing? I didn’t know how to measure. Maybe if the movie was in another language, not similar to Russian, we’d get just as same as we could because there are faces and gestures and actions on the screen. Oh well.

As for sound, Ukrainian language has soft endings so it’s more tender when spoken. Many diminutives make it feel more like mother is speaking to a dear child, that’s probably why your friend mentioned women and children.

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This post is an answer to one of The Listserve replies I’ve got.
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Some magic

Oh that Russian language

There are many articles with random facts about some topic. You know, those with animated gifs and short funny captions.

I guess the main point of their existence is that they can be fun. So I'll pick some funny facts and if you want more, just jump to that article itself. Deal?

“Pretend you’ve just been kicked in the stomach,” your professor says, introducing the letter Ы. “Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы!” you chant like a bunch of drunken sea lions.

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There’s a Ш and a Щ? And a Ч? This seems unnecessary.

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But when you mix them up, native Russian speakers have no idea what you’re trying to say. What do you mean, you want to open a “ya-shik” at the post office? OHHHH, a yash-chik.

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You have to remember that a television is male, a newspaper is female and a radio is genderqueer.

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Then you meet the verbs of motion. I still remember Russ 101 in college asking how to say "to go" and prof was all OH YOU AREN'T READY FOR THAT YET

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When you get to Russia, you have to ask the bartender for a “Sprayt” or a “Long Aylend” in your most exaggerated accent to be understood. But you’ve been mispronouncing “vodka” and “Kalashnikov” your whole life, so cut them some slack.

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. 

Linguistic joke

Did you know that the Russian word for "sock" is "no sock"?

This is very old joke. When someone says something like that online, everyone starts posting "This is bayan!" meaning "Where have you found this old beardy joke? I've retweeted it twice already".

Bayan is sort of button accordion. Maybe this word is used because of the sound it makes: stretchy.

You could also not write "bayan!" but draw Russian Emoji ASCII picture :|||: (or :||||||||||: in critical situation).

Some pages from The Russian Course

I've seen these scans lately walking through RuNet (Russian part of internet) and decided to share them. They were taken from the language learning course for foreigners which was created in USSR. The material is both Soviet and cynical. The trolling of the political system should be hidden between the lines very well to pass the censors before the publishing. Writers used to hide the meanings inside both in fiction and non-fiction materials; double-layer was the most common and there could be even more: three, four - depending on experience and intelligence of a reader. So these pages are not only funny, but they show very well what people should write about and how they did it back in these days.