Thread: hi,i'm new

hello everyone! i'm new here. my weird friend says"Bonjour commrade!" yeah, i have weird friends. anyways, i really want to learn the language, andn i hope one of you guys could help me. also, i'm learning how to speak french so if any of you know that, i'd be very obliged with your help. anyways, i'm from the usa and am looking forward to emailing you guys/girls. talk to you later!


Sofia

hi sofia! Nice name

thanks!whta is your name?how are you doing?

Originally Posted by Sofia

thanks!whta is your name?how are you doing?

Well for starters, heres the same thing in Russian

Спасибо! Как вас зовут? Как дела?

hi darobat, nice to meet you too. i'm from the us, and am 15 years old. what about you?what do you like to do, how old are you, where do you live,etc.?oh, by the way thanks for the translation there, every little bit helps, but how do you pronounce it?and how do you type the russian letters on the keyboard?

A better translation:
Спасибо! Как тебя зовут? Как дела?

(лучше "тебя", а не "вас" )

well, i guess i'll just have to take your word for it that it is a better translation. thanks! you better watch out Darobat, it seems you have a translation conpetetitor .

Well I've only been learning this myself for a few weeks now, so I'd expect so. Also, Евгения, wouldn't вас be better because we are techinacly still "strangers". Wouldn't you only use тебя if lets say you knew eachother for a while but some how magicaly forgot your friends name?

I really don't think either is better.

@Sofia
Спасибо! Как вас зовут? Как дела?
Spacibo! Kak vas zovut? Kak dela?

And check here for how to type in Russian.

The formal form of address is generally used only in real life(between adults who do not know each other). Young people, and people on the net in general use the informal form.

Как вас зовут? Как дела?
As someone said earlier, "Как дела" is not really used as a standard "greeting" like it is in English-speaking countries("Hello, how are you?" "Good, how are you?"). You only use it when you actually want to know how the person is doing.

Originally Posted by Pravit

The formal form of address is generally used only in real life(between adults who do not know each other). Young people, and people on the net in general use the informal form.

Ah, ok Pravit.

thanks you guys! your awesome! happy valentine's day! mwah!

Just curious, does anyone on this forum actually respond to "how are you" with "how are you"? Although I'm a native English speaker, I find it weird.

it is weird. i guess "how are you?" is going to replace "hi" soon . well, i'm doing great how about you darobat, how are you doing?

So have I been speaking backwards English all this time? Because I respond to that question with how I really am doing, if I know the person. Which is why I didn't find it so strange that Russians do the same.

Originally Posted by Pravit

So have I been speaking backwards English all this time? Because I respond to that question with how I really am doing,

Me too. It took me a long time to figure out that when an American asks you “How are you doing” that he, really does not want to know. Well, I just tell them the truth now to piss them off, “ well I slept terribly last night because the cat kept throwing up fur balls on me and now I have got this crook in my neck, also some guy from a collection agency keeps bugging me about a credit card I never even had. Did I tell you about my Mum?”

Originally Posted by DDT

Originally Posted by Pravit

So have I been speaking backwards English all this time? Because I respond to that question with how I really am doing,

Me too. It took me a long time to figure out that when an American asks you “How are you doing” that he, really does not want to know. Well, I just tell them the truth now to piss them off, “ well I slept terribly last night because the cat kept throwing up fur balls on me and now I have got this crook in my neck, also some guy from a collection agency keeps bugging me about a credit card I never even had. Did I tell you about my Mum?”

It sounds as though we need more DDTs out there.

Originally Posted by Sofia

it is weird. i guess "how are you?" is going to replace "hi" soon . well, i'm doing great how about you darobat, how are you doing?

Я очень хорошо, но мей русский язык не жороший достаточно говорить тебя как в Россиа

(Could some superb russian speaker please verify the correctness of that? Only looked up 1 word, достаточно.)

Well here's another DDT. I do the same thing. I hate it when people ask me in passing, "how are you?" b/c I don't have any time to actually give the correct response! When that happens, I usually just end up saying good, even if it is not true. B/c if you say bad, then you have to tell why, and you don't have time when just passing someone. Its definately one of the most stupid American gestures to ask someone how are you as they are walking away from you. Who came up with that???!!

Originally Posted by Sofia

...
also I'm learning how to speak French
...
how do you type the russian letters on the keyboard?

There are 2 ways:

1) same way as people type French or any other -
they add Russian keyboard layout via Control Panel, then switch keyboard to "RU" and type -
same thing as adding French layout, switch to "FR" and type.

How to know where the letters are on a US keyboard while you are in "FR" or "RU" mode? Microsoft provides a page for that (moving your mouse to Shift button on their image gives upper-case layout):
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/refe ... oards.aspx

Also some people want to type in Russian a little bit easier - using so called phonetic (homophonic) layout where unlike the standard one from Microsoft, one can get Russian 'A' by pressing 'A' on US English keyboard, get Russian 'O' by pressing 'O', 'etc.
Something like this (modifiable to your likes, a user can re-position letters):
an image of a phonetic layout

All of the above is covered for all Windows flavors (95/98/ME; 2000; NT; XP) in the
"Typing Russian on any keyboard: standard and phonetic layout" section of the site RusWin.net

.

2) If a person needs to type in Russian just occasionally or can not add Russian keyboard layout via Control Panel for some reasons (Internet-cafe, library, a university lab with Linux or Mac)
then it's still possible to type exactly in the same fashion as (1) above explains, i.e. using your physical keyboard and either a standard layout or a phonetic one - such service is provided on Web pages called something like Virtual Russian Keyboard and here is my newest addition to that family:

........... Kbd.RusWin.net

.

Haha, a girl makes a post, then tons people flock to the post and reply, i find that funny.