Thread: The uber-official "Introduce Yourself" Post

Hi!

My name's Martin and I'm a student from Essex. I am studying chemical engineering at the University of Surrey in Guildford. I started studying Russian because when I was away on my placement year I met this cute Russian girl and developed a massive crush on her (I may as well be honest ). Even after I left, I continued to study Russian because I found that I actually liked the language.

There's not much to tell about my life so far - born and raised in a fairly sleepy little market town, educated nearby, then went to uni. I'm not really sure about what I want to do in the future, although it does include going to Russia at some point, for a holiday at the very least.

I'm into loads of cheesy Russian pop bands (most noticeably Чернила - I've attempted a couple of translations of their songs in the translation forum - and Ядерный сок, the inspiration for my forum name) as well as RHCP, White Stripes and Foo Fighters, among others.

I'm also a juggler, in theory. I used to be a member of the juggling society back at uni, and hopefully will be again if it get started up again next year.

Well now it's my turn.

My name is Brandon. I live in very secluded city in the deep northern woods of Minnesota. I'm 29, approaching 30. *tear* I started to study Russian about 4 years ago, for no reason at all, and I'm very surprised that I followed through with it for this long. Man, I need a drink, brb. * 5 minutes pass* All right, I'm back. So anyway, I went to high school in St. Paul, and after high school I graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in mathematics. I wasn't sure what I was gonna do with a math degree, so I went back to school to get A+ Certified. So I did that, and was still bored with life, so I went back to the same school (for the 3rd time) and got an Associate degree in computer networking. I'll soon be going back to that school for the 4th time, when i start my Russian major. *woohooo* So for the past 4 years, I've been a network technician at the local high school. During the summers, I usually take the summers off, but this summer I decided to get a job. I am currently employed working for the "Geek Squad" at best buy, fixing and upgrading computers, and charging outrageous prices to do things people could do themselves at home. It's kind of a rip off.

I like to watch alot of TV. Some of my favorite shows include animated ones, like Family Guy, The Simpsons, and South Park. I mostly just listen to rock. I can't stand rap or r&b. *pukes* When I'm not at home drinking beer and watching TV, you can find me at the casino kickin' ass at the video poker machine. *yeah right*.

Well that's my life, I hope you enjoyed it. I need another beer.

-deleted- because I am really shy

Well, Ебаут майселф.

I was born in a small city (not a town, but as a city not to big) Samarkand, Uzbekistan (USSR that time). Grew up loving biology. Graduated from Samarkand State Univercity as a biologist. But, bad (or good?) luck, there where no good jobs for biologists at that time, so I started to work as a guide-interpreter (Samarkand is a very ancient city, was occupied by Alexander the Great once). Oh, BTW, I am very bad with languages, never could learn them. I am tartar, I could not learn Tartar, I could not learn Uzbek (which was state language), could not learn Tadjik (which is a very handy language in Samarkand), and could not learn German (which I study in High School and University). And then learned English just myself, after German it was a piece of cake. I got only one book (but very good one), and nothing else, no tapes or something like that were available at that time, or they were very expensive.

Then I changed more then a dosen profession, I was even a baker and Regional Manager of a quite big American Company. 5 years ago I moved to USA, California. I love this county and state, the climate exactly like back in my county. I was married with an american woman. Got a son together. Did not work out, unfortunately. No I work as a database programmer in University California (Davis).

Oh, yes, once I got a book "Feet of Clay" by Terry Pratchett, I start to read it, and thoght what a stupid book. Then my friend insisted that I finish reading this book. I did, and I fell in love with the book. Then with other books by Terry Pratchett, I am trying read them all. So, I thought, I need to show Russians what a great author he is, and I translated that book, and my translation was published recently in Russia. With a group of other Russian fans we opened a web-site, http://pratchett.org, to help other fans. It is such a challenge to translate him, but a lot of fun as well.

So good, so far.

Ah, yes, at my first years in US I wrote a diary about my life in USA (in Russian), many people found it quite funny and interesting, so, if you want to challenge your Russian, try to read it. Mind you, it was written for Russians, got a lot of things which maybe difficult for non-native speaker to understand.

And yes, I am impressed with you guys, how well you know Russian, it is crazzy to learn this language, imho, Russian is so complicated, I understood it, when I start to study English. I am really impressed with all of you.

Guess whose turn is now?

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

BTW: Why aren't more Russians introducing themselves, is this just a western thing? Gerty, you are the best! Come on Russians! Pioner? Scorpio? netsurfer? Lampochka ;)? Friendy?

Yeah, we Russians don't like to introduce ourselves, we like to remain a mystery :)
Nothing special about me. A Russian guy who lives in Russia not far from Moscow and works as a technical specialist for a telecommunicational company. I've been learing (if that process could be called so) Engish off and on for several years. I like it, it's sort of a hobby. One day in spring 2004 a friend of mine showed me this forum. As far as I remember it was waxwing's story "Кровь". It was funny to read :) (please don't take offence, I know, no I don't know, I could only imagine how it's hard to learn Russian). Then I started to visit the forum regulary and in a couple weeks I decided to join it. That's how I got here. Why I'm here? To help you foreigners to learn Russian (hope I handle it more or less well), to argue with Russians about Russian, to practice my English, to mess around :)

Your english sounds good to have just been learning it off and on.

Yea alexei! Good post, your english is very good.

my friend your english is almost as good as mine.............AND I AM ENGLISH!!

His english may well be better than mine, atleast his written english. It is sad when your Russian friends correct your english spelling like they do mine....how I made it to college I do not know, and still have managed to get an A in every college level english coarse I have ever taken....what a discrase (and YES, I probably DID spell that wrong). Yal should get spell check on this websight any day now.

Spelling by Russians is better simply for the reason of that we learn it written first, and then to prononce them versus you native-English speaking. Now, after 5 years living in US I got some English words I can prononce, but I have no idea how to spell them.

Originally Posted by Propp

Originally Posted by JB

Do you know what dorm you'll be in? I was in the international student's dorm at Prospekt Vernadskovo station. It was an interesting experience .

Wow! I used to know all major local freaks there, but it was in the 1st half of 1990-s. After that the number of local (Russian and CIS) residents has been greately reduced, and the number of Koreans and Chinese has been greatly increased.
I myself graduated MGU (Philological Faculty).

About all I know is that I'm supposed to be "in the main building." Metro Universitet is my metro stop, since I grabbed up a single room. I have absolutely nothing against Asians (I quite like them, actually) but I was hoping to be surrounded by Russians more than Asians, if only because, well, I'm going to Russia.

Shall we start a "Share Your MGU Experience" thread? I think so!

The main building was only classrooms, dining rooms and offices when I was there. Also most of the dorms on campus were for professors or grad students, but things have probably changed. At the time I was there Russian Government had made some sort of contracts with Korea and China so there was a huge influx of students from those countries. The powers that be at MGU tried to keep the Russian students housed away from foreign students so I was on a floor with all Asians. Our house mother/floor monitors hated the Asians and were always talking badly about them and giving my roommate and I lots of love and attention. They even wanted us to marry Russians so we would stay in Russia!
I have nothing against Asians but living in their dorm was a real third world experience.

I would like to 2nd Russkayalove's "call" for a "spell check" !

Originally Posted by russkayalove

Your english sounds good to have just been learning it off and on.

But it's true.
Thank you guys. If anyone feel like correcting my English, I'd appreciate it :)

Originally Posted by net surfer

Originally Posted by russkayalove

Your english sounds good to have just been learning it off and on.

But it's true.
Thank you guys. If anyone feel like correcting my English, I'd appreciate it

If anyone feels like correcting my English

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

If anyone feels like correcting my English :wink:

Damn! What a stupid mistake. Thanks, Vincentz :)

Khm! Привет всем ;p Back to introducing, if you let me... well, just before I discovered this thread I already wrote something about my adventure with Russian here ;p I'm a Polish high school graduate who wants to study applied linguistics and translate from and to (at least ;p ) two languages... the first two of which will be English and Russian ;> And on this forum I hope to fill some gaps in my education, and meet some interesting people. I also plan to learn Swedish. (My girlfriend already studies applied linguistics with English as primary and German as secondary, plus she plans to learn Dutch, so we'll probably open up a translation office in the future DD) Besides languages, I'm interested in sci-fi, fantasy, manga, music (metal, alternative, folk) from all over the world, computers & software, sometimes ( even :>) philosophy and religions... (some people told me they're impressed by the number of my interests, but well, it's not really like I'm very deep into any of them.... I like to spend a little while on this and another on that, and anyway I end up wasting nearly all of my time ;> ) этот форум ето докладно то, што я искал, и надеюс проверит здесь много времени. Простите мои ошибк, я был бы очень grateful, если бы Вам хотелось мне о них сказать (есть ли кто-то, кто не написал того в свойом первом посте?) :>

hey you guys, I've just opened a new topic about myself in this section, I didn't notice this one, I would write here in the first place, but I will introduce myself again here, and the mods can delete the other topic. I'm a girl, 22 years old, live in Israel, Haifa, but originally from Russia, Moscow. I've immigrated here with my family 12 years ago.
I find it cool that you guys here try to learn Russian, it's really cool, I think you really should try to talk on it as perfect as you just possibly can, correct Russian is a beautifull language in my opinion.

Do you guys read anything in Russian? I wonder if anyone of you ever tryed to read Pushkin.