Thread: Who is your favorite Russian?

You're right, nobody here pronounces it as in Russian. (Well, it's rare for any word in English to be stressed on the fourth syllable from the end.)
How many of these are correct ? (These are my own guesses.)

БарабАнщикова
БондарЕнко
БовИна
ДавыдЕнко
ДемЕнтьева (on English-language tv they say -енчева. I don't know why)
ФедАк
КафельникОв (KafElnikov in English)
КурникОва (pronounced by many as if it were Kor-, which leads to jokes)
КраснорУцкая
КутУзова
КузнецОва (KuznEtsova in English)
ЛихОвцева
Медведёв (MEdvedev in English)
МИрный
МыскИна
ПАнова
ПеребЫйнис (Is this the Russian spelling of Перебийніс ?)
ПетрОва
СафИн (SAfin in English)
Южный
Зверёва (ZvEreva in English)
Звонарёва (ZvonarOva in English, but spelled Zvonareva)

It's ШарАпова.

Originally Posted by Jeff

How many of these are correct ? (These are my own guesses.)

I've marked the correct ones with pluses and corrected the others:
БарабАнщикова +
БондарЕнко +
БОвина
ДавыдЕнко - sounds correct to me but other variants may be also possible
ДемЕнтьева +
ФедАк - most likely correct
КАфельников
КУрникова
КраснорУцкая+
КутУзова+
КузнецОва +
ЛихОвцева - sounds correct though other variants may also exist
МедвЕдев
МИрный+
МЫскина
ПАнова - I would say ПанОва but I could be wrong
ПеребЫйнис - most likely correct
ПетрОва+
САфин
Южный+
ЗвЕрева
Звонарёва +

Note, that in the female last names on -ина the stress never falls on the и (so it's never -Ина)
Btw, guessing where the stress in the Russian last names falls sometimes isn't easy even for the native speakers.

oops you're right...second A....

but not the O....

ЛихОвцева - sounds correct though other variants may also exist

Спортивные комментаторы, которых я слышал, всегда произносят ЛИховцева.

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

Originally Posted by Mordan

It is weird, I don't like her... she looks like a pest.

I prefer Dementieva.

Just curious... what does a pest look like?

Originally Posted by Mordan

For men, I like Khodorkovsky

Are you serious? Of all the Russian men that ever have existed, you choose an oligarch? Why? Is it because he is being victimized?

Just said "I like". I think he can bring a lot of good things to his country

Like Sharapova: pouty lips... round face.... know it all eyes... a brat

My husband, Yura .

This guy

http://www.zephyrus.co.uk/dimitrimendeleev.html

Originally Posted by Haksaw

Zhanna Sergyeyeva. My wife.

Привет ей!

Oksana Bayul is not Russian. She is from Ukraine. If we can count Ukrainians, then bar none the greatest Russian of all time is this man:


Caption: "In Soviet Union, comedian write new jokes after 20 years. Wearing Cosby sweater is capital offense. What a country!"

Ooh! Yay! I feel smart! I know who Mendeleev is!

Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky would be my favourite Russian. His music is imaginative aswell as intelligently written. I don't find his pieces too complicated, either. Though I don't over-rate the brilliance of classical composers, I do love it. My favourite of his pieces are the usual suspects of Nutcracker Suite, Symphony n.6, 1812 Overture and maybe about twelve other pieces.

I also like Mussorgsky for a couple of his pieces. Night On Bald Mountain and Pictures at an Exhibition.

My favourite painter is Kandinsky. I like the style he developed later on, which is more well-known, I think.

Peter Ustinov is Russian, at least partly. The actor of the 40's 50's who speaks 19 languages. (He was in the film Spartacus). To what degree he speaks these languages, I don't really know.

There's a Russian World Champion light-weight boxer living in Australia, named Kostya Tzyu. I like his attitude inside and outside of the ring. He expresses great sportsmanship.

I wonder if anyone has read the book Foundation Pit, by Andrei Platonov? The segments I've read of this book suggest he would be a favourite writer for me, but I've not found a copy in the book stores. I read a part of the book where he was describing the mindset of peasant workers. It was interesting how he delved into the mental circumstances of the people, not just the external events.

My favorite Russian is филипп киркоров! Gotta love his music. It's so cheesey and catchy....

Originally Posted by saibot

My favorite Russian is филипп киркоров! Gotta love his music. It's so cheesey and catchy....

My friend Chinar listens to him...wanted me to find his site but I couldn't.

Originally Posted by saibot

My favorite Russian is филипп киркоров! Gotta love his music. It's so cheesey and catchy....

I'm sorry, saibot, but I think, he's absolutely disgusting figure! Did you see he's sensational press conference, where he was asked about remakes, and instead of civilized answer he used very rude and obscene words against poor journalist? It's deserted form of star fever.

Yeah I did see that! The only reason he did it is because the reporter accused him of just remaking other people's songs or something like that.

Originally Posted by saibot

Yeah I did see that! The only reason he did it is because the reporter accused him of just remaking other people's songs or something like that.

He-he-he... Did you understand everything? The words like "сиськи", "пох#й" and "п#зда"? She asked an ordinary question, and he offended her very much, and than he even mimiced her. ("Да-свядАния.. Гаварите сначала... Научитесь гаварить сначала по-русски"). Behaviour of spoilt teens, nothing more. All the country laughed at him!

My favourite artist is Konstantin Vasiliev, unforutnately he's not so well-known as Aivazovsky for example, i guess its because of the subject of his works, they are all dedicated to something mystic, to slavic pagan god's, well i just like such "pagan" stuff


his biography
http://www.rus-sky.org/history/library/doronin

and my favoruite football player is Александр Кержаков - ФК Зенит

Originally Posted by Jeff

ПеребЫйнис (Is this the Russian spelling of Перебийніс ?)

This is a Ukrainian name (and Перебийніс is its Ukrainian spelling), the correct stress is ПеребыйнИс.

A lot of English speakers have so much trouble with stress in Russian names, especially the ones like kurnikova, kafelnikov, etc. It is not a problem of just guessing right, but also of pronunciation. I even have russian friends who stress their own name on the next to last syllable when introducing themselves, which sounds really strange.

I believe the main reason is the vowel reduction, or rather the lack of it in English speech. In Russian, only the stressed vowel is pronounced fully, and the following one gets about half effort. all the others are reduced almost to schwa (not quite a schwa but close, there are 2 kinds one for a/o one for e/i). It comes very natural and most russians do not realize that they are even doing it. it took me a great deal of effort to get rid of it in my english speech.
Now, english speakers do not reduce their vowels nearly as much, and in "kUrnikova" they try to say that last "o" as "o"(in reality it is a very short "uh", similar to the first vowel in "computer"). In a long name like this it is only possible to do by putting the stress there (and they put a secondary stress, another feature of English difficult for russians to reproduce, at the first "u").
Conversely, my friend places the stress on "-ina" in her name because english speakers are typically not able to distinguish the reduced vowels, so when she pronounced the name correctly, they would often ask again, so she got fed up and now does it in a wrong but more understandable way.

Generally, the correct vowel reduction is something a foreigner must learn if he or she wants to ever be taken for a real Russian, it does sound very impressive when foreign students do it correctly (although very few do).