Originally Posted by
pranki So, Zadornov's wrong with his statement that all foreigners know the phrase "на халяву"?
Originally Posted by
ezhikvtumane А ещё один вопросик, если можно: когда-то мне сказали слово зашуганные (про людей), но когда я употребила это слово перед кем-то, этот человек сразу же его отмахнул и сказал, что оно какое-то безграмотное.
OK, it's a piece of slang, not literature word, but is used very often today, especially amoung young Russians.
Thanks very much for your help.
Zadornov's wrong about a lot of things, in fact... He's funny about some things, but I began to get annoyed with him when it seemed that all he was doing was perpetuating negative stereotypes regarding Americans. I sense a bitterness behind his jokes about Americans that make him seem quite mean-spirited. But I'm not much of a fan of a lot of American humor, either, as it's neither witty, nor funny but rather пошлый.
Take, for example, his famous piece about the phrase, "There's nobody home." He states that in Russian, people say, "Нет души" or, "Not a soul." He claims that in English, there is only the phrase, "Nobody's home." But this is not true - in English, as in Russian, there are different ways of saying this: 1. Nobody's home 2. Nobody's here 3. Not a soul.
In Russian, as in English, it's much more common for people to say "Noone's here/Никого нет" than "Not a soul/Нет души", so he may not have realized this.
But anyway, I get tired of negative stereotyping. Простите за "rant", но это просто очень больное место. Недавно, русская женщина прочла мой Живой Журнал и удивилась, что у меня там прямо такие душевные слова, что, по ее мнению, является редким для американок. "Неужели нет у тебя русских предков?" спросила она.