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Do Russians ever feel encumbered by the length of many of their common words?
Чувствуют когда-нибудь себя обременёнными ли русские длиной многих своих обычных слов?
For instance:
to use = употребить; воспользоваться
bomber = бомбардировщик
Help! = Помогите!
Stop! = Остановитесь!
railroad = железная дорога
(Вы вольны исправлять мои ошибки.)
Чувствуют ли себя русские обременёнными длиной многих своих обычных слов?Quote:
Чувствуют когда-нибудь себя обременёнными ли русские длиной многих своих обычных слов?
Questions with ли require strict word order. Usually (not always) it is predicate + ли + the rest in usual word order.
Нет. Some very common words can be shortened Здравствуйте-здрасте, человек-чек, сейчас- щас (the last one - nearly always). The rest are pronounced normally.
You can say Стойте!Quote:
Stop! = Остановитесь!
May I answer you in Russian?
Length is in the eye of the beholder. Помогите! seems long to you, not to a Russian.
English does seem to have much more one-syllable words than Russian (some of them, like "Help!" are quite useful :)). I tried to find some statistical data, and the result was a little surprising:
Average English world length is 5.10 letters.
Average English sentence length is 14.3 words.
English sentence and word average length
Average Russian world length is 5.28 letters.
Average Russian sentence length is 10.38 words.
The frequency dictionary for Russian
For comparison, Korean averages 3.05 letters and the German average is 6.26 letters.
Much of this, and also word length, depends on the subject and audience.
There's also a well-known joke related to our discussion (I don't know if the info regarding words length is correct, but it's amusing anyway)
Quote:
Analyzing WW2 American scientists discovered an interesting fact: in a heat of a battle Americans usually made decisions much faster than Japanese, and as a result could often beat even superior numbers.
Trying to explain this they found a pattern: average word's length in English is 5.2 symbols, while average Japanese word during battle was 10.8. Therefore Japanese commanders needed almost twice as much time as Americans to give a command.
Out of curiosity they analyzed Russian speech. It turned out that average Russian words length is 7.2 letters, but in critical situations Russian commanders resort to offensive language (Russian mat) which shortens an average word length to... 3.2 letters. The reason is that some word combinations and even sentences can be replaced with one word (after that there is an example in Russian with a lot of curse words which is supposed to be the most funny part of the joke :))
Russian - Wolfram|Alpha
Russian typical translation length = 1.1 * English
Длина слова определяется не количеством букв, а количеством слогов.
Для говорящего - да. К сожалению, количество слогов никто не подсчитывает. По-крайней мере, я не видела такого.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus
Подсчитывают. Количество букв зависит от орфографии: убрали ъ на конце слов, букв стало меньше.Quote:
Для говорящего - да. К сожалению, количество слогов никто не подсчитывает. По-крайней мере, я не видела такого.
А причем тут ъ? Я говорю про о слогах. Их подсчет сложнее автоматизировать, хотя и вполне реально. Но я не видела такой статистики.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus
Будет очень интересно посмотреть, если найдешь. ;)
По-русски ничего сложного - считай себе гласные.
Спасибо, Кэп.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus
try this one out for size: частнопредпринимательский
There are multiple versions of "the longest Russian word" (even if we disregard names of chemical substances or numerals). It's very easy to make up a new word in Russian, especially in such areas as science, economics, industry, and perhaps computers.Quote:
Originally Posted by sperk
So mutants like "частнопредпринимательски " (25 letters) can be easily assembled from smaller words, suffixes and prefixes. For example, according to Guinness book 2003 the longest Russian word is crazy "превысокомногорассмотрит льствующий" (35 letters). You won't find it in any dictionary, because it's just a stream of consciousness, and apparently was made on the go. ))))
I think that non-scientific long words are more impressive. The most honest longest Russian noun, in my opinion, is "человеконенавистничест о" (24 letters).
Also according to Zaliznyak's dictionary:
the longest verbs: переосвидетельствоваться, субстанционализироваться, интернационализироваться (24 letters each)
the longest nouns: человеконенавистничество and высокопревосходительство (24 letters each)
the longest adverb: неудовлетворительно (19 letters) (but longer adverbs can be easily made from long adjectives)
the longest preposition/conjunction: соответственно (14 letters)
the longest particle: исключительно (13 letters)
And according to Lopatin's dictionary:
the longest noun: водогрязеторфопарафинолеч ение (29 letters)
the longest adjective: электрофотополупроводнико вый (28 letters).
There are even longest words if we decide to consider words with hyphens.
YouTube - Группа "Жуки". "Влечение"
P.S. For really long words see German.
Странно, мой предыдущий пост не отображается до конца и не удаляется.. Грр...
Иногда можно и укоротить =)
to use = употребить; воспользоваться = взять
bomber = бомбардировщик = бомбовоз
Help! = Помогите! = Выручай!/На помощь!/Пособи!
Stop! = Остановитесь! = Стой!/Стоп!
railroad = железная дорога = жэдэ/железка
ПыСы: Гражданин еще не сталкивался с грузинским языком. =)
нелитературное и неупотребительное.Quote:
бомбовоз
Насчёт бомбардировщика - всё-таки это слово не слишком часто употребляется в повседневной речи. А армия всегда использовала сленг/мат/позывные.
Да, странно. Пост можно увидеть, когда отвечаешь "Reply with Quote".
I thank all of you who responded.
My question was not whether Russian words are long, nor did I intend to belittle the Russian language or its speakers. I wanted to know whether Russians are sometimes impeded by frequent, everyday words that have many syllables.
Quote:
Some very common words can be shortened Здравствуйте-здрасте, человек-чек, сейчас- щас (the last one - nearly always). The rest are pronounced normally
Stop! = Остановитесь! You can say Стойте!
Doesn’t the use of abbreviations or shorter substitutions in fact indicate that the original versions of words are found to be unwieldy?Quote:
...in critical situations Russian commanders resort to offensive language (Russian mat) which shortens an average word length to... 3.2 letters. The reason is that some word combinations and even sentences can be replaced with one word...
Yes. I wish that posters here would respond in both Russian and English (or their own languages). Then readers might be able to get a better idea of what the posters are endeavoring to express.Quote:
May I answer you in Russian?
Да! Я желаю, чтобы писатели здесь отвечали и по-русски и по-английски (или на своих языках). Таким образом читатели возможно могут приобретать лучшую идею того, что писатели стараются выражать.
(Вы вольны исправлять мои ошибки.)
I don't think that anybody has problems with it, I don't. For a native speaker it's a natural way to say things. The only everyday words that are shortened regularly are "здравствуйте" and "сейчас" - even if they are only three and two syllables respectively.Quote:
I wanted to know whether Russians are sometimes impeded by frequent, everyday words that have many syllables.
It's worth remembering that unstressed syllables in Russian are invariably significantly reduced. ( i think I read somewhere that the typical length of an unstressed syllable is 1/3.5 of a stressed syllable, as opposed to a maximum average ratio of 1:2.5 in English) This is why unstressed я,и,е and а,о,ы all sound the same respectively. So most syllables in long words are skimmed, or in some cases virtually swallowed completely.Quote:
Originally Posted by mudrets
Take for example the name of the footballer Билялетдинов.
Russian commentators pronouce this like:
билили - ДИнов -> бьльль -ДИнов -> бьль -ДИнов
with the t almost always being omitted/swallowed.
Their English counterparts or the other hand conscientiously enunciate and differentiate every last letter - бил-я-'лет-ди-нов.
So although most words aren't technically shortened, it seems like native speakers can still get them out pretty quickly.
Итак, кроме того, чтобы подсчитывать буквы, по-моему интересно было бы еще вынуть секундомеры или, может, вымеривать как много двигается язык и т.п.
Нет, т не пропускается. В данном случае после т маленькая запинка/заминка/остановка: т_д .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlRWlfYtquA
YouTube - Венгрия - :eek: Ух ты! Коленом гол забил.
Да ну?Quote:
Нет, т не пропускается. В данном случае после т маленькая запинка/заминка/остановка: т_д.
Ещё пример произнесения тд в слове отделка: YouTube - Декоративная отделка стенQuote:
Originally Posted by Lampada