Wednesday, January 25, 2006
This week is tough. Steve studies, I study, we meet for house meetings, I work, Steve studies, I get distracted by housemates who start talking about linguistics (my weakness), then I study, then work over-time, we may find sleep, but never much.
Steve especially has been having problems. He tried to run a statistics program on our home computer, using the network to access the program. That caused the program to run really slowly. REALLY REALLY slowly. It worked all night and still in the morning didn't have a solution for him.
So today we take a new tactic. Steve sits in the lab at school where the all night process takes a mere five minutes, yet that doesn't make the homework easy. We'll be here late, his project is due tomorrow. I joined him to be moral support. I stay with him because I'm cautious about walking home alone this late at night. I blog to you because you are more interesting than Russian homework, and undoubtedly more interesting than my ESL homework. Ah, yet I should be a good role model. I will learn the instrumental case. I will successfully say "I like to drink my tea with WARM MILK" (All caps = instrumental), "I'd like to talk with TALL IVAN about my tea," and "The post office is between MY DORM and THE ZOO." It will excite me. I go, I study, I succeed.
E tak, poka! Do zavtra.
-Lorichka
Steve especially has been having problems. He tried to run a statistics program on our home computer, using the network to access the program. That caused the program to run really slowly. REALLY REALLY slowly. It worked all night and still in the morning didn't have a solution for him.
So today we take a new tactic. Steve sits in the lab at school where the all night process takes a mere five minutes, yet that doesn't make the homework easy. We'll be here late, his project is due tomorrow. I joined him to be moral support. I stay with him because I'm cautious about walking home alone this late at night. I blog to you because you are more interesting than Russian homework, and undoubtedly more interesting than my ESL homework. Ah, yet I should be a good role model. I will learn the instrumental case. I will successfully say "I like to drink my tea with WARM MILK" (All caps = instrumental), "I'd like to talk with TALL IVAN about my tea," and "The post office is between MY DORM and THE ZOO." It will excite me. I go, I study, I succeed.
E tak, poka! Do zavtra.
-Lorichka
Comments:
P.S. If you're reading this far, you might just care. So far instrumental is my favorite Russian case. It is so because when I was in Russia my favorite candy bar (kafe c MOLOKOM) had the dative case in the title, so it's easier for me to rememeber the ending. PLUS, every time I remember the ending (-om) I remember this chocolate bar (translated: "coffee with milk." Could you get a more perfect chocolate bar? mm... chocolate, coffee, and cream...)
Anyone headed to Russia? I have a request... Could you pick me up... ? :)
Anyone headed to Russia? I have a request... Could you pick me up... ? :)
For those that really care, Russian is hard. The case ending -om for the dative only applies to masculine/neuter nouns. Feminine nouns have a different ending (-oi) and adjectives must match the noun they correspond to, in both case (there are six) and gender (only three), so they have yet another set of endings you must memorize. Then you have plural. It gets CRAZY after that. I should be learning Italian.
Correction:
Above I said "The case ending for dative"
I meant
"The case ending for instrumental"
And, yes, Russian is weird. Lots of cases.
There are some languages, though, with many many more cases still.
Above I said "The case ending for dative"
I meant
"The case ending for instrumental"
And, yes, Russian is weird. Lots of cases.
There are some languages, though, with many many more cases still.
I didn't know you were studying again. What exactly is the program?
Carrie
Carrie
# posted by 
: 1/28/2006 7:08 AM
: 1/28/2006 7:08 AM
By the way, I love the instrumental case as well. I also love locative. And genitive. Ummm... actually I love all the cases. Bosnian has one more as well - vocative. 7 cases! The perfect number! Heaven. Much better than German with it's wimpy 4 cases.
I am a slavic grammar geek.
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I am a slavic grammar geek.
