The awesome thing(s) about Russian Language

I just got back from an AMAZING trip to the south of russia. But I don't really have time to make a long post about that right now, so that will come later. Please now enjoy this post about Russian language I wrote about a month ago but forgot to post.

         
  One of my favorite parts about Russia is a language. To people who don't speak it it probably sounds severe and awkward, but the more I listen to it the more I seem to find it to actually be quite a beautiful language. Its not surprising some of the world's most famous literature and poetry comes from Russia.

                  The first awesome thing about Russian: The creativity. With english we just have words and thats it, but in Russian, I'm not sure how to explain it, but you can mix and match, turn adjectives into nouns and nouns into verbs. The creativity of Russian is immediately visible when you look at Russian names. For example, lets take the name Анастасия (Anastasia)**. It is quite a common name, but the cool thing is, for every Russian name, there are an unbelievably large amount of nicknames. Look:
Настя (Nastya), Настинка (Nastinka), Настуля (Nastyoulya), Настюша (Nastyousha), Насть (Nast), Настюлка (Nastyoulka), Настка  (Nastka)
           and that's all I can list, but a russian person could probably supply you with a few more. Also you should know that it isn't just Anastasia, it is every single Russian name that does stuff like this. Another example would be Laura (my old host sister), who depending on the situation can be called Laurochka, Laurka, Lya-lya, Llyaloulka, Lyalousha, Lyalinka, Laurochoshka,  or Lyalka.

and Russian is even more awesome because this doesn't just apply to names, but also to pretty much every noun out there.
For example in clean correct Russian you would say
Ya hochy koosok torta. (I want a piece of cake) but Russians like to fondly adress their cake, and so rather than saying koosok torta (peice of cake) they say koosochka tortochki. Or if they really have a thing for the cake they could take it to the next level and say koosochishka tortitochki. It minorly resembles the spanish adding 'ito' to things to show they are tiny, but in Russian it doesn't really mean tiny, it just means that you feel affectionately about the object (in this case the cake and also the piece).


             You probably don't really believe that Russian is a beautiful language. I'll agree with you that it doesn't really sound graceful like french or spanish, but I think that what makes it beautiful is not really the way the words sound by themselves, but their meaning, and the meaning combined with the sound. I'll post a Russian poem, and a translation, and also a link to a youtube video so you can hear it, and when you hear it, sort of imagine the meaning in your head. It may not really click, but if you want to see what I mean, try.

Белый снег, пушистый          White snow, fluffy and soft
В воздухе кружится            Spins around in the air
И на землю тихо               And onto the silent winter
Падает, ложится.             It falls and lays still
И под утро снегом              And in the morning with snow
Поле побелело,               The feild is shrouded
Точно пеленою                Tightly embraced           
Все его одело.              by the snow, which is its clothing
Темный лес что шапкой       The dark forest with its snow-hat
Принакрылся чудной           is wonderfly covered
И заснул под нею            and it (the forest) sleeps under its clothes
Крепко, непробудно...       tightly embraced, it seems it will never wake up

Translating that for school a few weeks ago made me realize how weird Russian sounds in english.

 I also didn't totally literally translate, I went more for the feeling rather than 

the actual meaning of the words. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tilkivtE4fs (the actual poem starts at :30 seconds, sorry 

the video is strange, it was the only I could find.) 

The last reason (or at least the last reason I'll explain) why I like Russian Language is

the way that people phrase things. For example, in english, we have the phrase "haste makes

waste" right? The russian equivalent, which I heard a few days ago, is "If you do not work 

hard, you will not be able to get fish out of river". Another one that is really a pleasure

is "your elbow is close, but you can't bite it" this would probably be something along the 

lines of "so close but so far" in english. 

Well, Thats all for now, signing out from a very warm Nihzny Novgorod! 

**in case you were wondering, yes, like the princess.