Thursday, March 08, 2007

Lesson 20 - Russian Cursive (Letters "О,П,Р,С,Т")




8th of March - Women's Day .

It's Women's Day in Russia today, a holiday of spring and attention to women. It's one of most important holidays in Russia. The celebration is similar to a combination of Valentine's Day and Mother's Day in the West, but better. This is a national holiday and a day off. Several nations celebrate this, but only a few acknowledge it as an official, non-working holiday .

If you forgot to send a rose on Valentine's Day, it's only half the trouble. But if you forgot to send flowers to the special women in your life you are in a really big trouble!

On this day Russian men congratulate all women in their lives (mothers, wives, daughters, grandmothers, girl-friends, teachers) by presenting them with first spring flowers, candy and cards, and self-made short poems. My Dad always presented my Mom with red carnations early in the morning, while reading a poem specially-written for this occasion.

Every woman of any age is honoured on this day. Russian women are surrounded with flowers, poems, love and care. They are not allowed to do any work in house that day: men do all cooking, cleaning and take care of the children. The Women Day - 8th of March is the best holiday for Russian women of any age.

In other countries where the 8th of March is celebrated, it's usually a celebration of feminist and women's rights groups. But in Russia, where the life is different in many ways, the 8th of March is one of most favorite holidays for all Russian women, along with New Year and Christmas. For Russian Women the 8th of March "Women day" is a holiday of Love and Spring. One of my most favourable memories are of this Day:)



Letter 'О' is represented by word 'очки' (glasses)
Letter 'П' is represented by word 'паровоз' (steam engine)
Letter 'Р' is represented by word 'рыба' (fish)
Letter 'С' is represented by word 'сыр' (cheese)
Letter 'Т' is represented by word 'телефон' (telephone)

10 comments:

TwoSpecialWires said...

Natalia,

I'm so impressed with your podcasts and your blog, and am VERY happy to have found them! I sent you an email introducing myself...in short I'm the adoptive mom to a now 15 year old daughter born in Russia. We both want to learn and relearn her birth language. Your site is going to help a lot, and make it fun at the same time! Thanks for all the time and professionalism you put into this!

TwoSpecialWires said...

About russifying our computers... I have my mac so I can easily type in Cyrillic letters, BUT I don't have any type of overlay for the keyboard. My memory for where the letters are is very poor. Do you suggest any particular product or method?

TwoSpecialWires said...

Once last comment...

Do you know of a mac compatible font that is a Cyrillic script? I've not installed any fonts on my current mac; they all came installed on it. However, they are all a manuscript type font. Any ideas?

Natalia said...

Little Buddy (and all who has the same questions):

It's very easy to type in Russian on a Mac. All you gotto do is go into System Preferences --> International --> Input Menu and choose 'Russian - Phonetic. Then the Latin buttons on your keyboard will correspond to Russian sounds. For example:

P will be 'П'
R will be 'Р'
S will be 'С'


and so on.

TwoSpecialWires said...

What operating system are you using on your mac? Mine is OS X, version 10.3.9 There does not appear to be a Russian-phonetic option in the Input Menu of the International section of the System Preferences. My only choice is Russia, with a keyboard input type, and Cyrillic script. The keys on the keyboard do not phonetically parallel each other. I love the idea that I can somehow make that happen, but I'm thinking maybe a need a newer version of the OS?

Natalia said...

Little Buddy,

I run OS X 10.4.8 Tiger.

Erika said...

Thank you so much, dear Natalia!
I am an Italian vet, and I'm fond of Russian language, so a few months ago me and my boyfriend started with a Russian students book (with audio Cd)...I think your blog will help us so much!
Never stop!
Thanks again!
Love
Erika

Anna Olsen said...

Russian women are really happy to be surrounded with flowers,poems,love and care...not only on 8th of March :)

Anonymous said...

Hello Natalia,
thanks for your work, I've got interested in your blog, it's just kind of curiosity, I'm russian-speaking.
I've noticed you use unusual for me cursive letters such as little "р" (you write it like capital but i get used to write and to see this one in other way like here: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/LRC/RU_writing/index.htm). Also capital O, there is no that loop at the top, it's like connection but mostly people connect this letter from the bottom.

Thank for your attention, hope you don't find these notes offensive :)

Best wishes,
Maya

mayca@mail.ru

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