Month: June 2016

Can you recommend an interesting series with relatively simple English? Since the beginning of the year, I’ve watched in the original:

1) Friends. Only watched 8 episodes. Didn’t quite get into it. Maybe because it’s a sitcom, and I’m not really into sitcoms.

2) Homeland. Watched all 72 episodes. Really liked it, the English was understandable. Actually, that’s where all my evenings went. A good example of what I’m looking for.

3) Game Of Thrones 6. It’s almost over, and the English isn’t super clear to me – there are many different accents, but still okay. But it has ended.

4) Black Sails. Watched the first episode, didn’t quite get into it. The English isn’t very clear, lots of vocabulary and historical dialogue.

5) Preacher. Watched the first episode, overall it’s cool, but it’s more like a backup option.

6) Yesterday tried to rewatch Sherlock in English – here the English was the most difficult. Not only does Cumberbatch speak very fast, but the vocabulary is also British and specific.

7) Desperate Housewives. Watched in both English and Russian. A good example of what I’m looking for in terms of the clarity of the English. But the plot is too sugary.

Searching for:

An engaging, enlightening series with clear American English, not a sitcom, like Homeland. Any recommendations?

UPDATED: Neatly gathered all the advice here

Looks like I’ll be watching White Collar. I’ll see in about two hours if it works for me 🙂

Posted a little note on my blog about building on hybris systems where different users see different catalogs. That is, the same product will be displayed for customer A and will not be shown for customer B. I conducted this experiment with 500,000 clients and 500,000 groups, which is somewhat extreme, but perfect for an experiment.

The full load of availability information (that’s 50 million entries) takes 187 seconds on my laptop.

In real projects, such a feature is necessary for B2B systems, for example, where different products are available to different regions/groups of users. Together with my previous post about personalized prices, one can create fully personalized catalogs (price+availability).

Just played some Scrabble….

Every week we go to three supermarkets for groceries. At this one, Lotte Plaza, we buy vegetables, fruits, fish, rice, Asian noodles, and various exotic items. 80% of the assortment in this store is not found in Russian stores at all. Therefore, shopping is also an educational experience)

All photos in this album are labeled with a name and price. I only photographed a part, as Facebook does not allow adding more than thirty photos at a time.

First place at the Chesapeake Open went to our Masha, battle-scarred but victorious. We’re still happy! Congratulations and love!

A very engaging article about cybersecurity from the chief security officer at QIWI. It gets a bit carried away, though: “…Whites are always more skilled than blacks. Whites skill up chaotically: they find an interesting topic, do some research, level up…”.

@[100000620263102:2048:Ekaterina Starostina]

There are three words to describe the Russian “problem” – trouble, issue, and problem. However, they are used for different kinds of “problems.” For example, the word problem refers only to something with a negative connotation that can and should be solved; in other words, something for which a solution must be found to make everything good again. Trouble carries even more negativity but is less connected to finding a solution.

The most popular word in business and technical language is Issue. It is not necessarily a problem – rather, a nuance that needs to be addressed, a topic for discussion, a complication. But if a problem arises, it can also casually be called an issue, so as not to exacerbate the situation.)

#американский #английский #american #english

two English words that don’t have direct equivalents in Russian – leverage and facilitate. They are used everywhere, especially the former #american #english #american #english

Learn phrasal verbs and idioms. Half of the conversational speech is built on them. Expressions such as head out (to leave home/work), the quite popular verb pull (out/into/down/…), and a plethora of combinations with get/come/go that can describe just about anything. #американский #английский #american #english

It’s not easy to get used to how are you [doing] and its derivatives. It’s a literal replacement for “Hello”. Good morning is still used, but Hi and even more so Hello are almost universally replaced by Hey. I haven’t heard Good evening even once #American #English #american #english