Note to service providers, from online stores to telecoms: this is how you should ask for feedback. Just regular SMS messages. I text with T-Mobile when it’s convenient for me. It can even be stretched over a day. They send a question and wait as long as necessary. The response can be either free text or a number. Compared to an audio survey at the end of a call center call, which almost everyone hangs up on – it’s a breakthrough.
Colleagues, if anyone has my Moscow phone number, 9067105610, in their notebooks, WhatsApps, or anywhere else, please delete it. This number has not been mine for a long time and someone else must already be using it.
How can you tell the difference between a chemist and a plumber? Ask them to pronounce “unionized.”
(at this point, my Facebook audience divides into those who got it right away, those who got it after a minute, and those who didn’t get it at all 🙂 )
I have a neighbor here, Bill, who is learning Russian. I help him out from time to time. For example, I recently enlightened him that “the kettle takes a long time to boil” and “the kettle doesn’t boil for a long time” mean the same thing. It turned out that the concept of “a kettle boiling” is quite foreign in America; they don’t really use electric kettles.
How do you explain to an American why we sometimes say “Let’s go!” when saying goodbye?
Why do we say “Quietly” or “Be careful” when we drop something?
Why do we say “hands haven’t reached watching it”? And “legs in hands, and forward”?
Also, in the Russian language, the words for candy (леденец) and icicle (сосулька) are mixed up.
How, for example, to explain to a foreigner that “a goat” and “a billy goat” are the same animal but different genders, while “a wasp” and “a donkey” are completely different?
Or why do “eat like a pig” and “get drunk like a pig” denote completely different things? If the first one is to overeat, in the second case it’s not about eating at all.
Or how to explain to a foreigner that “very smart” is not always a compliment, “smart very” is a mockery, and “too smart” is a threat?..
On the other hand, here’s the example of Maria’s eleven-year-old daughter. She’s been living in the USA for a year and is starting to forget Russian. I should ask her today to tell me about this poem, for example:
“Plowing through fluffy furrows,
A dashing sleigh flies.
The coachman sits on the box seat
In a sheepskin coat, with a red sash.”
But, I’m not sure children her age could explain what it’s about in Russia either.
I remembered a joke. A husband and wife are arguing, shouting. She says to him: — And now, a poem! He’s staggered: — What poem? — Poem is a verb! He sat down and quieted.
Interesting from the comments:
1. “I really like ‘got cockroaches’ and ‘cockroaches divorced.’ Clearly, they imply different things, but still funny and almost the same, though they sound like antonyms.”
2. Go explain to a foreigner why we can say “Here he is!”
Very amusing and smells of a conspiracy)
I seem to have solved the issue with slow Skype by switching to the web version of Skype, http://web.skype.com
So far, so good, it works smoothly, calls, screen sharing, and all that. Network activity charts are completely different, no wild peaks and CPU load
I don’t often post jokes, but some from this list are worth it
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Jokes from my collection. DID YOU KNOW…»
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A boy with nimble buttocks takes the belt from dad during a spanking.
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A family of tenors snores in A minor.
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The beloved man is the one who has seen you drunk, naked, without makeup, crying, spouting nonsense, and strangely enough he is still with you.
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Russian innovation. To find a needle in a haystack, just burn the haystack and run a magnet over the ashes. Don’t complicate life!
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Recently, the skeleton of a hide-and-seek world champion was found in the bushes.
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A bold and cheeky mouse not only ate the cheese but also bent the mouse trap’s spring into the word “more”.
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In Tolyatti, a machine uprising began and quickly fizzled out.
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At Lukomorye, an oak tree went mad: it ate the cat and killed itself!
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Scandal in the bakery: a tipsy baker grabbed the wrong buns.
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On the third day of his journey on the Moscow – Vladivostok train, a citizen from Luxembourg went insane.
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In Thailand, a killer wave ran away from Valuev!
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Interesting advice.
If you make someone with tuberculosis laugh, it will be much funnier!..
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When you think about it, there’s nowhere to send a bisexual, any option suits them…
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Youth is an unzipped fly, old age is an unbuttoned one…
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At the world championship for politeness, the prize went to Sergei, a St. Petersburg alcoholic, who was short of twenty rubles
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A condom does not guarantee complete safety. A friend of mine put one on and still got hit by a car…
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Two things unsettle men: an unclear noise in the engine… and a kind, quiet wife…
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Young naturalists caught Eve and fed her apples for two hours, assuring that there is no God…
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Auto mechanic Stepa thought one horsepower was very little, until one day he approached a mare from behind.
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A boy walked into his parents’ bedroom at night without knocking and lost a potential brother…
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Real male loyalty: married for the third time, but the mistress has been the same.
Just now, in a meeting with Americans, I heard a cool idiom.
“You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”
Do you think this is normal? Look at the traffic and CPU graphs after closing Skype. Well yes, I have about a thousand contacts there.
Do I have anyone among my friends who plays the keyboard? This question isn’t about GTA or little tanks, of course
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 