In Russian there is no verb “to be”. You don’t say, “I am a hockey player.” You say, “I hockeyist”. It sounds crude to my ear, but whadda I know? All I know for sure is that the Russians can build a better rocket engine than Americans can, but I can also see how these guys end up putting ejection seats and screen doors on the capsule.
The semantic punishment continues apace...
Glen, a number e thing about Russian as well is that their verb tenses are much more regular than Modern English (even Old English did a better job of it).
ReplyDeleteWell I hope their profanity is better than this, HAR HAR HAR!!! :)
ReplyDeleteAnd if anyone knows what that lower case ‘b’ is for...please let me know! I *think* it has to do with inflection or maybe silent letters...
ReplyDeleteHi Glen: That 'b' is actually a symbol that designates the preceding consonant as being "soft," i.e., there's an included 'y' sound that's pronounced almost simultaneously with the consonant.
ReplyDeleteFor example: MATb (mother) would be pronounced MATy
Whereas MAT (something of a baser nature, IIRC) would
be pronounced exactly as it appears.
Thanks, Unk!!!
DeleteGoogle translate is a bear, if you’ll pardon the pun...