Archives for: December 2009, 01

Америка

December 1st, 2009 by Don

Back in July I thought to myself, “I should just open the very first chapter of the Russian textbook I'm currently teaching from and blog on the very first word of the very first vocabulary list.” It turned out that the word was Америка. What the hell? The very first word in the the very first vocab list of a Russian language textbook is America? Is that not ironic beyond words?

Still, it struck me as a challenge, so let's discuss that world-dominating, hated-by-terrorists, hoped-for-by-the-immigrant, subjected-to-the-mockery-of-its-own-citizens noun. In terms of declension Америка is a perfectly regular second declension noun (once you know spelling rule #1), so what can you say about it that would be interesting?

Actually, there is one interesting phrase the Russians use that may surprise Americans, and that's «я не открываю Америку» “I'm not discovering/revealing the New World.” They use it in the sense of “I'm saying the obvious” or “this is no big surprise” or “it's not a big deal”:

Ну, конечно, я вам не открою Америку, когда сообщу, что англичане совсем не умеют готовить пищу. Of course, I'm not telling you anything you don't know when I say that the Brits simply don't know how to cook.
Петя сказал, что Зое нравятся цветы. Конечно, этими словами он не открыл Америку, но я был благодарен за то, что он мне напомнил, а то я бы забыл о её дне рождения. Peter said the Zoya likes flowers. Of course, he wasn't telling me anything new, but I was grateful for the reminder, otherwise I would have forgotten her birthday.
— Я заметил, что мексиканцы очень весёлые пьяницы, а финны пьяные всегда злятся.
— Тоже мне, открыл Америку.		 “I've noticed that the Mexicans are very cheerful drunks, whereas the Finns get mean when they drink.”
“Yeah, you're a real genius.”

The «тоже мне, открыл Америку» in the last sentence is a funny one; I have yet to meet a Russian who can quite explain it to me, but it's roughly the equivalent a sarcastic “you're a real genius.”

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