Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Сорока-белобока / The Magpie

While doing some household organization, I found 2 Russian-language children's books I purchased during my trip to what was then the Soviet Union (ugh, I'm totally dating myself!). These were a very pleasant surprise, as I had thought them long lost, and they're very nice books with lovely illustrations. Best of all, I can use them for the Language Freak Summer Challenge - hooray!

This book was a good start for a Russian book for the challenge because it's a board book with few words. Unfortunately I still had to look up most of them :-/ I have forgotten so much! I tried to do some preliminary research and as best I can tell this is based on a Russian story, "Magpie Beloboka," that is something like the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" or "This Little Piggy..." stories in the U.S. - a story for small children that has hand motions that go with it. However, unless I'm reading this book wrong, this particular retelling has a slightly different ending. I'm glad I finally read the first book I'm claiming for this challenge, even if it was a very small book. Plus, now I know that I need to work on my Russian if I want to keep the little bit I have left!

Я нашела две детские книги на русском языке, что я думала, что потеряла. Я купила их, когда я посетила Советский Союз. О нет, я так стара! Книги имеют красивое искусство. Эта книга для маленьких детей. Он имеет несколько слов, но я должна много использовала словарь. :-/ Я слишком много забыла. :-( Мне нужно изучать русский язык чаще! Я рада, что прочитала эту небольшую книгу.

Скажите, пожалуйста, мои ошибки. :^)

4 comments:

  1. Oh, this is so awesome you have read it! I'm sorry I'm late with commenting, I was very busy :( You are so great that you have even written a paragraph in Russian! :) Wait until I write a bigger post commenting on some minor mistakes - I don't want to so this in a hurry :) I'll have some time this evening :)

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    1. OK, here am I, commenting on your mistakes :) First, let me congratulate you! You text is perfectly comprehensible! There are just a few minor mistakes:
      1. "нашела" should be written as "нашла". Masculine version is "нашел", but for feminine version you drop out the "е"
      2. "что я думала" -> "которые я думала" - this ia fairly difficult grammar, so don't worry about it at this stage :) Those constructions will be automatically stored in your mind if you read more :)
      3. "искусство" is art, but in a more general sense :) The art in the book (the illustrations) are called "картинки" or "иллюстрации"
      4. "имеет" is better changed to a passive "в ней было". "имеет" is more about actual, active possession, but I'm at a loss how to formally explain the difference..
      5. "я должна" is better changed to a passive "мне пришлось" (inf. - "приходится"). "я должна" means "I must", and "мне пришлось" is "I had to"
      That's all! I hope this helps! If you need some more help, just ask!:)
      Great work! Good luck with further readings! :)

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  2. Привет Екатерина! Большое спасибо за исправление моих ошибок! I can't believe some of the stupid mistakes, I used to know better. :( Но теперь знаю что мне нужно продолжать читать по-русски :^) More books to come!

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    1. Great! Your enthusiasm is awesome! :) looking forward to read more of your reviews :)

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