Three Words

Russian ordinals

2021-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Today I refreshed Russian ordinals (first первый, second второй, third третий) using this youtube video for audio practice

For textual representation Russian Ordinal Numbers at Master Russian is a good source.

Hikikomori

2021-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

Hermits, hikikomoris in Russian#

Today I got around and collected words that mean roughly the same as "a hermit" or "a recluse" in English.

In Finnish, one would say "erakko". Someone who lives alone and avoids social contact. In Finland this probably is more common than in many other places as our culture puts far less value on active social life than most cultures.

In Japan the name of the phenomena is "hikikomori", which also builds upon the culture. Quote from the Wikipedia article for hikikomori.

The Chinese word for hikikomori is 家里蹲(jiā lǐ dūn) (characters are "home", "inside", and "to squat").

Finally, a Russian word that means "a hermit" is затворник (затворница is the feminine form).

Question words

2021-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

Today I wanted to collect all the Russian question words I know into one reference list:

what = что
milloin = когда
why = почему
how = как
where = где
where to = куда
for what = зачем
why = почем

Leech Words

2021-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

Leech words#

Leech words are by definition:

A leech is something that drains time from your studying and will keep doing so until you do something about it. The most essential example would be a piece of vocabulary, let’s say a character, that just refuses to stick in your mind. Even though it has appeared numerous times in your spaced repetition program, you just can’t recall the correct answer, perhaps because it’s very difficult, perhaps for no readily apparent reason whatsoever.

This is from Dealing with tricky vocabulary: Killing leeches | Hacking Chinese. I will occassionally publish a list of words in any given language I study on the board of shame here. These are the words that refuse to stick to my head right now (Mandarin):

勤奋(qín fèn) - hardworking, industrious
慷慨(kāng kǎi) - vehement, generous
生锈(shēng xiù) - rust

Writing Pinyin and Chinese

2021-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

Writing Chinese with a Computing Device#

Today's post is mostly about how to write 拼音(pīn yīn) with Mac and with Eleventy.

There is a good, comprehensive post with detailed instructions on how to write Chinese charaters in general on computers and phones at Yoyochinese.com. I am specifically interested in adding pinyin and tone markers along with the hanzi characters to help with pronunciation.

Ruby HTML Element (Boring Technical Stuff)#

I've been vaguely aware of ruby HTML element (no relation to Ruby programming language) that according to MDN article on ruby element:

The <ruby> HTML element represents small annotations that are rendered above, below, or next to base text, usually used for showing the pronunciation of East Asian characters. It can also be used for annotating other kinds of text, but this usage is less common.

Excellent, just what we wanted. Now we can easily add Template Shortcodes on our Eleventy site that generates following ruby HTML element

<ruby>
拼音<rp>(</rp><rt>pīn yīn</rt><rp>)</rp>
</ruby>

From a Nunjuck short code pinyin "拼音", "pin1 yin1"

Version 0.1#

Code for this first version of this Ruby utility is pretty simple:

const pinyinUtils = require("pinyin-utils");

// omitted stuff

eleventyConfig.addShortcode("pinyin", (hanzi, pinyin, definition) => {
    const pinyined = pinyin.split(" ").map(pi => pinyinUtils.numberToMark(pi)).join(" ");//pinyinUtils.numberToMark(pinyin);
    // version 1 uses only tag, and pinyin-utils
    const ruby = `<ruby> ${hanzi}<rp>(</rp><rt>${pinyined}</rt><rp>)</rp> </ruby>`;
    if (definition) {
        return `<div>${ruby}</div>`;
    } else {
        return ruby;
    }
});

For the moment, it has following flaws I can live with for now:

Dependency to pinyin-utils npm module. This code could prefectly well be self-contained with no dependencies
Pinyin characters need to be separated by space, so pin1 yin1 is OK, while pin1yin1 is not. No reason for this besides that I want 0.1 version out already today
Not using definition yet, my idea is to have optional definition part that would generate
: The Description List element (MDN)
with an ruby item and a definition something like this:

拼音(pīn yīn): pinyin is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in mainland China

No proper styling yet (classes for elements etc.)

Additional links#

For future reference:

Pinyin Pronunciation-Learn Rules of Using Pinyin Tone Marks that includes rules for placing the tonal marker
test page for displaying pinyin tone marks with Unicode

Big Numbers in Chinese

2021-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

Today's post is a quick one. I just wanted a handy reference of big numbers in Chinese. Let's start with 1000:

千(qiān): 1000

Multiples of ten that get their own bespoke words are

万(wàn): 10000

亿(yì): 100 million

兆(zhào): one trillion i.e. 10^12

More hard Chinese and Russian words

2021-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

Quickly daily "I have a hard time putting these into my memory" words.

落实(luò shí): practical

恢(huī): restore, revive, great

отношения отношение - relation, attitude, treatment

познакомиться - to meet, to familiarize

Funny stuff about similar hanzi

2021-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

Stumbled into this today, funny and perhaps a unnecessarily intimidating:

Nothing to worry about, new students of Chinese. No frustrations await you.

衣农
未末
土士
瓜爪
度席
子孑
日曰
午牛
已己
舟丹
九丸
洒酒
今令
环坏
特持
辛幸
耍要
师帅
旱早
— Tanner Brown (@luoshanji) August 14, 2021

Breaking up some the characters pair here:

衣(yī): clothes

农(nóng): agricultural-

未(wèi): not yet, did not

末(mò): tip, end

土(tǔ): earth, dirt, clay

士(shì): e.g. specialist profession (护士) nurse

One that I didn't recognize at all is

孑(jié): solitary

but the pair I find the hardest is

洒酒(sǎ jiǔ): to sprinkle - alcohol

Another nasty one is

日曰(rì yuè): sun, day - to read

but like many of these pairs are hard to mix up in real life as the other one is far more common and the contexts are quite different.

Updates on page

2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Today I added some tools for the page I have planned to add here. First, there is Random Grammar Point that picks up a random grammar point from Chinese Grammar Wiki every day. This same tool I have earlier published as a Scriptable widget for iOS

The second item is, for now, a simple page with today's date in Russian and Chinese.

I plan to create more of these and expand today "widget" to be more practical. I wonder if I could come up with something about numbers and verbs 🤔.

Weekdays and Months

2021-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

I noticed my date shortcodes didn't work in the Today page. I needed to create manual ways to generate Russian and Chinese dates. While Chinese dates are extremely straightforward (number + month = name of the month, week + number = weekday), Russian dates require some work.

Russian Months#

I read this Russian months' names and their etymology - Liden & Denz, and it is a good reference on the matter.

January: январь
February: февраль
March: март
April: апрель
May: май
June: июнь
July: июль
August: август
September: сентябрь
October: октябрь
November: ноябрь
December: декабрь

Russian Weekdays#

The same site has this nice list of weekdays and some additional info Days of the Week in Russian: Learning the Basics.

Sunday: воскресенье
Monday: понедельник
Tuesday: вторник
Wednesday: среда
Thursday: четверг
Friday: пятница
Saturday: суббота

Russian Verbs - Conjugation - part I

2021-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

Today I started going through conjugating Russian verbs in detail. I started easy, basic conjugation of the first type. The first conjugation is for the verbs where the base form ends in "ть" but excluding those that end in "ить" (that is the second conjugation). One of these verbs is "Работать" = "to work".

The conjugation endings are -ю, -ешь, -ет, -ем, -ете, -ют, which replace the -ть at the end.

я работаю - I work
ты работаешь - you work
он, она, оно работает - he/she/it works
Мы работаем - we work
Вы работаете - you work
Они работают - they work

Simple and predictable.

Russian Verbs - Conjugation - part II

2021-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday, I started going through conjugating Russian verbs in detail. I started easy, basic conjugation of the first type. As we already alluded to yesterday, the second conjugation is for the verbs that end in "-ить".

The second conjugation uses the endings "ю" (or "у"), "ишь", "ит", "им", "ите", and "ят" (or "ат") to replace "ить" at the end of the word

я слышу - I hear
ты слышишь - you hear
он, она, оно слышит - he/she/it hears
мы слышим - we hear
вы слышите - you hear
они слышат - they hear

Slightly less simple but still very predictable.

Russian Verb Conjugation - Part III

2021-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

This blog post is the last of the present/future conjugations for verbs, and it is the sometimes feared category of "irregular verbs". Luckily, in Russian irregular verbs are far less irregular compared to for instance English. Most of them follow familiar patterns, one just needs to know the exceptional forms. Examples of irregular verbs are:

жить — to live
понять — to understand
дать — to give

There are many good online resources on irregular verbs. My new favourite one is The Ultimate Guide to Russian Verbs: Both Irregular and Regular which goes to great details in explaining the exceptions.

Passwords

2021-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

Today's entry is a quicky. These are the words for passwords in Chinese and in Russian:

Russian: пароль. And for Chinese the word is

密码(mì mǎ): password.

More Irregular Russian Verbs

2021-08-24T00:00:00+00:00

Picking up these three verbs today:

verbs быть (to be), дать (to give), and есть (to eat) have an archaic, non-past form.

From the excellent The Ultimate Guide to Russian Verbs: Both Irregular and Regular.

So, let's see how verbs дать and есть conjugate:

дать - to give

я дам - I give
ты дашь - you give
он, она, оно даст - he/she/it gives
мы дадим - we give
вы дадите - you give
они дадут - they give

есть - to eat

я ем  - I eat
ты ешь - you eat
он, она, оно ест - he/she/it eats
мы едим - we eat
вы едите - you eat
они едят - they eat

I will dig into specialties of быть later separately.

Russian Verbs - Past Tense

2021-08-25T00:00:00+00:00

Today, I thought I would quickly divert to past tense before diving into "Быть". Past tense behaves differently instead of different forms per pronoun. There are only four forms for masculine, feminine, neuter and plural forms. For instance, our old acquaintance "to work" i.e. Работать.

plural (мы/вы/они́) работали
masculine (я/ты/он)	работал
feminine (я/ты/она́) работала
neuter (оно́) работало

There are some differences based on the stem and some historic exceptions but the main categories are explained well in these two resources. First of, there is Past Tense of the Verb - Learn Russian Grammar that includes some exercises and Ru Land Youtube channel video:

Reviewing adverbs of place

2021-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

I've been lately going through adverbs of place with the help of Learn language in context - Clozemaster and this is what I've learned:

где - where
Куда - where to
Здесь - here (like "at/in here")
сюда - here (as in to here)
туда - to there
там - there
Откуда - from where
Отсюда - from here
Оттуда - from there

More adverbs in this resource Adverbs in Russian: Understanding Adverbs of Place.

Russian Verbs: Aspects

2021-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

In addition to three tenses - past, present, and the future - Russian language has the concept of aspects that can be summarized as such:

Imperfective - ongoing, repeated, habitual, or reversed action
Perfective - completed actions

Many of the verbs appear in both forms, sometimes there is a preposition in front to mark the perfective case (Делать imperfective "to make", Сделать perfective "to make"), sometimes the verbs are completely different (e.g. Говорить imperfective, Сказать perfective)

One additional tidbit is that negative perfective doesn't just mean something didn't happen, it means, something failed to happen that was supposed to happen.

That is the executive summary, for more, see for instance Russian Lessons on Aspects.

Disappointingly Sticky Chinese Words

2021-08-31T00:00:00+00:00

Today, I wanted to review these four words that are causing me gray hair:

茫(máng): vast, boundless

诚挚(chéng zhì): sincere, cordial, earnest

烫(tàng): to burn, scald, scalding hot, to iron

多亏(duō kuī): thanks to, luckily

Random Chinese Grammar of the Day

2021-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

I just picked up the Random Chinese Grammar Item and studied Offering choices with "haishi" - Chinese Grammar Wiki from the excellent Chinese Grammar Wiki.

Quick summary: Chinese has two ors 或者(huò zhe) and 还是(hái shì) . One uses the first one in normal sentences and the second one only in questions, where a choice between two items is queried.

Future Tense of Russian Verbs

2021-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

Today we will continue exploring Russian verbs and topic is the future tense. When forming the future tense one needs to be aware of the aspect of the verb – imperfective verbs denote incomplete actions while perfective verbs denote completed or definitely repeating actions. For instance "I will work" will be translated "я буду работать" (imperfective) and "I will work for three hours" translates as "Я поработаю три часа" (perfective).

Forming future tense is pretty straightforward:

Imperfective verb future is formed by adding a conjugated "быть" verb to the infinitive form.

Perfective verbs are conjugated by number and person normally (Perfective verbs have no present tense)

Good explanation of the future tense is available in Russian/Grammar/Future tense - Wikibooks, open books for an open world.

Imperative Mood in Russian Verbs

2021-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

Besides the basic indicative mood, Russian verbs have imperative (Pick that up!) and subjunctive moods (things that we wish happened or could happen under some other circumstances). Today's topic is imperative forms.

The imperative form is pretty straightforward to derive: add the suffix -и to the base of the future tense form of the verb. To form plural add ending -те to the singular imperative form. For example спать (to sleep) --> спи --> спите, сказать (to say, to tell) --> скажи --> скажите.

Another way to form the imperative form is to add one of these particles: пусть, пускай or да. For example "Да скажи ты ей где мой телефон".

Daily Chinese Grammar, 除了。。。

2021-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

Today I studied Expressing "except" and "in addition" with "chule… yiwai" - Chinese Grammar Wiki, which is a surprisingly hard (at least for me) grammar point.

The Chinese Grammar Wiki article is as excellent as always, but here is my personal brain dump:

Use 除了(chú le) ... ( 以外(yǐ wài) ), 都(dōu) ... to express Expect for thing mentioned in A, everything in B is something else. For instance 除了咖啡，我都喜欢喝。(except for coffee, I like to drink everything)
Use 除了(chú le) ..., 也(yě) / 还(hái) to express that not only A but also B all are something. For example 除了茶，我也很喜欢咖啡。(besides tea, I really like to drink coffee also)

Subjunctive Mood

2021-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

As we discussed in imperative moods post in the Russian language there are three moods:

Indicative mood - the straight-up sentences that describe events that did or will happen
Imperative mood - for sentences that contain an order, and finally,
Subjunctive mood - are for events one wishes to happen, or, could happen in some circumstances.

One can form subjunctive sentences by adding the particle "бы" to the sentence. The particle has no particular place in the sentence it has to be in, the only rule is that it is separate from the main verb it affects. Additionally, verbs in subjunctive mood are always in the past tense.

Examples:

не мог бы ты закрыть окно, пожалуйста?
Could you close the window, please

я бы закрыл, если бы мне не лень было встать
I would but I am too lazy to stand up

More Sticky Words

2021-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

Just a list of words causing me grief lately:

摇摆(yáo bǎi): to swag, to waver

和睦(hé mù): harmonious

庄严(zhuāng yán): solemn, dignified, stately

晓(xiǎo): dawn, daybreak, to let somebody know

脆弱(cuì ruò): weak, frail

中秋节 - Mid Autumn Festival

2021-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

Today is the Mid Autumn Festival and my today's practice was to go through this video:

Numbers in Russian

2021-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

While also learning verbs, I am doing a re-review of the basics, starting today with numbers. This video with good pronunciation instructions is a good reminder of numbers from 1 to 20:

Grammar of 'all' in Russian and Chinese

2021-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

Continuing with yesterday's back to basics theme, I went through the basic grammar of "all". In Russian we have "ВСЕ" and Chinese has

都(dōu): all

Russian "all"#

This video explains "all" in very good detail:

My own summary of the way I use it - that is independently as subject or object: "Всё" for plural agreement and "Всe" for when in singular. This is quite hard for me as Finnish "kaikki" almost never is in plural see "kaiket" for the sole exception

Chinese "all"#

Chinese 都(dōu) The "all" adverb "dou" - Chinese Grammar Wiki is pretty easy to use. The main thing I have taught myself is that there is no separate word for both, even for two items it is 都(dōu) .

Early October Stickies

2021-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

One more sticky post.

搀(chān): mix, support, sustain, assist by the arm

突破(tū pò): break through

篷(péng): fluffy, disheveled, clump, cluster

形容(xíng róng): describe, appearance, look

Complex Complements of State

2021-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

This blog post is a quick note of a grammar point I was reviewing today (and will have to revisit). First off - let the Chinese Grammar Wiki tell us:

Complements are not a form of flattery (those are compliments); they're much more versatile than that!

and

Complements provide additional information associated with verbs, such as degree, result, direction, or possibility, and are extremely common

For instance, "吃了完" ate (and finished eating) is a complement. The state complement describes the achieved state of an action. They usually are adjective phrases, but sometimes are also verb phrases. State complement pattern is "V/ADJ + 得 + state complement". Examples and a thorough explanation of the grammar point are available at the definitive Chinese Grammar Wiki - State complement

Cooljugator

2021-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

You might know Verbix verb conjugator that has a large database of verb conjugations in different languages. Today, I encountered Cool Russian Verb Conjugator | Cooljugator.com which seems to be a rather nice resource.

Verb 'to Have' in Russian

2021-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

What I find funny in Russian is that, unlike many other languages I know, the verb "to be" can almost always omitted. You can go ahead and say: "I dog". I think that is very convenient.

There is a pretty similar story about the verb "иметь". To quote Wiktionary

Иметь is rarely used in Russian, except with non-physical objects and most often in set expressions ("To have in mind," "To have rights," etc.). The most common way to express normal possession is "у + genitive possessor + есть + nominative possession."

The most common way to describe possession is to use genitive forms of pronouns. For instance, "У меня есть Книга" means "I have a book". For negative, one replaces the verb with "нет". "У меня нет Книга" means "you don't have a book". For all this and more I find How to Properly Use the Verb “To Have” in Russian a great source.

Language Learning Ideas

2021-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

I came across this nice resource of 50 Feel Good Language Fixes by About Me - Lindsay Does Languages. These are my favourite items:

Learn a new idiom or expression.
Change the language on your phone.
Find a new show to watch in the language on Netflix/Disney+/streaming platform of choice.

My Siri speaks Chinese to me, and I am constantly looking for movies and TV series in Russian or Chinese, but I need to sharpen my idiom hunting skills...

Using Interrogative Pronouns to Indicate Every

2021-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

This is a short note about a grammar point where one uses interrogative pronouns to form sentences like "everyone knows" or "谁都知道". I've been trying to learn this all week through the Chinese Grammar wiki article Expressing "every" with question words - Chinese Grammar Wiki.

This grammar point is not to be confused with similar Expressing "some" with question words - Chinese Grammar Wiki

Russian Weather Words

2021-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

"Какая завтра погода?" "Кажется, дождь собирается"

There is a nice post summarizing Russian weather words at Russian Vocabulary: Let’s Talk about the Weather

I am waiting for "снег" but only thing I get is "дождь".

Resource for Chinese Words for Clothes

2021-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

This blog post is a quick note and link to a nice resource on words about clothing in Chinese How to Express Articles of Clothing in Chinese. With text and audio!

而 ér

2021-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

This blog post was born through a random encounter with the word

而(ér): and, but, implies contrast

I have encountered this word in texts, but I did not know how it differed from the other words meaning roughly the same.

This conjunction connects and puts a contrast between two sentences as, explained (once again) by Chinese Grammar Wiki: Using "er" to explain contrasting ideas - Chinese Grammar Wiki

Video About Learning and Russian Basics Videos

2021-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

I found this video about how to think in Russian both very practical and also applicable to all language learning. In essence, as soon as you have any vocabulary, start including it in your daily life:

This is another video, from Russian Pod 101, that has a nice collection of good videos about basics of Russian. The first video is about the most common phrases:

And the third video is about the most common verbs:

December Stickies

2021-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

These words have caused me grief lately by being very hard to memorize:

讶(yà): astounding

撑(chēng): to support, to prop up, to push or move with a pole, to maintain, to open or unfurl, to fill to bursting point, brace, stay, support

New Year, New Words

2022-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

I decided that to keep up routines and help me better document progress, I would add (almost) daily journal entries to my blog. Today's words were:

太阳系(tài yuán xì): Solar system

. This word is on the Skritter list about stars and planets. The nice introductory video is available on YouTube:

For Russian the word I went through in detail is: событие - Wiktionary that means "an event, an incident".

Russian Words for Common Trees

2022-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Today I picked up following Russian words of common trees (дерево) in Finland (and Russia):

Birch tree is берёза
Pine tree is сосна
Spruce is ель
Aspen is осина
Fir is пихта

Mushroom in Chinese and in Russian

2022-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Today I encountered this Chinese Language Stack Exchange question etymology - Which came first? Chinese 蘑菇 or Mongolian мөөг? . Interesting question and exquisite answer that gives us the Chinese word for mushroom

蘑菇(mó gu): mushroom

Naturally, I also went and checked the Russian words for mushroom:

мухомор - the red fly agaric
поганка - poisonous mushroom
белый гриб - porcini
боровик - any mushroom related to porcini

New Chinese Word of the Day: Cryptocurrency

2022-01-02T21:25:09+00:00

This word was added to my study queue during a casual reading on the web when I encountered the Chinese word for cryptocurrency

加密货币(jiā mì huò bì): cryptocurrency

Daily Words

2022-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

Today our quick word post has the following words:

грех means a sin in Russian

If you remember Funny stuff about similar hanzi | Three Words there was this character

孑(jié): solitary

that is very easy to conflate with the

子(zi): the generic character used as a latter part of many words

TIL Russian Verbs

2022-01-07T20:51:18+00:00

Today I just want to record my new acquisitions for the day.

принять - to take

and

опоздать - to be late

Daily Chinese Words

2022-01-10T20:35:57+00:00

During the last few days, I've struggled with these two Chinese words:

欣慰(xīn wèi): be gratified, to be satisfied

For some reason, I've had a hard time putting this word into my long term memory. My go-to trick of using Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters to dig up the origins and meaning chains for the word, doesn't work as this word is not present in that word set.

The second hard word is

恍(huǎng): disappointed， flurried，indistinct

Theme of the week: Adjectives

2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

I am gathering material for my own superlist of adjectives for language learning. My idea is to have a text I can adapt to whatever language I am learning. For this I started collecting material and this YouTube video is wonderful in listing the most important Russian adjectives with examples:

Theme of the Week: Adjectives (Part II: Chinese)

2022-01-19T05:56:16+00:00

Continuing on the theme of adjectives I reviewed today Chinese adjectives with this YouTube video:

Wordle in Russian and for Chinese

2022-01-29T20:17:04+00:00

Quick links for the day:

Russian Wordle!

Угадайте загаданное слово с шести попыток. У всех одинаковое слово, поэтому пожалуйста без спойлеров!

Игра Wordle на русском - Новая загадка каждый день в вордли

And for Pinyin

These both are pretty difficult for me, especially the Russian version is pretty hard with my current vocabularly, but still extremely fun.

Russian Verbs for Movement, part I

2022-02-10T17:50:27+00:00

Russian tutoring dot com has this nice list of verbs of motion in Russian Russian Verbs of Motion: “To Go”

List contains both perfective and imperfective verbs among others for walking 🚶‍♂️, running 🏃‍♂️ and driving 🚘.

Gradual Progress

2022-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Another one of my sticky posts and by coincidence it also works well within the context of language learning

循序渐进(xún xù jiàn jìn): in sequence, step by step (idiom); to make steady progress incrementally

or in traditional

循序漸進(xún xù jiàn jìn): in sequence, step by step (idiom); to make steady progress incrementally

What it means is explained in detail in this 循序渐进_百度百科 (Baidu wiki)

"Step by step" refers to gradually advancing or improving according to certain steps or procedures, and is often used in study, work and when dealing with things.

Russian Stickies

2022-02-22T05:01:19+00:00

There are a bunch of words in my Clozemaster backlog that have caused me grief lately. Let's write them down on the blackboard a couple of times.

управление is a word that includes meanings such as administration, government, and board.

очередь is a word that means line, queue, turn (as in "it is your turn")

насквозь means all the way through, throughout, and completely.

рынок is a word for market, marketplace. It is a loanword from Polish (who loaned it from Germans!

угадай is imperative for "to guess". What is the number I am thinking of: угадай!

More Russian Stickies

2022-02-23T19:39:11+00:00

Today's stickies are again for Russian.

Verb to arrive, to increase, to rise, to swell is прибыть - Wiktionary

The verb for to knock down is: сбить - Wiktionary

Next word is from French "equipage" and has the same meaning: the crew, equipment экипаж - Wiktionary

And finally we have car, cart (like in wheelbarrow) тачка - Wiktionary

Chinese Sticky of the Day

2022-02-25T05:52:10+00:00

This word has been extremely hard to put into my long term memory.

堕落(duò luò): to degrade, to degenerate, to become depraved, corrupt, a fall from grace

Literary Chinese

2022-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

I started going through the book An Introduction to Literary Chinese: Revised Edition (Harvard East Asian Monographs): Fuller, Michael A.: 9780674017269: Amazon.com: Books along with the course by Outlier Linguistics to learn "literary Chinese" which specifically means the written Chinese of the classics suchs as the Analects. Starting with the lesson one and its topic 16.9:

孔子曰：「生而知之者，上也；學而知之者，次也；困而學之，又其次也；困而不學，民斯為下矣。

I will be documenting my progress with the book over the next few months. First of, tomorrow, the words on this analect.

Early April Stickies

2022-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

Ah, long time, no write. Moved houses, but the my Skritter and Clozemaster habits kept going. These four words have caused me grief lately:

盛行(shèng xíng): in vogue, to be prevalent

Following sound-alikes are also putting extra gray hair on me.

接(jiē): to receive, to answer

揭(jiē): to take the lid off; to expose; to unmask

捷(jié): victory, triumph, Czech