По-Русский

I've been studying the Russian language on my own for a little while, now. It has been hard; there are no courses within an hour's drive of here (of which I am aware), so that leaves me with books and computer materials.

Besides all of the cases for nouns and adjectives (for example, the difference in the phrase "at work" and "to work" depends on the ending of the word for "work"), there is nothing like studying another language to make one question their native tongue. Imagine, if you will, trying to teach the audible difference between "way" and "weigh". "Do they weigh trucks at the way station or do we have to drive all the way to the weigh station?"

While Russian has a "will be" and "was", they don't use "is" (keep your Clinton jokes to yourself, this isn't the Fox Noise blog). And then, in Russian, the curses are strange. "I need that like a fish needs a bicycle" is roughly "why the fuck does a priest need an accordion".

Biggest surprise? "the Bolshoi Opera". If you translate "bolshoi", it's "the Big Opera". (For you naval types, the Sovremenny-class destroyer is the "modern destroyer.")