Oi yo yo! I wish I spoke Russian!

[Swede]

Close call on a Russian highway.

[deutsey]

1. Wow...

It would've taken me a few minutes (and some valium) before I could have continued driving after that.

[RebelOne]

2. You don't need to know Russian

to understand that the trucker had a very close call.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. "fiddlesticks" !

That's the way the Pentagon translates it.

[DFW]

4. Bozhe moi!

or, rather, Боже мой !!

The sound quality was very rough, but it sounded like one of the guys was talking about a miracle ("чудо" ("chudo&quot or some variation), and "вот как" ("vawt kack&quot which in some cases can be used informally as "check that out!"

They obviously weren't anticipating being shown on DU, or I'm sure they would have used a better recording device.......

[HopeHoops]

7. Yeah, I always keep a high quality recording device running when I'm about to be smashed all to hell

I caught the parts you did too, but a lot of it was too washed out to interpret.

[DFW]

8. Too garbled--we probably missed the good stuff

Otherwise, we both would have caught the part where they yelled "чёрт возми!!" LOL

[HopeHoops]

10. Yeah, I was expecting "SCHTO ZSHE YOB!"

[DFW]

14. LOL!

YOU go translate that one--I'm not getting censured here!

(Although in a similar situation, that's pretty much what I would have yelled, too).

[HopeHoops]

15. I often answer the phone with "Schto zshe yob, preyom?"

(For those who aren't familiar with Russian, that means "What the fuck, over?&quot

[DFW]

17. You'll like this one

Back in the early seventies, a friend of mine used to spy on the Soviet Air force from West Berlin.
Most of the time, it was just sitting in a windowless room transcribing routine stuff. In East Berlin,
the Russians were doing exactly the same thing to us. But one time, the Soviets had some new fighter
they wanted to show off to the East Germans, and they had one of their pilots fly the thing over from
one of their air bases in Poland. My friend was transcribing the whole thing, as his job was to get
every word down accurately.

Well, the Russian pilot flew over, and saw that the East German landing strip was far too short for
his plane. He radioed down to the ground to tell them he couldn't land there safely. The dork commanding
officer, who was only interested in showing off, got on the radio and ordered Comrade Pilot in no uncertain
terms to land on his landing strip. Comrade Pilot then told Comrade General Jerkoff that he would crash
and probably die if he attempted to land on a strip that was too short for his plane. He said ёб твою мать
(fuck your mother), I am not gonna land on that strip. I'm flying back to Poland, da-svidanya, etc etc.,
which he then promptly proceeded to do. My friend looked at the guy in the room with him, shrugged,
and logged in the conversation word for word as he had been instructed to do. Orders are orders. He
never found out what his superior officers thought of his transcript, but if they kept the tapes, they would
have known that he did nothing other than what they had told him to do. I don't know if the Soviets
changed their protocol for unscrambled Air Force transmissions, but my friend never told me about any
other such colorful bits that he got to translate.

[HopeHoops]

18. "Yob tvoyoo mat" LOLOLOL!

At least the pilot was intelligent.

[DFW]

20. And he probably lived to tell the tale

At least until Comrade General Jerkoff had him sent to Siberia for disobeying a direct order LOL!!

[HopeHoops]

22. I'm sure he had some choice words he asked to "speak freely" about.

[HopeHoops]

16. DFW - I trust you know what "yobeetee vacc" means then.

I don't bother with Cyrillic fonts. Too tedious. Besides, I write them better than printing or typing them.

Oh, and "Vee gloopie chelovyek" and "Vee Gloopiya devotchka" are good phone responses as well.

And I love using "Ya ne goveroo po-angleeskie". I actually had a telemarketer say, oh, so you don't speak English? I said "da" and hung up.

[DFW]

19. Yeah, I got all that.

The Cyrillic is tedious, but can be done from the character map if you want to take the time.

The Russians have a completely different sensitivity about being called stupid or crazy, especially
crazy. During the Soviet era, the regime used to just label dissidents mentally ill and imprison them
in psychiatric hospitals, and I guess it left a huge impression on their national consciousness. A
friend of ours has a Russian girlfriend, and she once made a joke which I translated for my wife,
who laughed and called her a "crazy Russian." When I translated, she and her German boyfriend
both paled, and she left the room. He had to get her back, and explain that it was not meant as
the deep insult it was to a Russian. Apparently calling a Russian crazy, especially an older one who
lived as an adult in the Soviet era, is like telling them seriously they are a danger to society and
need to be locked up. Some deep damage control was needed. She now understands, but we learned
something that day.

On the other hand, I used to use Russian to get rid of pesterers here in Europe, but in the meantime
so many of them ARE Russian now, I use Swedish or Catalan instead. In Germany, France and Belgium,
we are flooded with Eastern European economic refugees, but none come in from Sweden or Catalonia.
Catalan is still dicey, though, as we get many Romanians. Since Romanian is a Romance language, many
of them understand enough of another Romance language as to render any attempt to brush them
off in another Latin-based language impractical. Swedish works, but I still think I need to started on
learning Basque or Hawaiian.

[HopeHoops]

21. When I'm in Montreal, I use "Je ne parles pas francais".

That's about all I remember of the two years of French I took in Jr. high, and probably the most valuable thing (excuse the spelling if it is wrong).

Of course, I also use "Ich spreche klienes deutche", but one time I fucked up (tongue slip) and said "keines" - TOTALLY different meaning!!!

[Brickbat]

5. They're awesome.

Right when he starts the truck back up again, he says "Yup."

The other guy says, "Listen, that was a miracle. It was miraculous."

The first guy says, "How about that? Ayup."

[DFW]

9. You used a Russian-to-redneck dictionary n/t

[Brickbat]

13. Heh. No, that's just pretty much how they reacted. I was impressed with how casual they were.

No swearing, no freaking out. They were good.

[HopeHoops]

6. Well, I didn't hear anyone yell "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!", but that's what I'd be saying.

[siligut]

11. Mr gut is Ukrainian and sometimes he will murmur "Oi, yo, yo"

He does it when things seem to get to be too much.

[jakeXT]

12. I remember this one involving Fuck from the US

[RedCloud]

23. Mui dom bilu domni.

Eta moi chimadan!