We are currently putting together an actual iPhone Application to learn many things bout the Russian language. For now however please check out a web application (and soon to be widget) for children to learn Russian on the iPhone. Go to the Application and click the plus sign in Safari for iPhone and click save to homepage and your children can safely use your iPhone or iPod to learn Russian letters. We will be adding pictures and sounds this weekend,
A few folks have asked what’s up since our language tools disappeared.
Without naming names our hosting account had a mundane billing issue but even though the host fixed it they refused to restore our content (which was around 25 mb) without a 300+ dollar charge; more than 3 years worth of hosting fees.
We opted out of being extorted knowing that it’d be trivial to re-write the code behind our tools.
Then however we took a moment to survey the landscape of language tools out there, not just Russian but other languages too.
We decided we hadn’t gone farther than anyone else had, we’d done pretty much the same as a bunch of other companies, and individuals.
I don’t know that we’ve been explicit but we have the best son in the world ;p.
He’s little Russian American boy trying to wrap his head around the fact that family and friends talk Russian all the time but the outside world speaks English. Even with a bunch of lil’ Russian American pals this has not become less confusing; one pal will say go away another u idy.
While certainly the goal of this site is to teach pretty well everyone why the Russian languages is the best ;p we have come to the conclusion that there is a real crisis of tools for folks that want to be bilingual or what to have their kids be.
With that in mind we took a step back in our iPhone tools and web tools.
In the next few days we will be releasing the first of our reaction to this, a very simple Russian Alphabet tool that works the same as Russian kids books do.
Initially this will be available as a Web App, and JavaScript widget, with an iPhone downloadable app available latter this month (all free).
We have a TON of other stuff in the pipe but we’re looking to you; not just Westerners looking to meet Russian girls (or vice versa) but parents, teachers, and russophiles. It is high time that the Cold War be sent to the same dustbin of history where sits fascism, and leg warmers. 
Let’s all work together to help make it easy for bilinguals and polyglots to come about, and thus easier to excahnge cultures!
That is my mission!
Люда
You arrive in Rossiya in the evening one day. Hungry after a long train ride you decide to look for dinner. You consult your handy English-Russian dictionary for the right word, and ask some passersby where a good place to find dinner is. They all suggest that it’s past dinner time. You’re confused, hungry, and burned by a remarkably poor translation.
For a number of reasons I won’t get into many (most) English-Russian dictionaries translate the word dinner as ‘обед’ (pronounced Obyed). Using this however will prove difficult. Обед is a great translation for banquet (though in Russian Банкет is the word for banquet). In english dinner can refer to a few things. One is that tasty meal you were hoping to have after your long train ride. However dinner is also the word for a formal gathering and this doesn’t always mean the last meal of the evening. Unfortunately ‘обед’ can refer to a lot of things ‘dinner’ is used to describe but the word you were looking for was ужин. Ужин (pronounced Uzhin) is the last meal of the day. It’s typically not used when describing a formal engagement such as a dinner with the president or a dinner to celebrate a feast day. It is however used to describe the informal evening meal of the day you were probably looking for.
Many dictionaries will happily give you the correct translation if you search for the word supper rather than the word dinner. However supper is used infrequently between regions and has a somewhat unrefined quality (at least in my experience in America). You wouldn’t ask that pretty Russian girl visiting Manhattan out to supper; you’d ask her out to dinner. Unfortunately with the average English-Russian dictionary she’d probably assume you were asking her out to brunch! This could throw off your movie plans, and make for an annoyed Russian girl! Of course you could also be blunt which is always a better approach with Russian girls. Instead of asking if she’d like to catch some obed (that’s intentionally wrong if you hadn’t guessed) ask if she would like to go to restaurant x at time y with you; no use letting cultural and regional linguistic details get in the way!
While we are wrapping up our first publicly available iPhone/iPod application we decided to make a list of some other great applications for learning Russian on the iPhone.
Check our our language tools page for more!
Tvoi Uchitel,
Lyudmila Green
I’ve known Sasha since I lived in Yoshkar-Ola. His observation is a bit crude (and I’ve written to him to suggest he tone back his rhetoric a bit) but it’s very true. For some reason when American’s think of the capital of the oppressive Soviet regime they think it was all Russians (It was not, it was lots of different nationalities oppressing many and one of the saddest things in history) and for some strange reason they picture Saint Basil’s Cathedral (The real name is the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin of the Moat, nicknamed St Basil’s after St Basil the Blessed) as the Kremlin.
Since you’re probably here to learn Russian rather than read me babbling let’s check out some words!
Кремль/Kremlin:
If you look in the dictionary it will probably say something obscure like Citadel. (Nice word Citadel but not super descriptive of what we’re dealing with especially in modern vernacular). After living in America for all these years I think I have a better way to describe a Kremlin.
Firstly there is not only one Kremlin. The word Кремль is not unique to Russian and would I suppose best be translated as fortress. All of them are a LOT like ‘forts’ I see in America; A small town usually serving as both a capital and a shelter in the event of war. This town was surrounded by walls of either wood or brick, with towers. Near where I live there are several American ‘forts’ which were used in the American Revolution and previous wars. These are extremely similar though the Kremlins I’ve seen in Russia are usually triangular and the forts in America I’ve seen are usually some sort of star shape. I don’t know a lot about military defense but I know a Kremlin when I see one.
Bottom line: next time you hear Kremlin don’t start thinking of a city state like the Vatican; think about a defensive fort, usually an outpost, and remember the triangular Kremlin in Moscow was essentially 60% of Moscow when it was used. Yes Moscow used to be relatively small before it became the massive city that is as big as some American States!
Tvoi Uchitel,
Lyudmila Green
We’ve been waiting for the iPhone 3.0 software to be official and are now working to get all of our tools up now that it was announced at WWDC, even as we pursue Widget versions as well. The potential for making iPhone/iPod a premiere platform for learning & translating Russian is tremendous, and we’re really looking forward to putting our Learning-Russian tools on iPhone/iPod! Please let us know your thoughts, especially on pricing though, we expect all of our initial tools will be free!
Спасибо!
Lyudmila Green
Lyuda’s Language Tools are currently being put back online now at their own domain (LanguageTools.learning-russian.com)! (These were deleted by our previous host.
Posted by Lyudmila Green
Had some host problems. Please be patient as old content is re-added!