Hi, Ardith Hinton! -> Alexander Koryagin
I read your message from 04.03.2021 13:34

 AK>> Do you you know there are bilingual books, when on the left page
 AK>> is the English original and on the right page is Russian
 AK>> translation. The latter is always longer.

 AH> One of my friends at university, who happened to be Roman Catholic,
 AH> told me she had a prayer book with English on one side & Latin on
 AH> the other. I didn't think to ask her which was longer. But I've
 AH> noticed, when I see cooking instructions written in English &
 AH> French, that it generally requires more space to express the same
 AH> idea in the latter. I realize this may be at least in part because
 AH> Francophones don't use possessives the way Anglophones do. They'll
 AH> say "la plume de ma tante", e.g., where we'd say "my aunt's pen". I
 AH> don't know how this relates to Russian. But I see that if one
 AH> language has a word which isn't easily translatable into another, a
 AH> little more verbiage may be needed....

If you let me witter more, IMHO Russian and French have many similar features. I think it is because the fact that in the Russian history French was a very important element - all the noble and educated people in Russia spoke French from childhood and even despise the Russian language as vulgar. During this period French influenced very much on the Russian language. And one common similarity IMHO is that French and Russian phrases are longer than English. ;) Everybody knows that in France they don't like learn English. They pretend that they love French very much, but in reality, IMHO, they meet with the same problem why many Russians can't understand English -- English is too quick for them. ;-)


 AK>> What time is too late for you?

 AH> Probably about 11:00 PM by our time, because we may talk up a storm
 AH> with you & we may take awhile to defuse afterwards... [wry grin].

I believe the main problem can be opposite - to find what to say, at least for me. But well, like in old time in school at the English lesson, I can tell you that I live in Russia, I have a dog and etc. ;-)

 AH>>> By my calculations you are eleven hours ahead of us... at least
 AH>>> until Daylight Saving Time kicks in.
 AK>> Google says Vancouver time is behind Moscow time by 11 hours in
 AK>> winter.
 AH> Same idea, different perspective....

 AK>> The 8-th of March, for instance.
 AH> Your time or our time? The evening of this day would probably work
 AH> for us. But by my calculations, it would be Tuesday morning in
 AH> Russia....: - Q

So, 9am Moscow time in any work day is OK for me, unless I have some urgent business in my office. I exaggerated that I can't talk for 10 minutes in my office. Yes, I can do it easily, and there is no problem concerning "round eyes around". ;-)

Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2021

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