I was on a train from a small commuter town outside the city back into Moscow where I lived at the time when a dictionary salesman came up the aisle. It was pretty common for people to sell snacks and stuff on the commuter rail, but dictionaries were new to me. I did buy it, and it was surprising how much it improved my language skills. Before I bought it, I learned words by looking at their English equivalents, but that's not quite right -- you say скука in Russian when you would say boredom in English, but they don't quite mean the same thing -- and sometimes to understand a definition I'd have to go through 3-4 others along the way. Obviously, you have to be pretty far along your language learning journey before you start, but I highly recommend it.
15 Comments
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world · 28 pts · 20d
I kind of want to motorboat complicated words now.
kylie_kraft@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 20d
lefaucet@slrpnk.net · 10 pts · 20d
Bpt-pt-bpbpt-pbbt
OctopusNemeses@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 20d
> My teachers:
> Never use a word to describe itself.
Me looking up a word like rufloggy: "The state of being rufflogged".
coolie4@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 20d
"Of, or relating to, rufflog"
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 4 pts · 20d
Fun fact: the first english dictionary was full of that
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 20d
???
orlyowl@piefed.ca · 8 pts · 20d
I would love to know the context behind the photo.
anon6789@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 20d
The context behind the photo
rovingnothing29@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 20d
Why do I think of an ostrich when I see this?
Siethron@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 20d
Was it not a Giraffe?
rovingnothing29@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 20d
I honestly don't remember
Siethron@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 20d
It's definitely either an ostrich or giraffe, one of those long neck fuckers
basxto@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 19d
A turtle
CombatWombat@feddit.online · 4 pts · 20d
I was on a train from a small commuter town outside the city back into Moscow where I lived at the time when a dictionary salesman came up the aisle. It was pretty common for people to sell snacks and stuff on the commuter rail, but dictionaries were new to me. I did buy it, and it was surprising how much it improved my language skills. Before I bought it, I learned words by looking at their English equivalents, but that's not quite right -- you say скука in Russian when you would say boredom in English, but they don't quite mean the same thing -- and sometimes to understand a definition I'd have to go through 3-4 others along the way. Obviously, you have to be pretty far along your language learning journey before you start, but I highly recommend it.
TheGiantKorean@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 20d
Mammalian protuberances