Rasputin, Valentin "To Live and Remember" (or: Live and Remember) (Russian: Живи и помни = Zhiwi e pomni) - 1974
A deserter goes back home to his native village in Siberia in the last couple of months of WWII. He is hiding from everyone but his wife discovers and helps him. Through this, she gets into difficulties. As other soldiers are returning back from the front when the war ends, her situation gets more and more desperate.
Read my original review here.
So you read Russian?
ReplyDeleteNononono, I read this in German. You can also find a review on my German blog.
DeleteI prefer reading books in their original language but since I don't speak them all, I have to read "a few" as a translation. LOL
Ah! I was very impressed! I have a "Russian-born" group of relatives and my mother tried to learn it once, but she did not get very far because it was so hard.
DeleteI guess it depends what other languages you compare it with. My son did it at uni because they needed to do a foreign language and he picked it because hew as interested. I really should do it on Duolingo but I find it hard to juggle between the two scripts. I tried Greek once and I didn't find the script hard (just as Russian, I can read them both) but the going back and forth on the keyboard.
DeleteMy husband uses Duolingo for French, but no wild foreign characters involved there :). I did the "Graecum" while studying theology, but that was before keyboards and I never had to type that way. I am not sure how I would do if I had to type that way.
DeleteIt's not a big problem to change the language and with that the keyboard, only, you have to switch constantly. They do one sentence where you have to translate language A into language B and the next one is the other way around and then again to the first set. Would be easier for languages like Russian or Greek if you could do first first questions one way and the second half the other way around.
DeleteI think this back and forth would drive me crazy :).
DeleteThat's why I don't do languages with another script on Duolingo. Though I would love to.
DeleteI think some people do "Livemocha" here for languages. Maybe that would be better?!
DeleteI never heard of Livemocha, Eva, will have to google. Thanks.
DeleteIt is popular with homeschoolers :).
DeleteI checked and it looks interesting but I've been with Duolingo for seven years now, and I guess the problem with the keyboard is the same there.
DeleteProbably, but I have never tried either of them.
DeleteI just love learning languages. I have ten languages on Duolingo of which I exercise seven regularly.
DeleteSounds like Peter (my husband). I used to be interested in Scandinavian languages and tried Finnish and Swedish, but never got very far. I worked with native speakers, though, which was a treat.
DeleteIf he really is interested, he should give Swedish another try, it's not that difficult if you know German (which I suppose he does). Finnish, now that is another kettle of fish ...
DeleteI took Finnish at the university with a professor from Finland. It was hard! My uncle tried Icelandic and gave up because it was too hard.
DeleteFinnish must be really hard because it doesn't even belong to the Indogermanic language groups. Icelandic, I never tried it but have had a glimpse of Norwegian and then did Swedish which I both found rather easy for a German. But Iceland has always been "alone", so no big influences from neighbouring countries, I guess.
DeleteIt was very hard, but that was the purpose. We had to try one language that was not an Indo-European language. I did learn some Swedish because I have Swedish relatives and have visited Sweden a lot when growing up. Icelandic is not just a hard language, but also hard to pronounce. You are right about the "location."
DeleteThat is a good task, Eva, that way students see that not every language is as easily learned as others and they might understand immigrants better.
DeleteI think so too!
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