Even though my favourite professors at Waterloo in Canada were Russian, it wasn't until I learned some basic Russian that I finally got over the typical view of them drilled into people by Hollywood.

Your run of the mill Russian is honest about their feelings. Not honest about the facts, no, they can cheat on an insurance filing just fine. But that coldness that so many of them seem to have is often just an outer shell. Once one of them trusts you and gets to know you they're so warm and intense about their love for you. So excited to show you something dear to them. Even devoted enough to learn a new language just to speak to you, even if they're a senior[0]. It doesn't mean the relationship always survives, because that intensity is still there when they're angry, but the highs are so high.

I do not regret learning basic Russian.

[0] This happened to me. Twice.

> ... I think that — and this may answer your question — Russian friendships are much more emotional and intense than American friendships [...] When I moved back to [the USA] five and a half years ago, it was like this sense of whiplash because I had a lot of friends here, but I had been absent for 20 years. I would get together with my friends, and then two hours later, our get-together would be over. I’m like, “Well, what was the point of that? Was that just to let each other know that we still exist?” Because you don’t really get into deep conversation until about four hours in and a number of bottles of alcohol [...] I think that maybe that’s what you’re referring to. Maybe you’re just referring to the emotional intensity of Russian friendship, where it’s hard. It’s like lovers, even in this country, don’t really drift apart usually. You have to break up. You can’t just stop calling, and go from talking every day to talking every few weeks, and then forget about each other’s existence.

I usually take claims about what people from a country are like with a big grain of salt, but it's interesting to see this in your comment, too. Maybe I should pursue some Russian friendships.

[1] https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/masha-gessen/

I found I made deep friendships more easily after speaking even a bit of Russian. If you can say "My name is X" and "awesome" and a couple other small phrases it helps. That said, it wasn't until I had put in around 1000 hours of practice until things really opened up. It's such a hard language and I'm below average in my ability to learn human languages. But I did make steady progress with Verbling and I even met up with my tutor when I was in Ukraine.

One of the things that learning Russian clears up is why they sound so angry to English ears. The language doesn't use tone for emphasis as much as English. It uses word order because the grammar is more flexible so they're able to put the important stuff at the end. Plus the sounds are more constant based. So once your ears get used to the language, you don't really hear Russian (or a Russian accented English) the same anymore. It sounds more human. Plus you learn so many words, you end up finding some of the endearing / superior to the English translation.

When learning Russian these are just a few of the words I found myself saying even when speaking English. Which gives a hint that a good direct translation maybe isn’t quite there.

In that light, comparing the one-syllable English "Why?" to the three-syllable Russian "почему?" says something about the safety of asking questions in different countries.

"почему" asks - how did things come to be this way?

"зачем" asks - what is the purpose of things being this way?

Note the difference in implication if I ask you "why" you were late for work. "почему" allows room for circumstances beyond your control, while "зачем" places the blame squarely on your shoulders.

English speakers may be completely unconscious of the overloaded nature of "why" - such is the value of learning other languages.

English has at least three in the same space, two of which are in modern use.

> "почему" asks - how did things come to be this way?

In English, that's, unambiguously, “How". Which is kind of why your own translation starts with it.

> "зачем" asks - what is the purpose of things being this way?

In English that is, again unambiguously, though somewhat archaic, “wherefore”.

“Why” can mean either and is usually disambiguated by context (but is usually read modernly as “wherefore” if the context isn’t otherwise unambiguous, though the existence of the archaic phrase “whys and wherefores” which seems to mean the same as the modern “whys and hows” suggest to me that the bias has flipped over time.)

"zachem" is closer to "what for".

To be serious, Russian morphology restrict the number of short words. A verb or a noun will have a suffix that changes by plurality, case, gender, tense etc. and often a prefix. E.g. a pretty common word such as "come" in "Come to dinner with us" will have four syllables in 'заходите' because its root has a vowel, prefix has a vowel and suffix has two.

Question words are grammatically pronouns in Russian so they have all the morphological features of nouns.

(Disclaimer: I do not smile)

I’m really interested in linguistics, but I’ve never heard of such a rule. Could you give a source please? I’d be curious to know if this is true.

(A striking counterexample I ran into just yesterday: the Urim word for ‘head’ is tukŋunakŋ, and ‘we (incl.)’ is mentepm-. I don’t think this is because Urim people avoid talking about heads or groups of people. That being said, it’s tricky concluding anything from a sample size of n=1.)

Funny. To me (I'm Greek) Russians sound like they're always complaining about something. It's Germans that sound angry.

Edit: I wonder what Greek sounds like to foreign ears. The closes I've come to understanding it is hearing Spanish people talk, who sound a lot like Greek -that I don't understand.

That's what makes them sound similar to people who don't speak the language that much.

But the concept exists, it's just a different word.

(Though yes, by how they learn you notice what they get easily and what confuses them)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese-based_creole_langua...

I think many originated as trade languages, but I find it interesting that languages with such very different roots would mix and create a new language (a Creole, more so; not just a pidjin).

Well, it's usually the third or fourth rather than the second (second tends to be English or Spanish).

I'm not a great fan of serious literature, but I've read a bit here and there and I think the above should be blindingly obvious to anyone who's read at least as little as I have (basically, Crime and Punishment, three or four pages from The Idiot and Gorsky's The Flaming heart of Danko). Or, anyone who's listened to the music (hello, Chaikovsky? Black Swan? You wanted feelsies?) or watched the movies (Tarkovsky) etc.

I think in the past the literature and the art in general would have been where Western people learned about Russians (and everyone else not in the West, also, but the Russians have a lot of literature). It's a bit of a shame if this has really been replaced by tinny stereotypes promulgated by Hollywood.

A doctor would walk in, having heard of all this already and ask "How are you?"

Sometimes she gave them the benefit of the doubt, and sometimes she was a bit less charitable.

My point? Americans (as she was), Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians, Japanese, Kurdish, Bolivians, Icelandians, Koreans, Germans, Chinese, Scottish, Irish, Australians, Austrians, Swiss, South Africans, Egyptians, Mixolydians, Bohemians, and even Canadians all agree one one thing:

Being asked "How are you?" is the LAST thing somebody wants to hear when they are suffering.

When I was a teenager I did a one year high school exchange to the US and for a long time I really struggled with the daily "what's up?". I was going through the above internal dialogue more than 10 times a day struggling to come up with an answer. Even, when I learned to just answer "yeah what's up" internally the dialogue would often still be triggered.

I hope any healthcare for your wife was eventually able to manage her pain and make her at least comfortable.

1) You are putting it on me to tell you that I need something, right in the middle of my need. 2) If you're my real friend you don't need to say that, I already know I can call you 24/7/365 3) Your willingness to help is nulled by your lack of initiative.

The best thing anyone ever did was call me and say "I'm at Costco. What do you need? And don't say 'nothing'. I'm going to bring you something, and that's that." That whole pizza and frozen burritos were bad for me, but the last thing I needed on my mind at that time was cooking. And that's what true friends are there for.

So don't say "If you need anything let me know!" It's borderline passive aggressive.

@geocrasher seems to not realize that the people around he/she could be taking a cautious position to avoid getting into his/her business without it being requested.

The statement "let me know if you need anything" has a different meaning depending on what it was reasonable to ask already.

It adds no information, due to the meaning of "anything" being entirely contextual.

If I know that they know that the relationship is fairly close, affirming it is a nice thing to do, especially if I'm feeling badly.

But if the relationship is not so close and/or I'm uncertain whether it's appropriate to ask a favor, I can imagine feeling antagonized by the form of an offer which is not really an offer or clarification of where we stand.

If there is ambiguity, there remains ambiguity, is how I see it.

That’s the purpose of the statement. The person you’re saying it to should have a vague idea of what is a reasonable ask depending on relationship, and if not, they will just get denied. But it is genuine.

If I’m at a store, and my coworker asks me to grab a pack of gum, I’ll do it. If they ask me to go to a store 15 min away for something, I’m going to say no, but they probably would not ask me that anyway. But if a close family member asks, I would go to the different store.

I understand your point and i know it's a difficult question to deal with sometimes, especially during depression.

But remember that you're not those people's top priority. That sentence means you are allowed to ask them for stuff, but it doesn't mean they're going to drop everything and take you into their care right now without you taking a few steps on your own. They consider that you have enough of your own agency.

Your willingness to be helped is nulled by that same lack of initiative on your part.

A trick is to find something easy to ask for, as a go-to response to that. For example, the next time someone says that to you, you could answer:

"Actually, life has been tough lately, a beer would be nice".

What would have been better? To just say "I'm sorry you're having a hard time". If you don't mean something, don't say it.

While it may seem like I am being oversensive about the subject, it is understandable because I left out a large part of the context. When you have heard of this phrase hundreds of times over multiple years by people who were not in the position to help you in the least bit, it becomes a meaningless platitude.

I don't personally say that sentence outside of a work context; usually I would say "call me if you need to talk", but I won't take proactive action unless I believe my friend either wants me to or need me to.

At the end of the day, someone makes a choice to interpret this as a platitude. How about taking up the person on their offer?

Unless the person saying it had access to some experimental treatment my doctors don't know about, there really was nothing they could have done to help me. I knew it and they knew it.

So while I didn't get angry at them (because I knew they said it because didn't know how to react differently), it did annoy me as it was basically an empty promise.

But there is a difference between empty platitudes such as "thoughts and prayers" and a genuine albeit abbreviated "I'm your friend and I love you, I don't know how I could help you, but if you know, don't hesitate to ask on account of it being too much."

I'm sorry about the situation you are/were in. That must have been very difficult.

It's like forgiveness, if you forgive someone, the main benefit is to you. By forgiving someone you take a load off your own shoulders. It's often meaningless to them if those forgiven know they are.

I would like to be told by a friend that they care about me and would like to help in some way if they can. What I wouldn't like is if they said "OK, I'm going to choose a thing that I think I would want in your situation and do it for you, and you have no choice because I'm going to do it anyway." Chances are, what you thought was helpful is NOT what I need in a difficult moment and I don't want to be subjected to another person's choices being superimposed on my situation. Lucky for me I know that my friend feels the same way, and we have different ways of approaching these things with each other because of it.

"I'm at Costco. What do you need? And don't say 'nothing'. I'm going to bring you something, and that's that" seems incredibly aggressive to me, and if I had many friends who behaved that way I would be endlessly frustrated.

Sam Harris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fajfkO_X0l0

Paul Hedderman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2T9e-uW1Dc

Similar when interacting with customer service. They don't want to know how you are, they want to know why you're talking with them, how they need to approach you. If you're calling about your cable bill and tell them you're not doing well because your aunt died, well, that's not actionable by them. They want to know how you're doing in the context of your cable bill. Even if your answer is "good, but I have a billing issue", it usefully sets the tone for the conversation in a way that "bad, Aunt Gerda passed away" does not.

I think this gets exactly to it, but I don’t agree with the rest of your comment.

In both the provided examples, the fact that there's a request for actionable information is already implicitly understood based on the situation. When a doctor comes into your room, you already know they're checking on your condition. The "How are you?" is just general greeting (to which, in casual situations, the proper response is "Fine, and you?").

And this is the crux of the misunderstanding. The Russian takes it as a request for information when it isn't.

*Edit*: A YouTube video pulled from another comment in this thread that explains what I was trying to say much better: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eGnH0KAXhCw&feature=youtu.be

If he's still in a lot of pain then the doctor would expect the patient to say that. "The nurses are treating me well, the food is fine, but I'm still in a lot of pain. Is there anything you can do about that?"

The doctor was asking a question relative to the situation and the Russian interpreted as an absolute question.

This situation is a very common standup joke here in Russia since like the 70s or 80s when some of our movie or theater stars were in the US (or some other 'capitalistic' country) and were constantly asked 'how are you' in a hallway.

A bit vulgar to use.

I am a German living in Germany and i once caused a car crash that made another car spin into the ditch on the side of the road. That car was driven by a family of Russian heritage.

After getting out of the car i spoke to the other parties wife first and I asked "Is everything OK?" with what i ment: "Is there something very wrong beyond the things that are obviously wrong. Like, is your child bleeding to death or is it only the car damage."

But the woman did not understand it this way at all and was a little bit furious because to her obviously nothing was OK.

Of course she had every reason to be upset, but the likelihood of a German interpreting my question in a rude way would have been way lower.

That said, doctors see a lot of misery, so anything to lighten the mood should be encouraged.

Even with my own kids. It can initially be difficult to judge how serious an injury a fall of bump is. 99% of time I’m right, but the missed stick with you and the kid.

There is a saying in Russian: if a stranger, on your question "how are you?" (ru: как дела?), starts explaining in details what is happening with him/her - please know, you've met complete idiot.

So I am classifying that 'how are you?' as never ending test of my life position :)

other than that I do not associate Ukrainian as Russian. They are separately in identity ?

With that said: Ukraine is a big country with a very strong culture that differs from Russian culture in (for us, foreigners) subtle ways. Near the border with Russia, however, Russian culture is stronger, hence some regions even associating themselves more strongly with Russia than with Ukraine (Krimea was one of those regions, by the way, which may explain to people who are unaware of this situation why there was no popular revolt - quite the contrary - against the Russian occupation).

That is a heavily debated question, both in Russia and Ukraine. It is possible to say the "russian" culture originated in (what is today) Ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus

What we now call "Russia" was the expanding frontier of the original.

Rus (as statehood) originated in Novgorod (originally as a republic, btw). Then center was moved to Kiev. Then to Moscow. At those times there were no such entity (and ethnicity) as Ukraine at all.

Significantly later it was Cossacks republic on part of territory of modern Ukraine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporozhian_Sich#/media/File:0... At that time it was no Ukrainian ethnicity too. Cossacks (armed settlers) were multiethnic by definition - members were ethnically Rus, Poland, Tatar, etc. from all close and far neighbors as this was area and society of refugees. That mix eventually transformed into separate ethnicity.

In Russian Empire Cossacks were playing role of armed border guard/settlers were spread across border regions of Russia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Uk...

Ukraine as an ethnicity is relatively new entity. And needless to say that Ukraine as an entity with definitive borders was a communist invention, Lenin and later Stalin have drawn its borders - Russian Empire had no division on ethnical principles.