Skip to main content

Random thoughts and an apology

By
'Sorry on Australia Day-sky writing, National Apology Day 2014, National Sorry Day' photo (c) 2010, butupa - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/Hi everybody! I am very sorry for being silent. I always say that you have to set your priorities right and have to treat your blog as a part of your business and then it will thrive. But I guess I just experienced something like a personal crisis.

It definitely had something to do with the latest political situation. Really, you have to be blind not to know about the news concerning Ukraine, Russia and the Crimea. I come from a multi-national family, so I have a  lot of relatives in Ukraine, in the Crimea and I dearly love all of them. Being partly a Ukrainian, I love Russia where I grew up, and I love Ukraine. So this crisis is the time when I thought for the first time that speaking more than one language can be a curse... Because I could read the Russian articles, could understand some of what the Ukrainian authors wrote, and could surely read and understand the publications in the European and American mass media.... And it made me sick. This whole situation just makes my heart bleed. It's bleeding for my family in Ukraine and in Russia. And every time I read an article filled with hatred towards the Russians, or the Ukrainians, my heart bleeds. So I just had no strength left for writing. When will the governments of the US, Europe, Russia and Ukraine finally understand that it's real people whose lives they are playing with? I don't know...

May I ask you something? If you comment on this post, please don't try to impose your view on the conflict. Because that's what everybody else has been doing. Only the most lazy people haven't expressed their opinion yet.... Let's just pray for peace and understanding. I've been praying for it and will continue to do so until I see results.

And I've also been preparing for my next course for Russian-speaking translators. I am attempting to do a three-week course in social media marketing for Russian colleagues. It's a new format for me, so I've been preparing like crazy. Hope everything will go smoothly.

Sorry this is not a very optimistic post. But for me it's still a good sign. Because it means my desire to write is coming back. And the first good news is: tomorrow I am going to recommend a new colleague, so you have to check my blog and see who it is :) It will be a very interesting interview, I promise!

Have a great day! I wish you peace.

Olga Arakelyan,
Your Professional Translator
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10 interesting facts about the Russian language

By
In my previous post  I promised to follow with the  interesting info about some other languages. So here are 10 facts about the Russian language which might be of interest to those who are studying it. If you would like to have this list in Russian, please contact me and I will send it to you by email. So, what do I find interesting about my native language? 1. Russian has about 500,000 words, but only 2,000-2,500 of them are used frequently. 100 most frequently used words make 20% of all written and oral speech. A high school graduate's vocabulary usually has 1,500 to 4,000 words. Those who have graduated from a higher educational institution normally have a richer vocabulary consisting of approximately  8,000 words. 2. It's compulsory for all astronauts in the international space station to learn Russian, so we can call it an international language of space :)
8 comments
Read more

15 interesting facts about the English language

By
I prepared this list for one of my English classes. And then it dawned on me that I can share it with you, too! So here are 15 facts about the English language that I find very interesting. Hope you do, too ;) Rudyard Kipling was fired as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. His dismissal letter said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language. This isn't a kindergarten for amateur writers." No language has more synonyms than English.
11 comments
Read more

Translation Forum Russia 2017: my report

By
A few days ago I came back from Translation Forum Russia which took place in Ufa, Bashkortostan . My daughter Delia went with me because she never visited Ufa before (neither have I) and because of the trip to the Southern Ural mountains we planned to take after the conference with a small group of colleagues. Ufa is not considered one of the primary tourist attractions of Russia, though I am convinced now that it definitely should be. Some pictures of the city (not all of the pictures are mine, some were made by the official photographer of the conference Elena Ekaterininskaya, our company CEO Fedor Kondratovich and some other colleagues): The bee is a symbol of the region as Bashkortostan produces the best honey in Russia. We saw installations shown below in different parts of the city. There were still covered because of the cold weather, but they will be full of blooming flowers as soon as the warm weather comes. The bee as we saw it That's what it
Post a Comment
Read more