Русскоязычные семьи - Page 3

[Chi-Chi Mama]

a friend recenly told me about this site: sharereactor dot ru

you can download all types of movies - American, Russian, European, kids', etc! dd is actually excited to watch cartoons and movies from the site and seems fine with the fact that they're in Russian - too bad she saw that they had the american Cinderella 1, 2 and 3. But we have a deal that after those, I"ll be downloading the kids movies of my choosing

They have so many Russian movies I grew up with, I can't wait to see them.

the only downside is that it takes forever to download them.. and I'm using my old computer just in case... then you can either watch them on your computer (they come out as an '.avi' file) or convert them to divx if your dvd player supports it... or to a dvd-supported version which supposedly takes even longer.

so anyway, wanted to share.

[elizaveta]

Originally Posted by Chi-Chi Mama

a friend recenly told me about this site: sharereactor dot ru

you can download all types of movies - American, Russian, European, kids', etc! dd is actually excited to watch cartoons and movies from the site and seems fine with the fact that they're in Russian - too bad she saw that they had the american Cinderella 1, 2 and 3. But we have a deal that after those, I"ll be downloading the kids movies of my choosing

They have so many Russian movies I grew up with, I can't wait to see them.

the only downside is that it takes forever to download them.. and I'm using my old computer just in case... then you can either watch them on your computer (they come out as an '.avi' file) or convert them to divx if your dvd player supports it... or to a dvd-supported version which supposedly takes even longer.

so anyway, wanted to share.

kinokopilka dot ru is a place where you can find a few cartoons as well, but I think they are all new. They have Алеша Попович и Тугарин Змей, which is one of my favourites and Князь Владимир. My daughter likes Илья Муромец и Соловей Разбойник! It's a torrent site though. Not a huge selection of cartoons, but a lot of other Russian films.

[EVC]

You know, my dd is such a little wierdo

Her favorite Russian-related entertainment right now is this video on youtube (from Sorochinskaya yarmarka): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CK0DIf_dYc

No idea why, but I have to admit that I find it rather amusing to hear a toddler singing "ya pil by tolko chai ili kvas....." And she sings it ALL DAY LONG!

She really does love kvas, though, so maybe that's the attraction to the song :

[elizaveta]

Ura! We're off to Krasnoyarsk in a few weeks! : We haven't been back to Russia since we moved when dd was a few months old, so it's long overdue! It's been nearly two and a half years! So, we have the summer to lounge around. I can't wait to sit around and eat cucumbers and tomatoes and raspberries. : Summer in Russia is the best!

[EVC]

Originally Posted by elizaveta

Ura! We're off to Krasnoyarsk in a few weeks! : We haven't been back to Russia since we moved when dd was a few months old, so it's long overdue! It's been nearly two and a half years! So, we have the summer to lounge around. I can't wait to sit around and eat cucumbers and tomatoes and raspberries. : Summer in Russia is the best!

Have a wonderful trip!!!! I am envious, but it's belaya zavist

[dolphinkisser]

Has anyone tried to get their children on Myngle? I booked a lesson for dd and i installed skype but when we went on the website at the approved time nothing happened,Does anyone know what went wrong?

[hannahi]

Privet! I was in aprilushka's DDC (April '06) and have a bilingual Russian-English household. I found this thread and though I'd bump it up. (My DH is not ethnically Russian, though, he's Kyrgyz, but hardly speaks his real native language). We are lazy about keeping up the Russian part, though, and as a result, my son speaks mostly English. (There are just a few words where he prefers Russian, such as "arbus" and "kupatcya" )He goes to daycare three days per week, and for a time, went to a home daycare run by a Russian woman, but didn't get along well there. I have spoken English with him from birth almost exclusively, even though I can speak Russian very well. We'd like to switch to Russian exclusively at home but are having trouble with it--we slip back into English, and it frustrates ds sometimes. Pretty soon he'll be able to go to Russian school on Saturdays so he'll at least be able to play with other Russian-speaking kids. We have lots of Russian language DVDs, so ds is exposed to the language that way (he especially likes Karlsson!). But I know that that's not enough!

[soposdedi]

Ohhhh this is an interesting thread! My dh is Georgian, and does speak Russian but mainly Georgian. I WISH there were games and stuff available for dd so she could learn to speak better. I envy you guys .

[hannahi]

There are a few Georgian courses on Audio Forum but it looks like they're all aimed at adults:

http://www.audioforum.com/index.php?...mode=cat_click

[GoGoGirl]

Hi Hannahi!

Wow, your husband is Kyrgyz? Mine is Kazakh! You're the first mama I've seen here so far (besides me, hehe) with a Central Asian family

My husband doesn't speak Kazakh at all--Russian is his first language. I've been working on learning Russian. It's VERY important to his parents (and me, but not as much for DH) that when the baby comes, she will learn Russian. DH and his parents assume she won't be able to learn it just from DH, so it looks like I have to learn Russian too! Did you grow up speaking Russian, or did you learn it as an adult?

[Pinoikoi]

Originally Posted by Oriole

Hm, I don't know of any games either, and of course I can't find the website we order our stuff from *sigh* It's St. Pertersburg something something... maybe they have pc games as well?.. Other than that.. Depending on your budget and the age of kids, Rosetta Stone seem to be famous for language programs.

I was also going to recommend Rosetta Stone. I did a trial thing for it when I was stuck in the Seattle airport once, and I was flying through the thing..
I was an exchange student to Magadan years ago, although I have a Georgian neighbor, so I practice my Russian with her and her daughter a bit. They bought a satellite and get "foreign channels" in their house- I guess it was the only way to get Russian tv stations, but they felt it was well worth the cost. Not recommending tv for babies, OP, but if we can get it here, maybe you could get it as well when your babes are older?

I am the only one in my family that speaks Russian, unfortunately, so besides a few Russian teachers and my neighbor I don't get much practice. Dp speaks Tagalog and English, I speak English, a little Russian, a little Japanese, and only enough Spanish to choke myself. My father speaks English, German, and a little Thai and Laotian. My mother speaks English, but studied Latin and ESL. My sister majored in Asian studies and speaks fairly fluently in English and Japanese with bit of Chinese, but I am not sure how much she is keeping up on the Chinese..

So multilingual families are kind of the norm for us.. (BTW I can't make my keyboard type letters in Russian- so I am not even going to attempt to type Russian words with this stupid thing.. )

[hannahi]

Hi Hannahi!

Wow, your husband is Kyrgyz? Mine is Kazakh! You're the first mama I've seen here so far (besides me, hehe) with a Central Asian family

My husband doesn't speak Kazakh at all--Russian is his first language. I've been working on learning Russian. It's VERY important to his parents (and me, but not as much for DH) that when the baby comes, she will learn Russian. DH and his parents assume she won't be able to learn it just from DH, so it looks like I have to learn Russian too! Did you grow up speaking Russian, or did you learn it as an adult?

That's cool! I really hardly ever meet couples that are similar to me and DH (that is, American women married to men from Central Asia). Is your husband insisting on a Kazakh name? Mine wanted a Kyrgyz name at first, and what's more, since they have a taboo against using the same name as a living relative, there were pretty slim pickings. The only Kyrgyz girls' names I liked were Saikal, Aike, and Sonun, but I thought they would really only work as middle names. There are some names of Arabic and Persian origin that are commonly used in Central Asia that I liked, too. I learned Russian in high school and college, and spent a couple of years working and studying in Russia. Good for you for learning Russian!

[GoGoGirl]

Originally Posted by hannahi

That's cool! I really hardly ever meet couples that are similar to me and DH (that is, American women married to men from Central Asia). Is your husband insisting on a Kazakh name? Mine wanted a Kyrgyz name at first, and what's more, since they have a taboo against using the same name as a living relative, there were pretty slim pickings. The only Kyrgyz girls' names I liked were Saikal, Aike, and Sonun, but I thought they would really only work as middle names. There are some names of Arabic and Persian origin that are commonly used in Central Asia that I liked, too. I learned Russian in high school and college, and spent a couple of years working and studying in Russia. Good for you for learning Russian!

Yeah, I've never ever met another Central Asian man / American woman couple before. Cool!!

Oh man. We're still going around and around with the name thing. I didn't take DH's last name, and honestly, before I got married, I was pretty opposed to patrilineal naming and never thought I'd do it with my kids. Now I see it as a good thing for my kids to have my husband's last name. I know it will be hard to instill Kazakh identity in kids raised here, and I'm hoping a Kazakh last name will help. I wasn't really thinking of using patronymics, but my MIL lectured me about how it's a "sign of respect" so we deferred to her wishes. So now the baby will have a Kazakh last name, and a Kazakh middle name.

Sometimes DH says he wants a Kazakh first name too, but I feel like, what about my side of the family? What about my culture? I just want my heritage to be reflected in her name too. Plus, most Kazakh names just don't sound beautiful to English speakers. I mean, Jorg'zhan? Gaukhar? I think we've settled on naming the baby Nora, which DH is mostly cool with, but he still suggests Kazakh names sometimes. And when we told MIL and FIL that we chose the name for the baby, they said, "Oh, well Nora doesn't sound good in Kazakh, we'll make a list of Kazakh names for you to choose from." :

So how did you end up naming your kids? I think those Kyrgyz girls names are pretty! And what do your in laws think of their names?

[EdnaMarie]

Hello Hannahi and Gogogirl... mine is also from your neighbourhood. I chose names that were from history and common to both cultures, which would be harder with the Turkic names than with his language, but still... it seems like there would be room for compromise. What about Muslim names that are common in our culture, or more common, like Aisha or Layla or Mariam or Fatima?

[hannahi]

So how did you end up naming your kids? I think those Kyrgyz girls names are pretty! And what do your in laws think of their names

We have one child (a boy) whom we named Kai Jonah. DH warmed up to the idea of choosing a non-Kyrgyz name towards the end of my pregnancy, and was especially convinced that it was good for me to make the final decision after seeing how hard the labor was for me. My in-laws like the name.
I think Nora is a good choice even if it doesn't sound good in Kazakh (which of course I have no way of judging!). My dh has an aunt named Nuriya, I wonder if that name is also used in Kazakhstan, and if so, you could use that as a nickname for her, perhaps?

Hello Hannahi and Gogogirl... mine is also from your neighbourhood. I chose names that were from history and common to both cultures, which would be harder with the Turkic names than with his language, but still... it seems like there would be room for compromise. What about Muslim names that are common in our culture, or more common, like Aisha or Layla or Mariam or Fatima?

Nice to meet you! I like all of those girls' names, too.

[Bekka]

Mozhno govorit' vmeste s vami? Menya zovut Beki, i ya izuchala russkiyu yazyku v universitete.

I never, never went to Russia, but I LOVE all things Russian--Okay, most things Russian. No clue how to make my keyboard do Cyrillic. My youngest dd is 2 and finally I have a child who will speak Russian back to me! We have fun counting in Russian, and I hope to start naming things in Russian soon. I just want it to be a fun game for her. My older dd's thought it was "weird." So I got discouraged.

Shto eto? Eto chleb. Mom, that's not chleb, that's bread.

[GoGoGirl]

Originally Posted by EdnaMarie

Hello Hannahi and Gogogirl... mine is also from your neighbourhood. I chose names that were from history and common to both cultures, which would be harder with the Turkic names than with his language, but still... it seems like there would be room for compromise. What about Muslim names that are common in our culture, or more common, like Aisha or Layla or Mariam or Fatima?

Nice to meet you, EdnaMarie! I like the idea of finding names that work in both cultures. If we do go with a Kazakh(ish) name, that is what we'll do--use a Muslim name that's common in Kazakhstan and the US. DH likes Layla and Aliya. I like "old lady" American names, like Clara, Ruby, or Lily. I had a dream about the baby though, right after I conceived, and the baby in the dream was named Nora. So at this point we're saying, "well, if we end up having the baby from the dream, we'll name her Nora." And if not, hmm, I anticipate some naming debates in the first few days after she's born!

Hannahi, your son's name is super pretty! And how wonderful that your inlaws like it too! Is Kai easy to pronounce in Russian and Kyrgyz? Did that even matter to you?

And yeah, actually Nuriya is a Kazakh name too! When we told the inlaws about Nora, they suggested we name her Nuriya instead. Booooo! If this keeps up, I'm going to tell them, "Look, you got to choose your kids' names, and it's up to me and DH to choose OUR baby's name!" I figure if we ever live in Kazakhstan, or if the baby does when she grows up, she can go by Nuriya if she wants. It's a cute name!

[EVC]

Nice to see this thread back!

While doing some online Christmas shopping yesterday, I came across this site:

http://www.adoptedfromrussia.com/index.html

It has some really nice books and toys for Russian speaking kiddos

[EdnaMarie]

Originally Posted by GoGoGirl

Nice to meet you, EdnaMarie! I like the idea of finding names that work in both cultures. If we do go with a Kazakh(ish) name, that is what we'll do--use a Muslim name that's common in Kazakhstan and the US. DH likes Layla and Aliya. I like "old lady" American names, like Clara, Ruby, or Lily. I had a dream about the baby though, right after I conceived, and the baby in the dream was named Nora. So at this point we're saying, "well, if we end up having the baby from the dream, we'll name her Nora." And if not, hmm, I anticipate some naming debates in the first few days after she's born!

Hannahi, your son's name is super pretty! And how wonderful that your inlaws like it too! Is Kai easy to pronounce in Russian and Kyrgyz? Did that even matter to you?

And yeah, actually Nuriya is a Kazakh name too! When we told the inlaws about Nora, they suggested we name her Nuriya instead. Booooo! If this keeps up, I'm going to tell them, "Look, you got to choose your kids' names, and it's up to me and DH to choose OUR baby's name!" I figure if we ever live in Kazakhstan, or if the baby does when she grows up, she can go by Nuriya if she wants. It's a cute name!

Nuriya is actually Arabic in origin- nur, for light. Noria would be a variant spelling in English that you might both be able to agree on, you know? And then transliterate it to Nuriya.

Lily is Nilufar in Persian, also beautiful and sometimes used in Kyrghyzstan although it's not strictly speaking (well, at all) a Kyrghyz name. You could name her Lily and just tell her that's the English translation of her name, which is Nilufar.

Lola means poppy in Persian and Turkic. So there you go, what about Lola?

[GoGoGirl]

Originally Posted by EdnaMarie

Nuriya is actually Arabic in origin- nur, for light. Noria would be a variant spelling in English that you might both be able to agree on, you know? And then transliterate it to Nuriya.

Lily is Nilufar in Persian, also beautiful and sometimes used in Kyrghyzstan although it's not strictly speaking (well, at all) a Kyrghyz name. You could name her Lily and just tell her that's the English translation of her name, which is Nilufar.

Lola means poppy in Persian and Turkic. So there you go, what about Lola?

Ooh, Noria is pretty, and I love that it means light. The English version of Nora means honor, which isn't as meaningful to me. I'll keep Noria in mind. Thanks, Edna Marie!