Da, Mi Gavarim Paruski (Yes, We Spik Russian)

Ok, I gave up after some mails with boisterous comments to my Yes, We Spik English post. Of course the abuse of English is not only happening in Russia or Ukraine but I came to see that a lot of people have serious understanding problems (or maybe this is the majority of my readers' profile)

So, with this in my mind, I was wastingmy precious Sunday time in a newly opened shopping mall in Istanbul in my neighborhood (Yes, we have a shopping mall in every neighborhood in Turkey and we are still lagging somewhere in the middle between Bulgaria and Syria, both geographically and in a sense of economic provess) and I have seen this in a French supermarket...I am speechless

Welcome to carrefour, where prices are as right as we welcome you

First of all, I would expect a French store to at least write it correctly in "French". It must be Bienvenue not Bien Venu(and think, I don't speak French) and the funnier side is about the last one. It is in Russian. But why Russian? It is a well known fact that my suburban neighborhood houses an oblivious female slavic community who enjoy their trade away from the suspicious eyes of the traditionally close packed neighborhoods of Istanbul. So the French or their Turkish henchmen store manager must have thought to add a slavic welcome to their store...but they did it so French. They looked up in the dictionary for "welcome" and have written not "Welcome" but "to welcome". "приветствовать"is the verb...

I now understand that why the Parisian Spring of 68 started as a democratic revolution but ended up in a couple of months with half of Paris devastated and the workers who watched the students got beaten in the streets from their TVs got a 40% raise...the students? they got their mixed dorms after all...so French :)

The infamous «да нет» (yes no)

Although I heard it a couple of times during meetings, I always thought of it as a casual error or a rare expression. Saying "Yes No" (at the same time) leaves a lot for imagination - think of a case when you ask your colleague whether she has correctly calculated the discount percentages and she replies "Yes No"- and you have to count on your sixth sense to guess if your counterpart agrees or disagrees to what you have just said...normally I was always wrong.

I have seen this article in Josefina's (a Swedish student in Siberia) blog and wanted to share it with you as my exclamation to end a years long curiosity. (and an ultimate undestanding that I will never speak Russian as Russians do)

Sometimes Russians may say something that sounds so strange that you cannot - even though you know the meaning of all the words in the sentence they just uttered - for the life of you understand what they mean. An example is the famous expression «да нет» [‘yes no'] which I up until a couple of days ago always thought was closer to «да» than «нет» but I was wrong. When Russians say «да нет» what they really mean is «нет». For example: «Ты пойдёшь завтра в кино?» [‘Are you going to the movies tomorrow?] «Да нет, не пойду»[No, I'm not going].