Dawned on me I failed to report back on my Russian class last week.
Sadly, I missed Wednesday. The other student and instructor spoke about Russian rap-battles, which apparently are all the rage here. Had no idea. The only rap battle I know anything about is at the end of the film
8 Mile. Not even sure that's what rap battles really are.
But here? They are the biggest thing going. So for Friday's class I listened to a youtube link about a recent famous battle between
Oxxxymiron and Gnoyniy. That's 20+ minutes of my life I'll never get back. There's also this
article explaining what the hell these battles are all about.
I decided to get to the point and looked up this
battle that everyone's talking about. Yowza. Talk about colloquial and fast. The "yeah booooy's" are a nice addition /sarc/. Some nice
мат in there as well. Still, no desire to listen to one ever again.
So I was prepared for Friday's class...when my classmate, who brought this stupid topic up, wasn't there! I don't know where the hell she was, but I'm going to have to "thank" her on Wednesday when I see her. It wasn't all a loss though. The instructor and I did talk about language, and whether or not things like rap battles (and social media, advertisements, etc) degrade or enrich language. She said that there are two camps in Russia right now about these things: those who consider them the updated and current versions of the poetry duels that used to happen in Russia years (and years) ago. Others think these rap battles are degrading the language. Some nice discussion out of that, and some good vocabulary, both new and remembered:
царапать/по- to scratch, scrape, tear
покровитель protector, sponsor, patron
в настоящем времени vs.
в настоящее время (in the) present tense vs. now, presently
размяться to limber up, warm up, c.f.
разминкапортить to spoil, blunder, blemish, c.f.
порча