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Informationen zum Autor Edward Topol, illustrated by Kim Wilson Brandt Klappentext Not even Tolstoy would dare use the eyebrow-raising Russian you'll find in this wickedly humorous language guide by one of Russia's bestselling novelists today. Whether you're traveling to Russia for the first time or you are a student of the language, this indispensable book is your entree to the real and new Russian that has never been taught. You'll be armored with triple-decker curses and insults, endearments and expressions for situations ranging from high-level business meetings to cocktail parties to sexual encounters. Filled with words, idioms, and vulgarisms you won't learn in a classroom, plus twenty hilarious line drawings and a complete index to vital expletives, Dermo! will provide you with the uncensored answers to the questions you always wanted to know... but no translator would ever tell you! DERMO! The REAL Russian Tolstoy Never Used ZVER’ MUZHIK A sex machine. (literally, “animal man.”) KAK ZHIZN’? How’s life? KRYSHA POEKHALA To go bonkers. (literally, “the roof is sliding.”) NA KOI PES? What the hell? (literally, “on whose dog?”) STROIT’ GLAZKI To flirt. (literally, “to build eyes.”) YA TEBYA LYUBLYU I love you. EDWARD TOPOL is one of Russia’s best-selling novelists. Edward Topol Translated by Laura E. Wolfson Illustrations by Kim Wilson Brandt Acknowledgments The author thanks the publisher for the honor of presenting to an English-speaking readership the rich treasures and the soul of the great Russian language. The author also thanks translator Laura E. Wolfson, who in translating this book of Russian slang and swear words performed a most difficult task and successfully expressed the essence of the Russian soul in English. An enormous thanks to the editor Julia Serebrinsky for the care and attention she’s given to this rather unladylike project. Translator’s Note Reader beware: The verses that appear in this book in English translation accompanied by their Russian originals are not literal translations. Some liberties have been taken in order to achieve greater literary effect. Russian words presented in the Roman alphabet have not been transliterated according to any of the standard transliteration systems; priority has been placed on ease of pronunciation. The translator wishes to thank GHK for his invaluable expertise and assistance with Cyrillic software during the translation of this book. I will now reveal to you the secret of Russian as spoken by real people. But first, a brief introduction. The great Russian author Ivan Turgenev, famous for his novel Fathers and Sons , his lyrical descriptions of the Russian countryside and his insights into the hearts and souls of Russian women, once proclaimed: “In time of doubt, in time of agonizing reflection, you have always been my mainstay and my hope, oh great and mighty Russian language! . . . There can be no doubt but that such a language was conferred upon a great people!” Ironically, Turgenev himself preferred to live in Paris with the French singer Paulina Viardot, a fact which people in Russia would rather overlook. I have never heard the British say that English is a great and mighty language, nor do I recall ever hearing the French speak of the great French soul, but Russians tend toward gigantomania: Peter is Peter the Great, Catherine is Catherine the Great, Tolstoy is great, Stalin is great, Mother Russia is great, literature is great, snowfalls are never anything but great, and on the map of Russia there are twenty-four cities containing the word “great”: Great Lip, Great Ruble, Great Digging, and Great Deafness, to name a few. It’...
