What's so funny about Russia?

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I know nothing about japanese symbols (or chinese either). Is there an alphabet in there somewhere? Or is each symbol unconnected and they all have to be learned individually?

My dad is pretty smart, but he never got the english spelling either. He was a builder for 40 years before he learned to write brick instead of brik.
Phonetic all the way.

the numbers in Japanese [phonetic]:
1 一 [ichi]
2二 [nii]
3三 [san]
4四 [shii]
5五 [goh]
6六 [roku]
7七 [hiichii]
8八 [hahchii]
9九 [koo]
10十 [joo]
as far as i can tell, no individual letter sounds like ABC etc. but there are five vowel sounds [ah-eh-ee-oh-oo] that must be learned together with 46 syllabic sounds [analogous to phonemes in english] called hiragana. they look like this-

my mother thought i wasn't smart enough to learn japanese, and in fact that is what my school told her, instructing her to never speak it around me lest i be confused. i feel stunted from not having learned it when i was in the age range of brain plasticity regarding acquisition of language fluency.

Nikolai:
"What's that clicking noise? Oh, I'm out of ammo!!"
"I'm deadly, I'm fast...I'm drunk."
"Who are you, ****ing Rasputin? Stay dead this time!"
"Stay away from my Vodka!"
"Ah, the same weapon I used to kill my third wife! She was b****!"
"I had more powerful weapons on my pig farm!"
"This will hurt like syphilis. Believe me, I know."
"Don't make me fight with broken vodka bottle!"
"Soviet war machine grind to halt without ammo!"
"I have vodka, BUT NO ****ING AMMO!"
"In Russia, I kill bears TEN TIMES your size!"
"I'll drink to that! Hell, I'll drink to anything!"
"It's a distillery!...Oh, no, it's just a teleporter."
"Balls, check. Vodka, check. Okay I'm good."
"****! They're between me and my vodka!"
"You capitalist pigdogs!"
"Ha! You cannot even beat a drunk Soviet!"
"I can barely see, but that sounded like it hit his head!"
"Never mess with a Russian when drinks are on the line!"
"My aim is straight. My vision is blurry."
"If this were Russian, it would be free. Just big lines."
"Either I'm drunk, or I'm holding two guns!"
"Guess I'll have to use my bare hands, like with my fourth wife. (pause) Always talking..."
"I used this to kill a bear once, she was also my first wife."
"How am I supposed to hold my vodka if I have to carry both of these?"
"It's like finding extra vodka in your pocket."
"First objective: Turn on power. Second objective: Drink, or vice versa, you know what I'd choose!"
"Nothing says trouble like a drunk Russian with an machine gun"

There's no denying that he is a great/funny character....so long as you don't take him seriously but fact is that not everyone who plays COD:BO2 is mature enough to realize that he is a character and not a true representation of Russians and I bet you there are impressionable little teenagers out there that are playing it and thinking "oh yeah Russians are all like this".

I'm sure all those symbols are logical and straightforward.

I feel stunted just looking at that!
I never did Japanese at school, but I am pretty sure they used romanji (which I never heard of until looked it up after you referred to it).
I am glad I learned russian even though I have never been to Russia. I think it is a shame when people lose touch with their roots. Worse when it was decided for you.

I don't know, reminds me a lot of my relatives. Personally, I don't drink anymore but I sure like machine guns and I do run out of ammo quite a lot. I can kinda relate to this character.

on the face of it, it doesn't seem that hard to learn, or at least it is probably easier for a person to learn japanese than english, at least according to my late mother.


join the club i do wish i coulda learned it, only because there is something about japanese culture which is like a nesting doll inside of me, it resonates with me on a psychic emotional level. i do want to see fukui [where my mother was born], it is a deep yearning inside of me, like japan calls to me. but there is no hope for it in this lifetime.

our fragment of the japanese side [of my family tree] lost touch 60 years ago, permanently severed.

I've not read the whole thread but bare in mind that people will laugh at Rotary too (i'm a member of Rotaract that is sponsored by rotary and get people say silly things about it).

Are you sure it's permanently? No chance to track them down? Maybe at least online to see if anyone's around anymore?

our japanese family name is quite common, about like smith in america. not a chance of narrowing it down as i lack my late mother's mother's name [her family gave her up for adoption and no records were kept]. and the father apparently was not in the picture, either. i'm an orphan, so to speak.

i am told that this situation is very common around the world, that family trees seldom hold together more than about 4 generations before splitting apart irrevocably. we already lost my dad's ancestors' side of the family decades ago.

Why?

P.S. Read the whole thread. It seems like I have been in a haze when I was in Russia. I don't remember many of the words you referred to, it seems like street slang I never picked up on back then. And Russian is actually considered to be one of the hardest languages in the world to learn. Not English, though.

Thanks for all the replies! I guess I just need to speak up more. I don't because I get afraid that I won't be able to defend myself adequately in this case.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FadxoETtLHM[/youtube]

I was in Russia twice and I loved the place. Though Russia is a bit behind us I have so many fond memories of my 2 trips which was based on an intense obsession. For the most part most of the people are warm and friendly and I blended in so well that everyone thought I was Russian. But, I have been told that many citizens would like to have communism come back too. Anyhow I don't see anything funny about Russia and people shouldn't laugh unless they have been there. Please don't be ashamed of your name either. I love the Russian language and the Russian names.

In fact the Russian language and alphabet makes more sense to me than English. I may have to brush up on my Russian again.

Holy crap. That gave me a lot of mixed feelings, from wonder at people's creativity, and stupidity, to a touch of gratitude that our councils are not as bad as they could be. (still a pain in the ass though)

That song is going to hang around in my head a while. Will probably have to learn it.