The very awkward dinner party
15 September 2025 06:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeThese videos really are very cleverly done (and I think we can say from the evidence of this one that they were definitely *not* aimed at schoolchildren, with the humour here coming from the acute social embarrassment of our thirty-ish protagonist who is getting involved with a single mother while living under the thumb of his own masterful Mama!) The challenge is to incorporate the necessary amount of repetition and simplification without producing a tediously stilted result, and without giving the impression of talking down to the audience, whose social sophistication is literally years ahead of their primary-age comprehension level. Basically the audiovisual equivalent of the books written to attract struggling older children into reading (now dubbed high-low books: "age-appropriate subject matter at a low reading level").
In the previous lesson ("At the Hotel") we had the device of the little boy who kept repeating back every instruction given to his father ("because Mama says you always need reminding"); in this lesson we have the awkward conversation between two potential lovers ("Why don't you come and see me on Saturday, Ivan Ivanovich?"/"Come and see you? As a guest? You're inviting *me* -- as a guest?"/"Yes, of course I'm inviting you -- will you come?") plus the stilted small-talk as she bravely tries to fill the silence when he does arrive, while he tries to work out how to introduce the subject of the 'present' he has left outside the front door ;-)
In terms of comprehension they are probably really too easy for me (at least at this end of the 'course'; this is Lesson 12 of 30), but in terms of the actual exercises, simple as they are, I struggle considerably in simply pronouncing and repeating back the sentences, since my listening experience now exceeds my speaking experience by possibly several hundred hours (and certainly many dozens) at this point -- never mind the grammar!
After watching a few of these I was presented by YouTube with another series from the same era ("Let's get to know one another" from 1981), but that one -- somewhat to my relief, since I wasn't able to track down a playlist of the entire series, but only a couple of random episodes -- really is beneath my level, although it's also cleverly done and quite funny. The first episode I came across was all about a trip to Tallinn, which was surreal for reasons completely unrelated to the minimalist dialogue; the last (and only) time I had seen Tallinn, it was busy doubling as 17th-century France for the Soviet Musketeers films, and I could have sworn that the rustic inn gallery along which the two children run away from their parents was the identical one from which Boyarsky makes his fifteen-foot jump in the opening Meung scene of "D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers! (I *think* those scenes were all shot in Lvov...)
But the dialogue really was on the "Peter and Jane" level, though the scenarists managed to make it plausible, with the aid of a monosyllabic husband who prefers listening to his portable radio, and two irrepressible children who keep disappearing and/or quarrelling, enabling their parents to practise the phrase "where is" in multiple combinations. The story concludes with a farcical car-swap, in which the two mothers jump out of their identical Soviet cars to snap photos of the architecture and accidentally jump back into the wrong cars and drive off with the wrong husband and children: "where is my husband? where are my children?" :-p
(The following episode likewise revolved almost entirely around the phrase "what is your name?", in its tale of a young man who pursues a pretty blonde fruitlessly around the sun and sands of a Black Sea resort, only to discover they they are actually identical twins; this one is a little less credible in terms of conversation, and at this elementary level the vocabulary is inevitably incredibly limited, however much ingenuity has clearly been devoted to story-telling within those limits.)
The "We speak Russian" series, however, does stretch me at least slightly, and if nothing else is at least unintentionally educational about 1970s Soviet life, however idealised. (The comments tend to be along the lines of "There was no way you could just pick up the phone and get an immediate connection to another city" or "If you took an item for repair there would be a massive queue" :-p) The idea of being obliged to carry your passport with you and submit it before being allowed to book into a hotel room still makes me deeply uncomfortable -- the visceral English dislike of the command "Show your papers, please!", I suppose -- but of course the government is pushing us further and further in that direction in the present day, with constant paranoia about identity theft and dislike of 'illegal immigrants' accessing public services...
I'm not sure why the 1970s makeup (or lack thereof?) and hairstyles are so disturbingly attractive :-p
In the previous lesson ("At the Hotel") we had the device of the little boy who kept repeating back every instruction given to his father ("because Mama says you always need reminding"); in this lesson we have the awkward conversation between two potential lovers ("Why don't you come and see me on Saturday, Ivan Ivanovich?"/"Come and see you? As a guest? You're inviting *me* -- as a guest?"/"Yes, of course I'm inviting you -- will you come?") plus the stilted small-talk as she bravely tries to fill the silence when he does arrive, while he tries to work out how to introduce the subject of the 'present' he has left outside the front door ;-)
In terms of comprehension they are probably really too easy for me (at least at this end of the 'course'; this is Lesson 12 of 30), but in terms of the actual exercises, simple as they are, I struggle considerably in simply pronouncing and repeating back the sentences, since my listening experience now exceeds my speaking experience by possibly several hundred hours (and certainly many dozens) at this point -- never mind the grammar!
After watching a few of these I was presented by YouTube with another series from the same era ("Let's get to know one another" from 1981), but that one -- somewhat to my relief, since I wasn't able to track down a playlist of the entire series, but only a couple of random episodes -- really is beneath my level, although it's also cleverly done and quite funny. The first episode I came across was all about a trip to Tallinn, which was surreal for reasons completely unrelated to the minimalist dialogue; the last (and only) time I had seen Tallinn, it was busy doubling as 17th-century France for the Soviet Musketeers films, and I could have sworn that the rustic inn gallery along which the two children run away from their parents was the identical one from which Boyarsky makes his fifteen-foot jump in the opening Meung scene of "D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers! (I *think* those scenes were all shot in Lvov...)
But the dialogue really was on the "Peter and Jane" level, though the scenarists managed to make it plausible, with the aid of a monosyllabic husband who prefers listening to his portable radio, and two irrepressible children who keep disappearing and/or quarrelling, enabling their parents to practise the phrase "where is" in multiple combinations. The story concludes with a farcical car-swap, in which the two mothers jump out of their identical Soviet cars to snap photos of the architecture and accidentally jump back into the wrong cars and drive off with the wrong husband and children: "where is my husband? where are my children?" :-p
(The following episode likewise revolved almost entirely around the phrase "what is your name?", in its tale of a young man who pursues a pretty blonde fruitlessly around the sun and sands of a Black Sea resort, only to discover they they are actually identical twins; this one is a little less credible in terms of conversation, and at this elementary level the vocabulary is inevitably incredibly limited, however much ingenuity has clearly been devoted to story-telling within those limits.)
The "We speak Russian" series, however, does stretch me at least slightly, and if nothing else is at least unintentionally educational about 1970s Soviet life, however idealised. (The comments tend to be along the lines of "There was no way you could just pick up the phone and get an immediate connection to another city" or "If you took an item for repair there would be a massive queue" :-p) The idea of being obliged to carry your passport with you and submit it before being allowed to book into a hotel room still makes me deeply uncomfortable -- the visceral English dislike of the command "Show your papers, please!", I suppose -- but of course the government is pushing us further and further in that direction in the present day, with constant paranoia about identity theft and dislike of 'illegal immigrants' accessing public services...
I'm not sure why the 1970s makeup (or lack thereof?) and hairstyles are so disturbingly attractive :-p
no subject
Date: 2025-09-17 04:56 pm (UTC)I think of it as a 'right to vote' card. (I have a friend who didn't vote in the last election as he had no qualifying ID)
no subject
Date: 2025-09-17 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-17 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-17 05:13 pm (UTC)(Ironically I have just been re-reading Ben Aaronovitch's "Whispers Underground", where he introduces the character of an American FBI agent who says she can't believe how lax the voting requirements are in England (just as she has trouble with the idea that she isn't allowed to 'return fire' with the weapon she isn't supposed to have, even if people are shooting at her...))
no subject
Date: 2025-09-23 08:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-23 09:21 am (UTC)Incredibly low.
*Eight* convictions (plus 3 official police cautions) in the years 2020-2024, according to the Electoral Commission.
Unless of course you take the cynical view that the authorities are simply conniving at widespread wrongdoing, and there is -- and was -- no evidence of that.
Meanwhile tens of thousands of people were actively turned away at polling stations in the last general election after making the attempt to perform their civic duty, and hundreds of thousands were barred and didn't even attempt to vote.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-25 07:16 am (UTC)After all, richer people are far more likely to have passports/driving licence/etc.
Same thing with Trump and mail-in votes. Very useful for people who can't travel easily, can't afford time off work, etc.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-25 09:15 am (UTC)The Electoral Reform Society figures report that the majority of people affected are either under 25 or over 65, presumably because those are the people least likely to own a driving licence, and the over-sixties are normally regarded as more likely to be Conservative voters.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-23 09:28 am (UTC)