Happy Birthday: Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who, aboard the first successful crewed spaceflight, became the first human to journey into outer space. Travelling on Vostok 1, Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961, with his flight taking 108 minutes. By achieving this major milestone for the Soviet Union amidst the Space Race, he became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including the nation's highest distinction: Hero of the Soviet Union.
19 comments:
I have just found out I have been saying his name wrong this whole time. I thought it was Gragarian
Erm..... CLOSE!
I know...I'm a dummy sometimes. But Russian is hard for me, lol
Oh, I think Russia is hard on EVERYONE.... [grin]
Not the worst language you can learn. It's still related to ours.
But hey, I knew he died young but not I realize he could have still been alive at 90.
Language both interests and baffles me. I'm OK with English and know a smattering of words/phrases in 5-6 other languages but a foreign language, ANY foreign language, just didn't 'take' with me. We "learnt" French in school but I was never comfortable with it. I had a *crash* course in German but never really understood how it worked... Maybe I just don't have a language brain?
Gagarin died in a plane crash - which I guess is very much an occupational hazard for a pilot... I have a biography of him in a stack of books. Maybe this year I read it!
Most people who live in a country whose language is spoken worldwide, don't get a lot of education in languages so they think they are "bad" at it. Such a shame. If you are Danish or Dutch or Finnish, for example, you have no choice, you have to learn at least two foreign languages. I say at least. And they manage. So, I guess if you had to, you would manage as well.
I knew about Gagarin's plane crash but I have never read a biography about him. Should be interesting.
I think Irish and Welsh are harder though. So many vowels and double consonants and whyyyyyyyyyyy
I do love hearing people speaking Welsh when I'm over there. Such a beautifully musical language. Bloody DIFFICULT though!
@ Marianne: I think its definitely harder in some ways living in a country with one dominant language and no near neighbours to 'force' you to practice a 2nd language. When on holiday on mainland Europe I was always *most* impressed by how many people could speak *at least* English & their own language. More often they could easily speak 3 or more and quickly switch between them. We always felt humbled and rather embarrassed by the experience...!
Welsh and Irish are definitely harder for us Indogermanic people.
And I totally agree, it is harder when everyone around you speaks your language. I had that problem in NL at the beginning, people would always respond to my Dutch sentences in German. I just carried on speaking Dutch, even if they ignored that.
I always like hearing other languages. The first thing I do is try to figure out *which* language it is - not always easy at normal talking speed!
My bus to work in the morning used to sound, at times, like the United Nations (I worked quite near a University & a few international businesses) and it wasn't unusual to hear Urdu/Hindi, Chinese, Polish and a smattering of West European languages on my 40 minute trip.
One of the funniest times was when an Italian father & son go on and there was a black family (about 5-6 adults & teenagers) sitting in the middle of the bus. One of them asked the Italian father something and then all of them started talking in fluent Italian. The little boy was mesmerised and obviously asked (again in Italian) where the black family was from. "Negro Italiano" I heard one of them say. The boy looked blank and then the family & his father just fell about laughing. Very funny!
It was sad, too. Gargarin was barred from other missions because the Soviets wanted to safeguard the hero against getting killed, and then he died anyway.
Imagine being the first human in space... and then having to spend the rest of your life in bubble-wrap..... [shudder]
I tried learning Irish with duolingo but I gave up. I am not good at it.
I was learning some Cantonise from a Hong Kong Chinese couple I often bumped into on my local walks but they moved away... I picked up a few words - mostly 'Hello' and 'How are you?' but it was a start.... [grin]
I've tried some Finnish lately, we had intended to go there this year. Might not happen. But Finnish is a funny language - very hard because it's not related to any other language in the world except for slight similarities to Hungarian.
VERY odd.....! I hope you get there. From what I've seen it looks like an amazing (and lovely) country.
I've been before. It is beautiful, like all the Scandinavian countries.
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