Мышка идёт в разведку / A mouse goes into recon

Я вздохнула, "Интересно что там за мир такой за диваном..." "Да, мне тоже интересно," согласилась Мурка и задумалась. "Если Проход скоро не закроется мы узнаем." "А как? Ты всё-таки пойдёшь туда?" "Не я - мышка пойдёт." "Она вроде не умеет ходить," я показала Мурке свою обглоданную резиновую мышку. "Нет не эта - настоящая мышка. Я сейчас пойду поймаю." "А где?" "На помойке. Там их полно." "Ой какое замечательное место помойка! Я так туда хочу!"

I sighed, "I wonder what kind of a world is behind that sofa..." "Yes, I'm curious, too," agreed Murka, thinking. "If the Passage won't close up soon we'll find out." "How? Are you going in there after all?" "Not me - a mouse will go." "I don't think she can walk," I held up my chewed up rubber mouse. "Not this one - a real mouse. I'll go catch one right away." "Where?" "In the garbage. There are lots of them in there." "Wow, what a wonderful place garbage! I want to go there!"

Бы (would) может/может быть (may/might)

You can add Бы(bi) to any past tense of a verb. Like:
Я пошла в кино (I went to a movie) - Я бы пошла в кино (I would go to a movie)
Он позвонил (He called) - Он бы позвонил (He would call)
So, how does it feel? There is a subtle difference between Russian and English "woulds":

Barsik explains why language gets in the way of telepathy (All-knowing)

Представь себе, что прыгает мячик, но тебе хочется чтобы он лежал на земле. Каждый раз когда он подпрыгивает, ты его ударяешь, но от твоих ударов он продолжает подпрыгивать. Если бы ты его не трогала, он бы перестал прыгать и улёгся бы смирно. Тоже самое сo Всезнанием. Допустим, я задумал цвет и тебе мысленно посылаю. Взрослый человек не может мою мысль получить, потому что его мозгу делается скучно и он постоянно подсказывает: "это красный?" "а может жёлтый?" "синий?" Это всё равно как ударять по прыгающему мячику - получить чью-то мысль таким образом невозможно.

Imagine you have a bouncing ball and you want it to stay on the ground. So every time it comes up, you hit it down, but every time you do that, it bounces back up. If you'd just do nothing, eventually the ball would lie still. Same with All-knowing. Suppose I'm thinking a color for you to Know. You have to completely empty your mind to do that. But a grown-up can't do that, because the brain keeps getting impatient and kicks up a word: "is it red?" "how about yellow?" "blue?" and keeps doing it, just like beating the bouncing ball, so you can't ever Know the answer.

A bedbug Klop / Клоп

По моему одеялу ползло что-то тёмно-коричневое и круглое. Я в ужасе закричала. Мурка приоткрыла глаза, "Чего вопишь?" "Ползёт!" "Где, говоришь, ползёт?" "Тут в кровати!" Мурка приподняла голову и быстро переврнула ползущее вверх ногами. Оно задрыгало коротенькими ножками и заныло, "Прошу поставить на ноги сию-же минуту!" "Иж чего захотел!" сказала Мурка. "Кровопиец!"

On top of my blanket crawled something dark-brown and round. I screamed in fear. Murka opened her eyes slightly, "Why are you screaming?" "Something crawls!" "Where do you say it crawls?" "Here in bed!" Murka lifted her head and quickly flipped the crawling thing upside down. It started wiggling its legs in the air and whining, "I request to be put right side up immediately!" "Anything else you want!" said Murka. "Bloodsucker!"

What is work?

Я спросила Мурку: "Что такое работа? Мама всё говорит утром "Я пошла на работу." Куда это она всё ходит?" "Работа это такое место куда все взрослые должны ходить, но не хотят." "Почему должны ходить?" "Ты в магазине была..." "Была. И что?" "Все люди что там стоят за прилавками там работают. Это работа - стоять там и сторожить всё." "Это очень весело! Почему они не хотят это делать?" "Всё только весело один раз, или, по крайней мере, редко. Но весь день, каждый день - надоест даже рядом со сливками стоять. "

I asked Murka, "What is work? Mom says in the morning, 'I'm going to work.' Where is she always going?" "Work is such a place where all the grown-ups must go, but don't want to." "Why must go?" "You've been to the store..." "Been there. So what?" "All the people who stand behind the counters work there. That's work - to stand there and guard everything." "That's lots of fun! Why don't they want to do it?" "Everything is only fun once, or, at least, rarely. But every day - it will get boring even to stand next to the cream."

Russian prepositions explained

На (na) - on,
По (po) - on, upon, anlong, spread all over on top of
Об (ob) - at, against
Под (pod) - under
Против (protiv) - against something, like opposed
Напpотив (naprotiv) - across from
В (v) - in, inside
С (s) - from somewhere, from top of something, with
За (za) - behind something, at something, for someone like a sports team
Из за (iz za) - from behind of something
Из (iz) - from something, from inside of something
Вокруг (vokrug) - around
Около (okolo) - near

Examples:

Wish your friends a happy New Year in Russian

C Новым Годом!  - S Novim Godom - With New Year!
С Новым Счастьем! - S Novim Schastjem - With New Happiness!
Желаю Вам всего наилучшего! - Zhelayu Vam vsego nailuchshego - I wish you all the very best!

New Year's Eve in Russia

When I was growing up in Russia the New Year was The official Winter Holiday. I've never even heard of Christmas. Everyone I knew, and all the businesses celebrated New Year's. There were there same decorated fir trees everywhere and the presents under the trees, except they were exchanged on New Year's Eve. The presents were distributed not by Santa Claus, but Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost, not Father Frost! Ded means grandpa. Father is papa or otez.) and his charming granddaughter Snegurochka. Ded Moroz was basically the same guy as Santa, just a bit more pagan. His granddaughter Snegurochka had a very sad life - she died every spring, because she couldn't help herself and kept on falling in love with a human. She was ever trying to stay with her new boyfriend, instead of going back to the North Pole.

The colorful ways of Russian verbs

Russian verbs are probably the most versatile of all the world's languages.  Adding just about any preposition to pretty much any verb produces various flavors, intonations, moods, implications, double meanings, new meanings, and even entirely new words. You can make 8 words from the word "go" in Russian. How many words can you make from the same word in English? Let's see: forgo, prego - oops, that's not a verb, that's spaghetti sauce. That's about it. Most verbs in English you can do nothing with, but in Russian you can make at least 7 new words from any verb! Which makes Russian vocabulary at least 7 times more colorful than English, and, probably other languages.
Lets look at a couple of examples:

A word "Nu" - de-evolution in progress?

The word "nu" is super versatile, translates as "well" or "so". It used to be frowned upon by the intelligentsia, at least back when I used to live in Russia. It probably got a bad rep because the carriage drivers and the peasants used to say "N-nu!" to the horses to get them moving.  Somehow the word stuck and spread to the dismay of the finely bred.