Tag Archives: idioms
What Animal Are You Posted by Nadya on Aug 10, 2020
Humanity closely lives with animals under the same sky. It is no wonder that since ancient times, people have become accustomed to comparing each other to animals, birds, and fish. Such comparisons are made to describe a person’s appearance, traits of character, activity, behavior, or feelings. Animal similes in the Russian language In the Russian…
4 Russian Sayings With Animals Posted by Maria on May 6, 2019
Russian has quite a few sayings featuring animals—you can see our previous post on this subject here. This time, I wanted to add four more expressions you can occasionally hear in Russian speech. Кот напла́кал Кот is a male cat (the female form, ко‘шка is more common to talk about a random street cat whose sex…
Easy Does It: Sayings With Лёгкий Posted by Maria on Dec 1, 2016
Лёгкий means “easy” or “light” (weight-wise). Apart from being a useful word in its own right, лёгкий appears in a number of common sayings. Pronunciation note: don’t worry about trying to enunciate the г. This word is pronounced as if it were spelled “лёхкий.” A useful homonym is лёгкие (lungs, singular лёгкое). Лёгок на помине…
Birds’ Rights And Other Animal Idioms in Russian Posted by Maria on May 30, 2016
There are a few idioms referring to animals in Russian. These idioms are used in colloquial speech and expressive writing to get the idea across vividly. На птичьих правах Права is, of course, “rights” (singular право). Птичий comes from птица, bird, and means “bird’s.” На птичьих правах means “without a lawful status or claim to…
Sewing in Russian Posted by Maria on Sep 10, 2015
Perhaps some of our readers like to make their own clothes. If that’s the case, let’s review some of the basic sewing vocabulary to help you talk about your craft in Russian. Although sewing (шитьё, to sew – шить) is in the title of the post, other methods of making clothes include вяза́ть (на спи́цах) and вязать крючко́м…
Russian Phraseology: The Русская Душа! Posted by josefina on Mar 24, 2008
Already on the 28th of February 1866 a certain Mr. Fyodor Tyutchev [Фёдор Тютчев] realized what a mystery the Russian Soul is to us ‘non-Russians’ and that’s probably what he was thinking of when he wrote these classical lines: «Умом Россию не понять, Аршином общим не измерить, У ней особенная стать, В Россию можно только…