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Tag Archives: proverbs

Biblical Phrases in Russian Continued Posted by on Jun 9, 2016

mountain goat

Last time, we looked at some common Russian phrases that have a biblical origin. There was some interest in the topic, so let’s add a few more phrases — this time, let us concentrate on noun phrases. Just as last time, I cannot interpret these phrases theologically, but we can look at how they are used…

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Bread and Circuses: Russian Sayings of Latin Origin Posted by on Jun 2, 2016

woman holding a phone and a cup of coffee

The influence of Latin on science, philosophy, medicine, and theology cannot be overstated. One part of its legacy consists of popular sayings we use to this day, albeit sometimes in translation. This is true for both English and Russian (and I imagine, many other languages), so in this post we will look at some phrases…

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Act A Fool: Proverbs With Дурак In Russian Posted by on Jan 25, 2016

As the famous saying goes, «В Росси́и две пробле́мы: дураки́ и доро́ги» (“Russia has two problems – fools and bad roads”). There is a wealth of proverbs for a variety of occasions talking about fools. Дурака́м зако́н не пи́сан This literally means “There’s no law written for fools.” What’s implied is that the person…

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Comparative Degree in Russian Sayings Posted by on Mar 24, 2014

Within the larger subject of degrees of comparison, I would like to concentrate on the smaller group of adjectives and adverbs that form their comparative form with the -ше suffix. As you remember, the more prevalent pattern for forming the comparative is the -ней/нее suffix, such as холодно – холоднее. However, a number of high-frequency…

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Russian Proverbs and Sayings Posted by on Dec 1, 2010

«Дорогие читатели!» [Dear readers!] Today we are going to talk about «русские пословицы и поговорки» [Russian proverbs and sayings]. Every language has its peculiar turns of the phrase and we cannot hope to know them all–there are many sayings in English that I have never heard–but Russian in particular seems to have some very true…

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On the Seriousness of Russian Proverbs Posted by on Mar 31, 2010

Do you find it difficult to understand what Russian proverbs mean? You’re not alone! It has happened to us all. But to understand this part of Russian language is imperative because Russians take their proverbs seriously. Yes, they do.

The Splendor of Russian Proverbs! [Пословицы!] Posted by on Jan 17, 2009

The ‘Word of the Week’ that we’ve had here on this blog for a while now is a very good thing (it proved especially good when that “word” was «Барак Обама»), but what about making some changes in the new year and try ‘Proverb of the Week’ instead? If you really want to get to…

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