Tag Archives: Russian phrases
When Somebody Tries to Get Your Goat Posted by yelena on Jul 17, 2013
As a good old Russian saying goes, все болезни – от нервов (all illnesses are from stress). Actually, that’s only the first, the most-often quoted, half of the saying. Some say that yoga and meditation help deal with the daily stress. But a healthy dose of Russian can do the same as long as you…
Russian Phrases for Giving and Receiving Gifts Posted by yelena on Dec 7, 2012
Image Source: asenat29 via Flickr! It’s that time of the year for many of us to give and receive gifts. Whichever you like most, let’s learn the Russian gift-giving vocabulary just in time for the holidays. Since it’s so much fun to get gifts, let’s start with the verbs получать (imperfective: to get, to receive)…
How to Tell Time in Russian Posted by yelena on Nov 29, 2012
Image source: wstryder via Flickr I always thought one of the most useless sections in my old English-Russian разговорник (phrase book) was the one that taught how to tell time. After all, years ago most of us wore часы (watches). But now that we rely on cell phones to tell the time, the topic once again becomes…
A time to sow, a time to reap, a time to add fertilizer… Posted by Rob on Nov 27, 2012
That Ecclesiastes quotation (minus the fertilizer part) is traditionally translated from Hebrew to Russian as время насаждать, и время вырывать посаженное (“a time to put in the ground, a time to tear up that which was planted”) — though the familiar English phrasing we all know from the Byrds song can be directly rendered as…
Shopping, Lines and Discounts Posted by yelena on Nov 23, 2012
Image Source: crd! via Flickr! Today is the Black Friday in the US or Чёрная пятница. If you prefer to save, not spend, then ignore распродажи (sales) and instead learn how to talk about шоппинг (shopping) in Russian. SHOPPING By the way, the word шоппинг is a new one in Russian language. How did we manage to describe the process of…
Russian Phrases for a Road Trip Posted by yelena on Nov 9, 2012
Image Source: Flickr Summer, the official road trip season, is over. But the big holiday season не за горами (is just around the corner) meaning more поездки (road trips). Which is a great reason to learn words and phrases for the road. Of course, if you happen to go on a road trip in…
Лениниана Posted by yelena on Apr 24, 2012
Guess whose birthday is celebrated on April 22? Well, lots of famous and important people were born on this day, for example, Alexander Kerensky and Vladimir Nabokov. And, of course, Владимир Ильич Ульянов (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov) was born on this day back in 1870. He is usually better known by his alias, Ленин (Lenin). So let’s talk about Lenin’s influence…