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Tag Archives: useful Russian phrases

Time for a little spring cleaning (Emphasis on “a little”) Posted by on Apr 19, 2013

Here in the Washington DC area, весна немного опоздала в этом году (spring was a little late this year) — I mean, we were still having a steady spell of ненастье (chilly wet weather) right through the end of March, followed by several unpleasantly знойныe ночи (sultry hot) nights in April. А теперь на дворе…

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A Russian fairy-tale with no moral whatsoever? (Plus: Bonus “Santa horror”!) Posted by on Dec 18, 2012

Last week, I briefly mentioned a classic сказка called Два мороза (“The Two Frosts”) — in which the Frost Brothers (one with a blue nose, one with a red nose) attempt to freeze a барин (“rich man”) who’s dressed in furs and a мужик (here: “male peasant”) with a thin coat. (It turns out that…

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The care and feeding of pets (but especially rats!) Posted by on Nov 13, 2012

Может быть, вы думаете завести какого-нибудь питомца? (“Maybe you’re thinking about getting some kind of pet?”) But perhaps a cat or a dog wouldn’t fit into your образ жизни (“lifestyle”) — or your apartment. In that case, allow me to recommend the lovable серая крыса (lit., “gray rat”), commonly known in English as the “Norway…

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There’s a chill in the air… Posted by on Oct 15, 2012

Осень пришла (“fall has arrived”), at least officially, and at least for those of us на северном полушарии (“in the Northern hemisphere”). Двадцать второго сентября было равноденствие (“The 22nd of September was the equinox”). Cмотря где живёшь, ещё не очень холодно днём. (“Depending on where you live, it’s still not very cold during the day.”)…

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“Dreamin’ is free…” Posted by on Oct 10, 2012

So goes a line from an old Blondie song — you could translate it as можно видеть сны бесплатно (“one pays nothing to dream”). And “dreams” are the theme for today, because позавчера мне снился странный-престранный сон. (“The day before yesterday I had an oh-so-strange dream.”) Although maybe кошмар, “nightmare,” would be more apt! Во…

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“Sit down, stand up, lie, lay, lain!” (Verbs of Position) Posted by on Oct 3, 2012

[Note: My original post made a few errors with prepositions and noun cases that have now been fixed!] I think I’ve mentioned that my first-year college Russian textbook illuminated the verb лежать included the grimly Dostoyevskian example sentence: Труп лежит на полу. The corpse is lying on the floor.   Well, that’s one verb I’ll…

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We must cultivate our garden! (or, more about tools) Posted by on Sep 26, 2012

In Monday’s post, I talked about some of the basic ручные инструменты (“hand tools”) that might be employed by a плотник (“carpenter”) or a сантехник (“plumber”) — as well as some of the verbs that go along with these tools. Today, we’ll take that theme out into to the огород (“backyard vegetable patch”), with some…

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