Hello, it’s good to be back! Я целую неделю лежал в постели, с всеми признаками гриппой. (“I spent the entire week in bed with all the symptoms of flu.”) У меня были кашли, насморк в голове, лихорадка, и хуже всего, меня постоянно тошнило. (“I had coughing, head congestion, a fever, and worst of all, constantly felt nauseous.”) А теперь я вылечиваюсь, хотя я ещё не вполне поправился. (“But now I’m recovering, although still not completely back to normal.”) Короче — дорогие читатели, уберегитесь от гриппой! (“In short — dear readers, guard yourselves from the flu!”)

Anyway, I was just reading Yelena’s post about “Gangnam Style”, with all the Russian parodies of the Korean original. Мне очень понравились прикольные клипы — “I really enjoyed the cool videos”. (Although at various times I found myself wondering А как это видео не запретили в Питере, согласно с местным законом о так называемой гей-пропаганде?!, “How has this video not been banned in St. Petersburg, in accordance with the local law about so-called gay-propaganda?!”)

The third video (“Oppa, Russian Style”), in particular, как-то мне напоминает некоторые старые клипы шведской группы Army of Lovers — “to me it was somewhat reminiscent of certain old videos by the Swedish group…”. (If you don’t remember Army of Lovers, their videos were known for tongue-in-cheek satire, sexual humor, and outlandish costumes.)

Which is to say that Это видео немного похоже на клипы, исполненные группой Army of Lovers. (“This video somewhat resembles the videos performed by Army of Lovers”)

Which is to say that Видео «Russian Style» в некоторых подробностях подобно таким клипам как, на пример, «Israelism»”. (“The Russian Style video is similar, in certain details, to such videos as, for instance, Israelism.”)

As you can guess, the vocabulary theme for today’s post is the concept of “same” and “different,” and also how one expresses shades of meaning in between, such as “similar” or “reminiscent” or “slightly distinguishable”.

“The same” isn’t always translated the same…

For English speakers, the word “same” can be hard to render properly in Russian, because it has a number of different translations and the choice is highly context-dependent. If you mean “the same as (something already mentioned),” then the construction тот же (or тот же самый) is generally suitable. But when “same” implies “one together”, then you can use один. To illustrate:

Разве ты живёшь в доме №50, ул. Садовая? А десять лет назад, я снимал квартиру в том же самом доме!
Really, you live in #50 Sadovaya Street? 10 years ago, I used to rent an apartment in that same building!

Мария и Ольга живут в одном доме.
Maria and Olga live in the same building (as each other).

And один can express “the same” in quite a number of contexts. Оказалось, что мы летали в Калифорнию на одном рейсе. (“It turned out that we flew to California on the same flight.”) Они одного возраста — “They are (of) the same age.” And одноклассник means “someone in the same school grade; classmate” — which is not to be confused with первоклассник, “a first-grader”.

Also deriving from один is одинаковый, which means “absolutely the same; identical”. (Не путать со словом «одинокий». — “Don’t confuse it with the Russian word for lonely.”)

Они одинаковы по возрасту. (То же, как “Они одного возраста”)
“They are the same age.” (It means the same thing as “Они одного возраста”)

По моему мнению, все романы Дикенса — более или менее одинаковы.
“In my opinion, all Dickens novels are more or less indistinguishable from each other.”

А как будет по-русски «different»?

The best translation of “different” is also very context-dependent. When you mean “another” or “other than the one already mentioned,” you can use другой. However, when the sense is “various” or “more than two things that are all different,” it’s often better to use разный (which is most often encountered in the plural). And sometimes, you can translate “different”‘ by negating one of the expressions that signifies “same” — e.g., не одинаковый (“not identical”) or не тот же самый, как (“not the very same as”) or не сходный (“not similar”), and so forth. Вот вам разные примеры (“here are various examples for you”):

Мария и Ольга живут в одном доме, а Борис живёт в другом доме.
Maria and Olga live in the same building, but Boris lives in a different building.

Ольга и Борис живут не в одном доме.
Olga and Boris live in different buildings. (“in not the same building”)

Ольга и Борис живут в разных домах.
Olga and Boris live in (two) different buildings.

За свою жизнь, он жил в многих разных городах.
“During his lifetime, he lived in many different (various) cities.”

За свою жизнь, он жил и в Екатеринбурге и в многих других городах.
“During his lifetime, he lived in Yekaterinburg and many other cities.”

So much for translating the adjective “different.” But what’s the best way to say “differ” or “be different”? In general, you can use the verb отличаться/отличиться — which can be followed by от кого/чего to express the persons/things from which the subject is different, and by чем (i.e., an instrumental noun) to express the particular quality that distinguishes the subject from others:

«Доктор, наша внучка значительно отличается ростом от своих подруг того же возраста.»
“Doctor, our granddaughter is signficantly different in height from her (girl) friends of the same age.”

But bear in mind that отличаться/отличиться can also have a more literally reflexive meaning: “to distinguish oneself”, sometimes with the implication of “to excel, be outstanding”. From this particular sense comes the adjective отличный, “excellent”:

Солдат отличился свом мужеством.
“The soldier has distinguished himself by his courage.”

And, finally, the non-reflexive form отличать/отличить means “to tell apart (from others), to distinguish”:

У попугайчиков, довольно трудно отличать самца от самки без анализа крови (хотя птички сами, конечно, знают!).
“Among parakeets, it’s quite difficult to tell the male from the female without a blood test (although the birds themselves know, of course!)”