Questions tagged [usage]
Covers questions about the usage of a particular word or phrase in different situations and contexts.
584
questions
4
votes
3answers
477 views
Why is «Какого цвета» in genitive case?
I came across the sentence «Какого цвета платье?» today. I would've assumed that «Какого цвета» would be in the nominative case and was confused to see this construction. Is there a grammatical rule/...
1
vote
1answer
152 views
«Для» или «за»? – This store is for the purchase of
I was writing a paragraph, and a sentence within (and the previous sentence) is, in English:
(The first store sells mostly bulk produce.) The second store is (a) traditional (store), for the purchase ...
22
votes
4answers
5k views
Is there a Russian equivalent of “red flag”?
In English, the term red flag is used as a metaphor to mean a sign suggestive of a possible danger or problem:
(1) Boyfriend not showing you his home is a huge red flag. (Link)
(2) I've just spent ...
6
votes
8answers
2k views
How should I understand and translate “закатить истерику”?
Some time ago I took a test in which I had to translate some short texts from Russian into English. One of them contained the following sentence:
По приходу домой она закатила истерику.
My solution ...
2
votes
3answers
195 views
Do you know something - Вы знаете or Вы знаете ли or Вы не знаете?
I am unsure about these three ways of asking if someone knows something. I was told that in certain contexts, such as when asking for the time, Вы не знаете was the norm. On the other hand, I was told ...
10
votes
1answer
348 views
Difference between “в кухне” and “на кухне”
I was reading Chekov's short story Ионыч and in the first chapter I found the following sentences:
Когда в доме сидели гости, то в кухне стучали ножами.
Окна были отворены настежь, слышно было, как ...
3
votes
3answers
340 views
Is “Утерянные победы” really a good translation of the title of Manstein's book “Verlorene Siege”?
I recently shot through Manstein's Lost Victories in its English translation and later accidentally learned that the Russian translation of that book is titled Утерянные победы. As a learner of the ...
11
votes
9answers
3k views
How to elegantly say in Russian, “He was never to get what he wanted or, at least, what he said he wanted.”
I got an assignment to translate the following text into Russian:
But nothing in Voroshilov's carefully chosen words or courteous demeanor suggested the feverish activity in Berlin and Moscow that ...
14
votes
5answers
880 views
How can I say “start both hourglasses” in Russian?
I've been given the following task:
"Let's suppose you have an hourglass that measures 7 minutes and an hourglass that measures 4 minutes, and you need to time 9 minutes by using only these ...
26
votes
4answers
2k views
How can I understand this puzzling dialogue with “ну я имею в виду вообще”?
My Russian teacher recently had us, his students, listen some audio recordings of what he called "authentic everyday communications of Russians." We had to understand the dialogues and ...
3
votes
2answers
132 views
What's the difference between навлечь and привлечь?
What's the difference between those two words? Can i use only влечь?
4
votes
1answer
115 views
Is there any difference between в общем and в общем-то, and how do they differ from вообще-то?
Is there any difference between в общем and в общем-то, and how do they differ from вообще-то? I've always interpreted в общем(-то) as generally speaking/pretty much, and вообще-то as actually.
32
votes
3answers
3k views
What's the meaning of “у нас” in phrases like “он у нас умный”?
The grammatical construction у меня, literally at/near me, is the Russian way to express possession and is also used to express proximity:
У меня хорошая подруга. (I have a good friend.)
Она сейчас у ...
7
votes
2answers
223 views
“В об(о,е)их коробках оказались семена” - which vowel should I choose?
Some time ago I took a Russian test that contained the following question:
В об(о,е)их коробках оказались семена.
1) обоих
2) обеих
3) оба варианта корректны
4) оба варианта ...
1
vote
1answer
133 views
Comprehending these sentences from the story “Рукавичка”
Excerpt:
“…А ты кто? (1)
– А я кабан-клыкан. Пустите и меня! (2)
Вот беда, всем в рукавичку охота! (3)
– Тебе ведь и не влезть! (4)
– Как-нибудь влезу, пустите!” (5)
– Ну что ...
9
votes
5answers
324 views
How to respond to “За что тебе поставили четвёрку по сочинению?”
Some time ago I did a homework in which I had to complete two-phrase dialogues by writing a meaningful response to a given question. No context was provided for the questions. One of the questions was,...
4
votes
1answer
144 views
Is “чалый” a synonym of “рецидивист”?
Several websites I've come across state "чалый" as a synonym of "рецидивист", but I haven't been able to find any definitions of чалый that would suggest it's synonymous with рецидивист.
Are they ...
17
votes
8answers
3k views
“Член клуба” - how to use “член” in feminine here?
Let's consider this sentence:
I'm a member of the Japanese Renju Association.
A member translates into Russian as член, but the grammatical gender of this word is masculine, so I'm curious how I can ...
4
votes
1answer
174 views
My dictionary sometimes lists two imperfective forms
Consider the verb to send, which my dictionary translates as *посылать (imp.), слать (imp.), послать (perf.). My question is about those cases in which there are two imperfective forms, like in this ...
5
votes
1answer
214 views
Meaning difference between до свидания, до скорого and до встречи
I have been learning Russian for quite some time now and I have recently doubled my sources, adding another app. With no big surprise for me, some things do not align, in particular about greetings ...
2
votes
1answer
298 views
Using Russian-style smile in business conversation )
As a freelancer I recently got in contact with a russian agency on LinkedIn. This person used the 'russian-style smile face' ) quite a lot.
In order to sympathize with this person I was tempted to ...
7
votes
3answers
409 views
Logic behind structures like «в общей сложности»
In one formal texts I encountered this "в общей сложности" used when addressing the total amount of something. An example context below:
В общей сложности страны СНГ продемонстрировали падение ...
5
votes
3answers
776 views
Is it correct to say, “Не врачам этого не понять”?
A former chief sanitary inspector of Russia, Mr. Onishchenko, recently said the following about the chief infection control doctor of the Stavropol region, Ms. Sannikova:
Она долго работает ...
6
votes
5answers
204 views
Difference between “объединяйтесь” and “соединяйтесь”?
Background
I recently saw a translation of the well-known motto "Workers of the world, unite!", but when I looked into it, I found out that there are at least two possible translations:
Пролетарии ...
12
votes
7answers
967 views
How should I translate “the fighting boar” in Grenfell's poem into Russian?
My Russian teacher, whom you know by his tough approach to teaching the language, strongly pushed me to try to translate English poems into Russian, and we agreed I'd have a look at Hymn to the Wild ...
3
votes
7answers
644 views
Why do Russians say that all men are billy goats (все мужики козлы)?
I was given a Russian song as a listening exercise, and, as far as I could discern, its chorus is:
И мы не устаем, и с ночи до утра
Мы можем говорить, говорить о мужиках.
Бокал до дна в трудные ...
27
votes
4answers
8k views
Why do Russians call some women a dynamo (динамо)?
In English, you call a person a dynamo to say that he or she is extremely energetic (e.g., she was a dynamo in London politics), but Russians mean something entirely different when they call someone a ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
How can I say in Russian “to see each other” and “to be exclusive to each other,” in the context of dating?
I cannot find the Russian phrases for these two stages of dating and am humbly asking for your help. I know that Russians say Маша встречается с Ваней (which literally means Masha regularly meets ...
0
votes
1answer
170 views
Russian For: No Smoking! [closed]
In England there are no-smoking signs at certain places.
What would be written in Russian? For: No Smoking!
Thanks.
21
votes
6answers
8k views
Why do Russians call a joke a stake (прикол)?
In modern Russian, прикол is a very frequently used word and means a joke, a funny incident, or just anything funny, but the original meaning of this word is very different: a stake to which a ship, a ...
6
votes
3answers
325 views
Difference between шоссе and автострада?
What are the differences between these two words? Is автострада just the same thing, but less used? Or do they have different meanings?
4
votes
6answers
384 views
Is it a mistake to say, “Oвчинки выделка не стоит”(sic!)?
In a recent essay of mine, I accidentally mixed up the grammatical cases in an idiom. Namely, I wrote:
овчинки выделка не стоит
The most common variant of this idiom is:
овчинка выделки не стоит
...
1
vote
2answers
219 views
What does “тоже мне” mean? [closed]
What is the best way to translate these?
Тоже мне!
Тоже мне герой.
Тоже мне новость.
-
1
vote
3answers
366 views
Does the famous Russian translation of Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll imply using drugs?
I recently came across the famous Soviet-era translation by Dina Orlovskaya of Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, which is a part of a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and that translation ...
6
votes
4answers
689 views
Moving a preposition to after the object
Curious as to what the Russians think about Japanese cars, I did some research and saw an article with the following title:
Не престижа ради, а токмо драйва для
I knew that ради is an exceptional ...
8
votes
3answers
453 views
What's wrong with “я подсела к стене”?
I wrote in an essay,
В зале стоял длинный стол с закусками, один из концов которого упирался в стену. Мы подошли к столу и стали за него садиться. Я подсела к стене.
My teacher marked the last ...
5
votes
5answers
486 views
Is there a positive Russian word for a whistleblower?
Let's suppose some students gather every evening in a student dormitory and make loud noise till late night by playing guitar, talking, singing, laughing, etc., and a female student from the same ...
3
votes
2answers
266 views
What is the difference between “расскажу о тебе” and “расскажу про тебя”?
(1) Я ему расскажу о тебе.
(2) Я ему расскажу про тебя.
I know that each of these sentences roughly translates as I will tell him about you, but what is the difference? Do the connotations or ...
3
votes
1answer
157 views
Usage of “будет” in phrases like “эта задача посложнее будет”
I translated the following snippet for a Russian friend. The last line I translated as "Now this is going to be a bit more difficult." But my friend insists that this doesn't have a future ...
1
vote
5answers
493 views
What is the meaning of: “Войну ждали. Но она пришла неожиданно.”?
I recently read an article in Russian written by a doctor of art science for the journal Живая история, and that article is about the Soviet-German war and starts with the following two sentences:
...
4
votes
1answer
993 views
Why do Russians refer to flatterers as “downlickers” (подлизы)?
Usually used to refer to a flatterer, the Russian word подлиза literally means a downlicker: the prefix под- means down, below, beneath, or under, and the root -лиз- is common to Russian words about ...
4
votes
3answers
384 views
What does “я сейчас в неадеквате” mean?
I just sent a message to a language exchange partner and instantly received the following response:
давай завтра, я сейчас в неадеквате
What does this expression mean? Has he tied one on?
5
votes
5answers
608 views
Why are German soldiers of WWII commonly referred to in the Russian language as fascists (фашисты)?
I read quite a few Russian materials about WWII and noticed that Russians commonly refer to German soldiers of WWII as фашисты (fascists). Here are some typical examples:
(1) Фашисты заняли ...
6
votes
2answers
244 views
How to complete “налей мне” and “отдай мне обратно”: “чаёк,” “чайка,” or “чайку”?
Here is a question in a test:
Как корректно закончить следующие предложения?
Налей мне ... .
(а) чаёк
(б) чайка
(в) чайку
Отдай мне обратно ... .
(а) чаёк
(б) чайка
(в) чайку
I am at a loss as ...
15
votes
4answers
573 views
“Я считаю Пушкина более талантливым поэтом, чем Блок” or “чем Блокa”?
Here I am sitting late in the evening, struggling with a home test devised by a university teacher of mine, and here is a question in the test:
Как корректно закончить следующее предложение?
Я считаю ...
4
votes
1answer
88 views
Semantic effect of postposing a quantifying adjective from its noun
I recently read this sentence in a story related by a very good writer:
Щен за мной увязался годовалый, за пальто покусывает. Кинула я ему эту
слойку – отстал.
In trying to render the meaning ...
5
votes
2answers
248 views
Meaning of “встал колом”
In this passage, I'm wondering if встал колом is correct (I didn't write this - it was written by a native Russian speaker on a forum for anecdotes), and if so, what is the literal interpretation word ...
9
votes
8answers
549 views
What does the idiom “что уж там” mean?
I am very much puzzled by the idiom "что уж там" and its sister "чего уж там". Let me show you a few sentences:
(1) Давайте везде курить, что уж там, детям в лицо: депутат Госдумы ...
6
votes
3answers
1k views
How is погода (weather) a count noun?
Wiktionary says that the word погода (weather) has a plural form: погоды.
I see in Google that although the word is usually used in the singular form, the plural form is used either. For example, ...
3
votes
3answers
264 views
“Лицам старше 16 лет и более 70 кг” - тут логическое “и” или “или”?
На детской площадке запрещается:
пользоваться детским оборудованием лицам старше 16 лет и более 70 кг
(Source)
May I use the playground equipment if the above rule is to be interpreted formally as ...
