59
votes
Accepted
Why do Russians call their women expensive ("дорогая")?
There's nothing special about Russian. In many European languages there's one word that can be used to state that something is highly esteemed and/or expensive.
French - cher means both expensive (...
43
votes
Accepted
Russian word for a male zebra
Russian has a long standing tradition of narrating fables (stories featuring anthropomorphic animals).
In this tradition, the grammatical gender of name of the species (not necessarily the proper ...
- 52.2k
27
votes
Accepted
Speed and Velocity in Russian
The Russian word скорость is used for both speed and velocity. If you need to be more specific, use вектор скорости ('the vector of speed' or velocity) or модуль/величина вектора скорости ('the ...
- 16.1k
27
votes
Why does she say "Я понимаешь" and not "Я понимаю"?
Right punctuation is
Я, понимаешь, я это чувствую, потом мы всё наверстаем, я предчувствую
The translation is
I, you know, I'm feeling it, we will catch all then, I forefeel it.
"Понимаешь&...
- 1,158
21
votes
Russian word for a male zebra
Zebra is a kind of horse, so жеребец (meaning stallion, a male horse) would be a perfectly valid word to refer to a male zebra. Of course it has to be clear from the context that the male horse you're ...
- 812
20
votes
Is "мочиться" a vulgar or indecent word to any extent?
This is not indecent word. This is indecent theme (topic).
Therefore the speaker made an excuse.
- 8,346
20
votes
Accepted
The original word for a wild boar
You are probably looking for “вепрь”. While understandable to a modern Russian speaker, it still has an air of “fairytale-ness”. I personally would just use “кабан”. I don't know how and why “кабан” ...
- 1,527
20
votes
What's the difference between "люблю" and "обожаю"?
Люблю читать is 'I like reading' while your task was to translate 'I love reading'. 'To love' is neutral любить when referring to relationships between people, but when it refers to things or ...
- 26k
19
votes
Accepted
Is there a difference between "отель" and "гостиница"?
Well, they are interchangeable but oтель has subtle connotations of something more if not luxurious but at least of higher class, so one can hardly name something very shitty отель ( unless it is ...
- 37.9k
19
votes
Why do Russians call their women expensive ("дорогая")?
дорогой/ая is not only expensive, it's also dear, the word has at least two meanings
Not only women are called дорогая in the sense of dear, men are addressed as дорогой as well, in formal ...
- 19.6k
18
votes
Активируется vs активизируется
Кнопка активируется, когда заполнены все поля.
Активировать means to turn on,to make active what didn't work,to start a process. activate.
Активизировать means to make a process more active, to ...
- 21.4k
18
votes
Accepted
How can I say in Russian "I am not afraid to write anything"?
To eliminate the awkwardness of such double negations a safer approach is to (steer away from English patterns and) use сложноподчиненное предложение, e.g.:
Нет ничего, о чём я побоялась бы написать.
...
- 3,012
17
votes
Why are United Nations and United Arab Emirates translated as "Объединённые", but United States as "Соединённые"?
Объединять and its derivatives were not used in Russian before about 1850.
Kostomarov did use it time to time in his works, however, he mostly used соединить wherever a modern Russian speaker would ...
- 52.2k
17
votes
What is the difference between "ещё" and "больше"?
"Ещё" and "больше" intersect only partially and have a lot of usages that are by no means interchangeable.
"Ещё" can mean:
yet (like in "Я ещё не решил, идти ли мне в институт")
again (like in "...
- 37.9k
17
votes
What's the difference between "люблю" and "обожаю"?
I think that it's a three layered thing in Russian:
мне нравится читать
я люблю читать
я обожаю читать
Just like @V.V. also do believe that "я обожаю" is too strong here. After all, we'll end up ...
- 37.9k
16
votes
Accepted
Difference between "девушка", "девочка" and "подруга"
Подруга is the feminine form of "friend", друг and can mean, depending on the context, both: either just a friend or a girlfriend (though this is figurative and obsolete).
Девушка is a girl ...
- 37.9k
16
votes
Accepted
Is there any difference between "окно" and "окошко"?
Окошко is a diminutive for окно.
Russian readily uses diminutive forms for some nouns in their neutral meaning, like солнышко instead of солнце, листок instead of лист, червяк instead of червь etc.
...
- 52.2k
15
votes
Accepted
The difference between "свой" and "мой"
In this meaning свой means "belonging to the last agent in the sentence".
Алиса отдала Бобу свои деньги // Alice gave Bob her own (Alice's) money
Боб отдал Алисе свои деньги // Bob gave ...
- 52.2k
15
votes
Accepted
What's the difference between "благодарю" and "спасибо"?
They are interchangeable to a certain degree. Благодарю is much more formal. In some cases, it might also be considered more polite. This being said, Спасибо is absolutely "safe" and polite in any ...
15
votes
Accepted
What is the Russian word for the color "teal"?
When I was born, my parents owned zero houses. I would call this color бирюзовый (literally, "turquoise"). As far as I understand, it's another English word for "teal".
I own more ...
- 52.2k
14
votes
Difference between "прах" and "пепел"
Прах is remains of a dead human body, not necessarily cremated (мир праху его). The word is a little bookish and almost not used in everyday language.
Пепел is remains of any burnt thing (бумажный ...
- 4,319
14
votes
Accepted
The infinitive of "уймитесь"?
It's "уняться". Well, usually the answer supposed to be somewhat wider, but in this particular case that's virtually all that can be said)
UPD: To make this answer slightly more informative, here's ...
- 37.9k
14
votes
Accepted
Is there a positive Russian word for a whistleblower?
I think there is a good word изобличитель. In my opinion it suits perfectly. It has positive meaning for people who think that being a prophet gains a profit =) For people who think that unveiling ...
- 354
14
votes
Accepted
"Индустрия выдержала удар пандемией" - why instrumental here?
In this very case it is rather problematic to tell if it is a mistake or an intended pun. The Instrumental case names an instrument, and удар пандемией alludes to удар плетью or удар кулаком and ...
- 26k
13
votes
Accepted
"Одену" or "надену"
Надевать / надеть что-то (на кого-то) means "to put something on (someone)".
Одевать / одеть кого-то (во что-то) means "to dress someone (in something)".
The direct object (one ...
- 52.2k
13
votes
What's the difference between "вот" and "здесь"?
"Вот" does not mean "here" in the meaning of place. Never! You cannot say "Зонтик вот" meaning "the umbrella is here". You use it only pointing on something (Вот зонтик) or showing something (even ...
- 4,319
13
votes
Насмерть vs вусмерть
Those words have quite different domains of usage. In fact, any time you are talking about death, death literally, it's "насмерть" - разбиться насмерть. Also, when you are talking about extreme level ...
- 37.9k
13
votes
Accepted
Насколько архаично слово "магнитофон"? Что сегодня используется наиболее часто вместо него?
Магнитофон = tape recorder; соответственно, этот термин нисколько не архаичен, если используется по назначению (т.е. для описания именно этого устройства).
"Плеер", пожалуй, сейчас используется ...
- 3,098
13
votes
Why does Russian have three words for marriage?
We have more words related to the topic.Брак (wedlock,marriage ) is an official term.The verb is вступить в брак. It is related to both parties (a man and a woman ) Супружество (spousehood ) is the ...
- 21.4k
13
votes
Accepted
Why does Russian have three words for marriage?
This terminology isn't specific to Russian language. It's rather a common point for the whole Slavic culture.
Замужество ultimately means a status of a married woman who lives at her husband's place (...
- 15.3k
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