1st of September – Russian day of knowledge

This day is a very special day for Russian pupils and students. It is time to leave summer vacation behind and go back to school. Some are happy about it, some are not :-).

I still remember 1st of September when I was a kid. Lots of flowers for teachers, all the school gathered in a school yard, and some music, and something more... I'm not sure. I'm getting old, it seems.

Anyway, today is a special day for you and me, too. Because this blog officially starts! Yay!

Yay, anyone?

Anybody here?

Oh, I see some faces. Hello! Привет всем!

Today our studies fun starts. I do hope to make this blog a place where you can come to find answers to all your Russian language related questions. I'm not a teacher of Russian, I'm just a native, and I'm your source of modern and spoken language. Real people don't talk like they do in textbooks. And I'm going to show you how I talk, how my friends talk and people around me. I'm from Moscow, so of course I can't cover local dialects, but will you please forgive me for this? *begging eyes*

So, let's talk about... fingers!

Russian finger vocabulary

Strange topic, I know. But this is not a dry boring textbook, right? First, let's see how fingers are called in Russian:

пальцы: большой палец (literally big finger)

указательный палец (finger that points)

средний палец (middle finger)

безымянный палец (nameless finger, poor little boy T_T)

мизинец (tiny finger)

большой палец ноги... (big finger of a leg)

Wait. Fingers on legs? Yes, in Russian language fingers and toes are all пальцы. I still call toes as fingers sometimes. Or I can say that humans have 20 fingers :-D Двадцать пальцев: на ногах и на руках.

And now something more advanced. When Russians see someone who isn't willing to do anything about a certain matter, we say:

Он(она) палец о палец не ударит.

For example:

Во дворе его дома много снега, но Пётр палец о палец не ударит, чтобы убрать его.

There's a lot of snow in his yard, but Peter won't bother to clean it.

Вика всегда опаздывает, но она и пальцем о палец не ударит, чтобы исправиться.

Victoria is always late, but she won't change herself.

(Notice that we can also say пальцем о палец не ударит — meaning is the same.)

Another thing with fingers is палец в рот не клади/пальца в рот не клади. It comes from палец в рот не клади — по самый локоть откусит (don't put your finger to his mouth — he would bite your arm off). Eww. We say it about someone we don't really trust, who can be dangerous, someone who knows how to stand for himself.

Example:

Это суровый человек, ты ему палец в рот не клади.

This is a harsh man, watch your step with him.

And the last thing: по пальцам можно пересчитать — about something that you can count on your fingers, something in a small quantity. Like:

Все мои пары обуви можно по пальцам пересчитать.

I have so few pairs of shoes that you can count them on your fingers. (It's about me, actually...)

По пальцам можно пересчитать, сколько у Елены книг.

Elena has very few books. (I don't know her.)

So that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed and see you in the next one!