I’m Sorry, But THIS. This Is What Great Translation Is. Simple, Yet Genius. Shield — щит (pronounced

I’m not gonna lie, this is probably my favourite episode from Evening Urgant. This is a bit from the interview with Stephen Colbert.

What are they talking about? Stephen and Ivan are referring to the so called ‘White Nights’ (Белые ночи), which Saint-Petersburg is famous for. It’s a night when it is never properly dark. The White Nights’ season usually takes place from June 11th to July 2nd. By ‘the bridges’ Ivan meant the Palace Bridge, which draws at 1:10 AM and 3:10 AM.

A picture from Wikipedia taken in Saint-Petersburg. June 23rd, 2009, 11:49 PM

The Palace Bridge during White Nights

The original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT3VFQ8wYZg The cut version they showed at Stephen’s show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWnVV3-0wgw

I was reading something and came across this period: "Потомучто ты уже развосемь проштрафилась". I threw it in google translator, but the result didn't make a lot of sense to me lol. Can you please help me understand? Amazing blog, btw :)

Hi, sure thing!

I'm assuming it's the word "проштрафилась" that Google wasn't able to translate. It's a verb that comes from the noun "штраф" (fine, penalty). Про- is a prefix which indicates that the action was done particular number of times or in a particular period of time (e. g. "проговорить целый час, проделать два раза за неделю" etc.)

With all this information, "Потому что ты уже раз восемь проштрафилась" basically means "Its because you've already got a fine ticket like eight times now".

Hope I helped :)

Me in a restaurant

Waiter: here's your glass Me: oh, thank you Waiter: *puts the glass down* Me: thank you Waiter: *fills the glass with water* Me: thank you Waiter: I'll bring your order soon Me: thank you

My boyfriend woke up from a nightmare last night, got up from our bed, took his laptop and launched chess. Half asleep, he was silent the whole time, thinking of his moves. When he finally won against the computer he calmed down and explained with relief: "I saw a dream where I became dumb..."

Source: https://vk.com/pn6

Just a fun fact #5

There are very, VERY few words that begin with "Й". The only ones that exist (or the ones that are at least used commonly) are:

Йод - iodine

Йогурт - yogurt

Йога - yoga

Йоркшир - yorkshire

Maybe there are more words, but those are the only ones that I know and use on a daily basis.

THIS ONE. This is my favourite episode of Improvisation. Hands down. I strongly recommend to watch this one with sound on! * — wooden spoons are actually a Russian traditional musical instrument. Nope, not joking. Here's a cool video that shows what these spoons look like and what they sound like: Russian Wooden Spoon (Musical Instrument Sound).

Slang Word of the Day: рукожоп

Рукожоп - literally, "ass-hand", "arms attached to the ass", somebody who can not do anything well, who makes everything very poorly, cannot fix anything, breaks everything, all-thumbs;

Какой рукожоп банку это приложение написал? What an idiot/all-thumbs made this app for my bank?

Is there a word for this in your mother-tongue?

Just a fun fact

The word 'очевидец' is a combination of an old Russian noun 'очи' (eyes) and verb 'видеть' (to see). Just like that, the word itself means 'eyewitness'.

I was watching Evening Urgant as usual and I just couldn’t resist translating this funny bit for you. What is Ivan talking about? Беляш, беляши — bel’ash (sing.), bel’ashi (plur.) Bel’ash is a dish of Kazakh, Bashkir and Tatar cuisine. It’s practically the same as a regular pirozhok with meat. Except the recipes and the forms of the dishes are a bit different.

P. S. Please let me know if you want me to keep tranlsating fun parts from Russian TV shows and wether or not the Russian subtitles above the screen are comfortable for you to watch/are necessary. Thanks for reading my little blog :)