русский & droch

[Drochfhuaimniú]

Hi guys. I'll be graduating from high school at the end of this year and going to university, where I want to take Russian courses. Because I want to take it all through uni, I'm thinking that I'll start building up some vocabulary and grammar beforehand. I've worked a little into Croatian and some (but not a lot) of it is like Russian which should make things interesting. I already understand the alphabet (some vowels are kind of tough). I have some paper courses but right now I'm browsing the UniLang collection of resources, especially the one by proycon (thanks proycon!).

See you around,
droch

[Zorba]

Ни пуха, ни пера!

(If you don't know, this means "Good luck" in Russian. Its origins are obscure, "Neither a feather, nor a quill". You should always reply "К черту" (to the devil!) I guess maybe it's like the way we say "Break a leg" in English.)

[fireyez]

Ни пуха, ни пера!

(If you don't know, this means "Good luck" in Russian. Its origins are obscure, "Neither a feather, nor a quill". You should always reply "К черту" (to the devil!) I guess maybe it's like the way we say "Break a leg" in English.)

I know a little bit about the origin of this saying. It was originally used by hunters. The matter is that Russians used to be very superstitious, well some of them still are… like me for instance. Anyway, wishing somebody good luck was believed to bring bad luck, that is why they said: I wish you to bring neither a fluff (пух) nor a feather (перо)" from hunting. Пух (fluff) – meant “fur”- that is animals, Перо (feather) meant game. And the answer was – Go to the devil! (Пошел к черту!)

Now this saying is especially widely used among students while taking exam. It is also said to any person, who’s going to do something real hard.

Well this bad-luck-instead-of-good-luck thing can also be observed when ppl see a little toddler and say that s/he is real cute, but after saying this they always spit on him/her. Lol well they don’t really spit, they just make the sound as though they were spitting. They do it because of the superstition that if you say that a little kid is cute and smart, he’s going to be dumb and ugly when he grows up. That is why they spit on him as though he were dumb and ugly.

[cyberstranger]

Ни пуха, ни пера!

(If you don't know, this means "Good luck" in Russian. Its origins are obscure, "Neither a feather, nor a quill". You should always reply "К черту" (to the devil!) I guess maybe it's like the way we say "Break a leg" in English.)

I know a little bit about the origin of this saying. It was originally used by hunters. The matter is that Russians used to be very superstitious, well some of them still are… like me for instance. Anyway, wishing somebody good luck was believed to bring bad luck, that is why they said: I wish you to bring neither a fluff (пух) nor a feather (перо)" from hunting. Пух (fluff) – meant “fur”- that is animals, Перо (feather) meant game. And the answer was – Go to the devil! (Пошел к черту!)

Now this saying is especially widely used among students while taking exam. It is also said to any person, who’s going to do something real hard.

Well this bad-luck-instead-of-good-luck thing can also be observed when ppl see a little toddler and say that s/he is real cute, but after saying this they always spit on him/her. Lol well they don’t really spit, they just make the sound as though they were spitting. They do it because of the superstition that if you say that a little kid is cute and smart, he’s going to be dumb and ugly when he grows up. That is why they spit on him as though he were dumb and ugly.

That's right, we're all superstitious to some extent. The farther you live from the largest cities the more you're superstitious. If someone wishes you good luck you should say "touch wood" and knock 3 times on any thing made of wood or spit 3 times over your left shoulder (it symbolizes him, the Devil!).