The Russian word шишка can be translated into English 'bigwig', 'big shot', 'head honcho', so on and so forth. It can also mean 'cone,' but we'll be focusing more on the 'big shot' context today:

Here are some example sentences:

The Russian word фасоль means 'bean,' as in the beans that are eaten by people. It declines as such:

Interestingly enough, the word фасоль is really only used in reference to beans that Russians eat. Боб is another word for beans, but it usually refers to beans that Americans eat, which it can also mean farm animal feed. It's theorized that the use of боб instead of фасоль was the result of a translation snafu way back when. Most Russians prefer фасоль in general though for the smaller beans that you eat, such as, kidney, pinto, and black. When Фасоль is used in the plural it refers to different types of beans, not individual bean seeds. The word is used only in the singular to refer to beans that are used as food.

Here are a few sample sentences:

Don comments: Thanks for the entry about beans, Natasha. I nearly decided to edit out your line about фасоль being used for the beans Russians eat and бобы more commonly for the beans that Americans and animals eat, but then I realized that I've heard the word фасоль used a lot in Russia, but I don't think I've ever discussed бобы there. So I've decided to leave the entry as it is, and hopefully some of our readers will chip in their two cents. I suppose I should note that technically there is a difference between фасоль and бобы. If you are in an anal-retentive mood, you can see a discussion of it here (mirror).

The Russian word for brick is кирпич. It is an end-stressed noun, so it declines like this:

Generally speaking, if you are discussing the substance out of which something is made, then you usually use кирпич in the singular.

Of course, if you are counting the bricks the word can occur in the singular and the plural.

There is more to be said about this word, but that will have to wait till the next couple of entries.

Among the April 1st offerings on Facebook this morning is a picture from Баба і кіт that made me laugh out. Let's have a little translation contest.

1. Read over Natasha's entry on крыса my entry on Translating humor, part I. (They are the two entries before this one.
2. Come up with an English translation for the the two sentences above the picture that captures the humor of the picture.
3. At the end of April I will make a completely subjective decision about which one I like best and send the author ten bucks as a reward.

Here's the picture.

The verb pair уходить/уйти is usually translated as “to leave, depart” or in some contexts just “to go.” Notice that there is an й in the perfective infinitive:

Here are a couple of examples:

In English the verbs leave and depart mean roughly the same thing, but they have a grammatical difference. We don't use the preposition from with leave, but we usually use from with depart. Thus we have:

In Russian if you mention the place you are leaving, you must *always* use the ‘from’ word with its noun. For this verb you use the typical ‘from’ equivalents. For example:

When you depart a place, you are usually heading somewhere specific; that is, you are going *to* a place. For that reason the typical Russian prepositions of motion will work, e.g. в/на + accusative or with к + dative: