Page:Dictionary of spoken Russian (1945).djvu/6

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FOREWORD

are made: укла́дываться (dur of уложи́ться) to pack; укла́дываться (dur of уле́чься) to go to bed, to lie down.

Proverbs are translated as a unit, not as isolated words. "Всё хорошо́, что хорошо́ конча́ется" happens to have a word-for-word translation of "all's well that ends well", but "На безры́бьи, и рак ры́ба" (literally: "For lack of fish, a craw fish is a fish") is translated by "Any port in a storm." The meaning of a word or phrase is always the sum of the situations in which a word of phrase is used. Translations therefore must have a situational correspondence. A word-for-word translation is sometimes interesting, but generally outlandish.

As this dictionary is the first of its kind in English-Russian lexicography, it naturally has many faults and shortcomings, but the pressure of time explains all this, and the gap it will fill condones it.

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