TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name

Mariner, her stomach upturned.

Riker, approaching a swivel chair.

No, but have some Lithuanian ones.

Don’t spit in a well as one day you may drink from it.

Bend the tree while it is young.

Flax is not yet sown and they are already weaving the linen.

You will know a horse by his teeth and a man by his talk.

God gave teeth, God will provide the bread.

Cat stroking leads to hump raising.

Old love does not rust.

The shoemaker is always barefoot.

Whatever you do, do it well.

There is no medicine that can cure stupidity.

Well begun, is half done.

Idioms

Spoons after supper (too late to bring something up)

hang noodles on the ears (try to fool someone)

like a fifth leg for a dog (something useless)

don’t say ‘wheee’ before jumping over the ditch (too early to brag about something)

sitting like they were just kissed (to be lost and disoriented)

walking like they just sold the land (to be sad)

catch the corner (to grasp the meaning)

my roof is riding away (I am losing my mind)

it’s a fact like a pancake (something easy to accept)

to pour from an empty container into a leaky one (to talk without saying anything meaningful)

go and visit the dwarves (visit the bathroom)

like a finger in the eye (to say something accurate)

it left on the dog’s tail (a plan that failed)

cutting a mushroom (to do useless work)

to shepherd the eyes (look at something nice)

wrap words in cotton wool (trying to speak nicely about a difficult subject)

to leave someone on ice (to abandon someone)

show the goats (to cry and scream when you don't get what you want)

to clarify a relationship (to fight someone)

Not Russian but.

Stick in the eye to the one who remembers the old.

Spring of pussies.

Not all the Moomins are in the valley.

Not Russian, but 35 years ago there was a widely repeated translation joke: The slogan "come alive with the Pepsi generation" was translated into Chinese, but it literally meant "Pepsi revives your dead ancestors."

That example may be apocryphal, but translations are interesting. It's something to be mindful of when talking with otherwise fluent ESL people.

I had a very intelligent and fluent coworker who knew the English phrase "to shag" from the Austin Powers movies. She completely misinterpreted the meaning of "a shag carpet," though. It was so funny (and came up so infrequently) that no one ever corrected her.

I know that in general, proverbs are difficult to translate because they assume a lot of cultural knowledge to convey their idea.

Like if I say to you "bird in the hand", you'll understand that I'm referencing the notion that there's value to a sure thing that can outweigh the value of potentially having more.

If you ever watch a UN speech, the translators sometimes pause for a bit to figure out how to convey not just the literal words, but also the meaning and the meaning in context.

• onion sorrow
• the horse did not roll
• There are elderberries in the kitchen garden, and your uncle in Kiev

Not OP but I got curious and found a whole section on Wikiquote devoted to Russian proverbs. Here's one example:

Transliteration: Artelnyi gorshok gusche kipit.

Translation: Artisanal pots boil (things) more thickly

English Equivalent: Many hands make light work.

It's kind of hurting my brain.

In last season of "The Boy" one of the characters used a russian proverb "Trust but verify" and I learned that it was popularized in USA by Ronald Reagan.

Riker, his beard shaved.

https://youtu.be/Zs13fJuP0F4?t=3050

Neil degrasse Tyson, hands in air!