Russian Geography 27 - Часовых поясов в России
FULL LESSON:
TRANSCRIPT:
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Rusky Ed here and time zones is the topic of this lesson and when it comes to time zones, Russia has more of them than anyone else. More on that following the intro song, but be sure to inspect the focus words for this lesson in the meantime.
They say that even a broken clock is correct two times each day. At least they used to say that back in the days of analog clocks. It’s not so true anymore since modern digital clocks tend to be blank when they aren’t working. But be that as it may, the focus of this lesson is the time zones of Russia and Russia has a bunch of them, eleven to be exact. They range from UTC+2 to UTC+12. BTW and FYI, UTC stands for Universal Time Coordinated.
So, getting to our focus words for this lesson, we have:
пояс - zone, region
сбивать - to knock down
толк - sense, judgement
сломанный - broken
даже - even
показывать - to show, to display
A couple sample sentences featuring these words go a little something like this:
First up we have,
Большое количество часовых поясов сбивали её с толку.
(The large number of time zones confused her.)
BTW, the phrase
сбивать с толку means to bewilder, to confuse, or to muddle.
Onward now to sample phrase number two:
Даже сломанные часы показывают точное время два раза в день.
(Even a broken clock is correct twice a day.)
It is worth noting that сломанный is the passive participle of сломать.
Continuing now with our discussion of time zones, within Russia the time zones are referenced not based on the UTC times, but on Moscow Time or Моско́вское вре́мя in Russian, which in English is referred to as Moscow Standard Time or MSK, for short. [DISPLAY MAP] Using Moscow as the point of reference, where the time is UTC+3, the time zones range from MSK-1 in Kaliningrad to MSK+9 in Kamchatka. In fact, listing all eleven time zones in order, we have: Kaliningrad, Moscow, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Vladivostok, Srednekolymsk, and Kamchatka. [END DISPLAY MAP]
And now for a few time-related idioms, proverbs, sayings, expressions, and phrases:
Если слишком долго ждать, то может быть слишком поздно.
Если слишком долго ждать, можно даже опоздать.
(If you wait too long, it will be too late.)
However...
Поспешишь - людей насмешишь.
(Haste makes waste.)
On the other hand...
Никогда не откладывайте на завтра то, что вы можете сделать сегодня.
Не откладывай на завтра то, что можно сделать сегодня.
(Never put off until tomorrow, what you can do today.)
And although that might be good advice, it is also true to say...
Дураки спешат туда, куда ангелы и ступить боятся.
[Дураки спешат туда, куда и ангелы ступить боятся.]
(Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.)
[It should be noted that the placement of the и’s in these sentences signals that the speaker wishes to emphasize the next word. ]
[ Also it should be mentioned that a Russian idiom with similar meaning is:
Дуракам закон не писан.
(The law is not written for fools.) ]
And besides that...
Лучше поздно, чем никогда.
(Better late, than never.)
And finally we have:
Ранняя птица может съесть червячка, но вторая мышь получает сыр.
(The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.)
A few useful review words which appear in the sample phrases include:
откладывать - to delay, to postpone, to put off
спешить - to hurry, make haste
бояться - to fear, to be afraid
ступить - to tread, to step on
дурак - fool, idiot
опоздать - to be late
And so the time for this lesson to end has arrived...