How the #Russian verb 'to fly in’ went viral (having nothing to do with flying!) As you might know, the Russian language has a dozen of motion verbs. Many of them get additional meanings, sometimes so figurative that they have nothing to do with ...
...the original ones. Or at least quite far from them. Let’s take the verb ‘залететь’ (‘zaletet’). It’s a form of the word ‘лететь’ (‘letet’), which means to fly. But, it has a ‘за-’ prefix, which indicates something is flying into a space, inside of some space. Penetrating inside by flight. “Воробей залетел в окно.” – “A sparrow flew into the window.”< But, it also has many figurative meanings. For example, “to drop into somewhere briefly”: “Залететь в кафе после работы.” (“To hop into a c...
...the original ones. Or at least quite far from them. Let’s take the verb ‘залететь’ (‘zaletet’). It’s a form of the word ‘лететь’ (‘letet’), which means to fly. But, it has a ‘за-’ prefix, which indicates something is flying into a space, inside of some space. Penetrating inside by flight. “Воробей залетел в окно.” – “A sparrow flew into the window.”< But, it also has many figurative meanings. For example, “to drop into somewhere briefly”: “Залететь в кафе после работы.” (“To hop into a c...