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- Topic: Russian >
- "Я работаю как лошадь."
193 Comments
If you translate word for word, it's "I work like horse." Sounds very Russian. Plus, now they accept "I work like a horse"
Actually, in Brazilian Portuguese, they say something very politically incorrect. Trabalho como n......
Dave, well... hehehe
it depends a lot on the region you live, actually... Possibly we say mule here because of Italian origins.
BTW, "mulato" (a son of a black person with a white one) comes from "mula" (mule). They were kind of bred like mules for the slavery business back then.
Edit: why am I getting negatives on this one? it is true. I said it for people being careful when saying like "the Brazilian mulatas are beautiful", because it is actually offensive. BTW, translating what Dave was trying to say, in his region of Brazil they say "I work like a ❤❤❤❤❤❤".
Actually it's the same in Russian. Just that in Russian word негр doesn't have anything racist in it, just stating the colour of the skin
Same in Canadian French, but it's an idiom used mostly in older generations; I don't think I have ever heard anyone my age say that.
in english we say horse. this translation is really stupid. no one thinks dogs work hard.
jeffereythu1, you are incorrect. Working like a dog is a common english idiom and is equivalent to this russian phrase.
Dogs have been primarily seen as a working animal from their domestication until relatively recently.
don't agree with jeffereythu1. In french we say "c'est un travail de chien" (it's a dog's work) meaning it's a hard, painful, unrewarding, and unpleasant job. each language has its idioms. And in many countries around the world, dogs aren't seen as positively as in the US or Europe meaning they often have a miserable life. "Avoir une vie de chien" (to have a dog's life) means to have a really miserable life. We have this saying in Arabic too. Tambien creo que se dice en castellano...
2047
Wrong. Check out the lyrics of the famous Beatles song: "A Hard Day's Night": http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/aharddaysnight.html
I know pop songs sometimes use nonsense lyrics just to make them rhyme or fit the tune, but in this case, it wasn't chosen only for the rhyme, but because it was (and is) a common idiom.
Not all Beatles songs make sense ("I am The Walrus" sounds like something from the Duolingo Dutch course), but this one does - perfectly.
I agree, even though in Brazil we have an expression that says "a dog's day" as being a really bad day when everything goes wrong.
When it's a bad and rainy day we in the netherlands say: "het is hondenweer" "it is weather for dogs"
But in French "Travailler comme un chien" (work like a dog) means "work dirtily leading to a dirty result". Go figure...
- 909
You don’t say that in German. You actually work like an animal („Arbeiten wie ein Tier“), while sweating like a pig. We never work like an individual horse/mule/dog. Interesting, it‘s the generic “animal” in German.
In Swedish, we say ‘donkey.’ ‘Att arbeta som en åsna.’ At least, that’s what I think we say. I’m not really good with idioms...
Beatles said work like a dog and sleep like a log. It's been a hard day night.
Honestly, I wonder if they're not the reason "dog" won out in English for this expression--insofar as anyone even says it anymore.
♪ It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a horse
It's been a hard day's night, I will be sleeping with great force ♫
- 674
With great respect to the Beatles, and as a Brit English speaker, I'm not sure I would naturally use "work like a dog". After all, dogs don't generally work - not strenuously at least. Mules, donkeys and horses all seem to make for a better idiom.
Granted, in many countries, many of these animals' former jobs have been taken over by machinery. There's a few exceptions, like arctic dogsledders, herders with their sheep-dogs, cowboys and ranchers who still oversee their livestock from the saddle, and police with both mounted units and K9 officers, but I'd bet the majority of both the dog and the horse populations are pets nowadays.
- 189
As a fellow Brit, I'd add that to work like a dog and to work like a horse have slightly different connotations. To me 'work like a horse' means to work steadily and strongly without signs of tiring; whereas 'to work like a dog' implies to work beyond what could reasonably be expected- i.e. it implies an element of exploitation. On a more general point, Duolingo seems to favour literal translations, I find this helpful when I am trying to remember what the Russian word would be.
It is "i work like a horse" buy its not a litterary translation people dont say i work like a horse in english right? People say i work like a dog. The sentence is correct.
In Mexico we say: "I work like a ❤❤❤❤❤". For us, that's not offensive. Just we laugh about us.
лошадь is horse. I get that English says dog, but we need to learn the right words and not a cultural translation, right?
Modern theories of translation argue that you should translate with "what a native speaker of the target language would actually say", whilst sticking to the actual words used as closely as possible. For example, we translate "Goodbye" as до свидания, since those are the words that one usually says on leaving in the respective languages; even though the English has its roots in the phrase "God be [with] ye" and the Russian in "until [our next] meeting". However, since "working like a horse" IS an English idiom as well as a Russian one, I can see a good argument for preferring it here, over the more common English idiom.
whoa!!! I've been speaking English my entire life, and I never knew the thingy about the word "goodbye!" You deserve a lingot!
However, as I have written many times on this site, we are not here to learn how to be translators, but how to speak languages. They are separate skills. Even if "working like a horse" were not an English idiom, it should be translated as such here, because that will teach us more about the language.
The situation is different with phrasal verbs, syntax, and the like (nobody in their right mind would teach a phrase like "At me is a horse") , but I firmly believe that, where grammatical, a literal translation should be given.
Я работаю как лошадь, я устала как собака. I work like a horse, I am tired like a dog.
And one more idiom Доволен как слон)) which can be translated happy as a clam
- 2047
English has the expression: "dog-tired", which means very tired - usually from hard physical work.
Hey... you... can be... ... slow and... annoying ... ... ... and ... still be ... ad...orable.
(Don't take this away from me)
((that video was awesome))
Um... No. It's "harować jak wół" so "like an ox", a castrated male cattle. Mule is muł, a hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.
"Work like a horse" makes sense. I've never understood why we (Americans) say "work like a dog." Our dogs are pets, they don't work!
They were work animals long before they were pets: sheep dogs work tirelessly, as do farmers dogs with their cattle, also guard dogs, and Alaskan sled dogs.
I think "work like an ant" is used when you want to praise someone who is very diligent and would do any work given to him/her. "Work like a horse" is used when you want to complain that you work too much (and probably that's not valued enough).
- 189
I think that the English 'work like a horse' is equivalent to your 'work like an ant' while 'work like a dog' in English carries the same connotations of your 'work like a horse'
In Finland we "work so hard that we get a slimy neck" - "raataa niska limassa." I have no idea where that phrase comes from. It sounds really weird when translated :D I can't think of any similar phrase including an animal.
Makes me think of "rednecks"--originally applied to farmers, who spent their days bent over working in the fields and getting their necks sunburnt.
- 392
in Chinese, we use "i work like a dog | donkey" to express an ironic meaning, while using "a (willing) ox" to express a possitive meaning.
I think it's a figure of speech, and they're giving the equivalent English figure of speech in that option rather than the more literal translation.
Yeah it is, I hope they change it. I understand why they're doing it - but I think it's pretty obvious that they both have the same meaning. Changing the animal used for it is confusing for beginners, and will just trip people up.
I actually hope they don't. It seems like they're trying to lay a framework for handling differing idioms down the road. This particular one seems obvious, I'm sure there are many that will not.
Both answers (dog and horse) seem like they're acceptable but the alternate answer, in my opinion, doesn't confuse but relates/equates.
But I could be wrong, I'm not that far into the course.
It's not possible to learn idioms this way long term. Idioms often lack counterparts in other languages. So when you start learning more abstract idioms that don't have English counterparts you're going to get stuck. That's why it's better to learn an idiom literally while also learning about the cultural context surrounding it, which the course creators can do by adding a sentence explaining the idiom in the tips and notes section. It's too confusing for beginners to see words being used incorrectly like this, this is evident by this comment section which already has several comments from people confused about the use of the words собака and лошадь.
Putting all idoms in one Unit (circle) would also help. I saw this in another language. I think it was Spanish.
- 181
Could you say Я работаю как собака and have the same message get across, or is this idiom strictly used as is?
"I work like a dog" in the tablet version, horse was not given as an option!
I thoroughly enjoyed the whole discussion here learning about the "working hard" idiom from all around the world. That's why I love Duolingo!
So far looks like horses, oxes and mules are winning over dogs ;-)
One more point for horse - in Czech we also say "Dřít jako kůň" as well as "makám jak barevnej" = I work like a colored (man)
"I work like a black [man]" used to also be common in English. It is now considered extremely offensive, so you will never hear it, but it can be found in older books.
The idiom Пашу как негр means the same in Russian.
Всю жизнь пашу как негр, а денег как небыло так и нет -I've been working like a black man all my life, and I can't get a penny ahead.
We have a similar idiom in latinamerica. We say: trabajar como un burro, that is, work like a donkey.
Strange that nobody still did not remembered an our (russian) more expressive idiom: Я работаю как иша́к (donkey, but a bit wild, I found only this strange funny name "ass" O_o). We even created a verb - "иша́чить" - "Я иша́чу на трех работах". And also in the first idiom with a horse we are using rarely the word "работаю", usually we're using "пашу́" (plow) from the infinitiv "паха́ть".
I have never seen a horse work like a horse, now that I think of it. I don't have horses going by my house wheezing as they drag ice-carts by my door. I see horses on TV running a few furlongs till they cross the finish line and have flowers hung around their necks, but that doesn't seem so bad.
- 288
Of course, you're going to have some people here claiming you can't say "donkey" in Persian because the idiom uses "horse" in Russian.
In Azerbaijani we say either "I work like a dog" or "I work like a donkey". It means "it kimi işləyirəm"
Why is a comma sometimes used with kak and sometimes not? Same for because...
I guess that in any language it's understandable, I laughed a lot when I though about the translation of it lol.
The list of translations for как says "like and how", does that mean it works a bit like como in Spanish?
- 793
Yes. In the tips and notes they even gives examples similar to
"Я ви́жу, как она́ танцу́ет. = I see her dancing."
Which matches perfectly with Spanish:
"Veo como ella baila."
In Spanish there are two words: como (like) and cómo (how). They are not the same word.
Either is a english saying "i work like a horse" or "i work like a dog", it would depend partly on context. Since there is no context, either should be excepted and the other offered as a alternative
In Past usually dogs worked as shepherds or guards. I think for people now it is the laziest work )) But horses work really hard.. It is no coincidence that we measure productivity exactly in horsepower.
Haha, im doing this on mobile, so they give us a list of ten or so words to arrange into the translation sentence. They gave me the word 'dog', but no horse. Boy was i confused for a mo'.
"Work like a dog" and "work like a horse" are both comman in british english.
Yes. Работаю (пашу is the most commonly in use ) как лошадь ~ работаю (пашу) как Папа Карло ~ работаю (пашу) как раб ~ Вкалываю (a slang idiom) etc.
There is also работать как пчёлка (diminutive of пчела = bee) to work diligently, non-stop
I work like a dog would be "я работаю как собака"... I don't think it should tell you that I work like a horse translates to I work like a dog also... It will confuse people into thinking horse and dog are the same word.
Honesty, I blame the Beatles--odds are, if an English speaker heard the phrase "work like an [animal]," it was probably from the song: "It's been a hard day's night/And I've been working like a dog."
But directly translated, yes, Я работаю как лошадь would be "I work like a horse."
I work as a horse means that maybe you work dressed up like a horse and everyone thinks you are a horse. I work like a horse means that you work as hard as a horse.
The image of that horse from Animal Farm won't leave my mind after reading this idiom.
Agreed that horse is better. More literal and not culturally inappropriate in any way.
Да хватит народ путать. Здесь лошадь. Есть сленг ПАШУ КАК ЛОШАДЬ. То есть вкалывает. Но не употребляем мы работаю как собака. Это два далеких слова.
This is not a good question. Work like a horse and work like a dog mean two different things in English. Both convey hard work, but one has positive connotations and the other negative. It's not clear whether we are supposed to be learning the literal translation (which isn't even offered on the mobile app) or an equivalent idiom.
At first I was suprised, because I did not know that people in other countries use both of these animals to describe hard work. Learning something new everyday..
It's rather surprising that no one in this long thread that I noticed mentions the common phrase "I work like a slave". I'm just sayin'
It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log But when I get home to you I find the things that you do Will make me feel alright!
- 156
Horse does fit in perfectly in the russian idiom, however in Hindi it's गधे की तरह काम करना (ghadey ki tara kaam karna ) to work like a donkey. Donkey is considerd to be a hard working animal in India also a stupid one.
Horses and dogs both are working animals, and in consequence not one but two phrases can be derived from this. Both phrases exist and both are correct. I am inclined to match the word "horse" rather than relying on the idiomatic equivalent and using "dog". After all this is teaching course and it is not fair to confuse the student!!
- 288
Interesting: you want to avoid using an idiomatic expression to translate an idiomatic expression. Learning idioms an essential part of learning any language.
In hungarian we have a saying: "tired as a dog". It's similar than this one. Hm..
Для людей изучающих язык важен дословный перевод, а для идиом, наверно, нужна отдельная тема
My answer was "я работаю как лошадь" and yet it was marked as incorrect. I couldn't report it so I plonked it here.
In one of the previous lessons it was translated literally... not as an idiom...
The literal transl is horse however they only allow dog. Its incorrect are thry going to fix this?
If it translates to horse, why put 'dog' in there?! I thought it was a bug.. why not mark it as an idiom instead of throwing other random animals at the user?
Ridiculously confusing, because earlier in the course, it was translated "work like a horse" and also because it's way more common, in my broad experience of American English, for the speaker to state that he worked like a horse all day than to say he worked like a dog. Actually, I've noticed that when a dog is the referent, it's usually a sentence about someone else (i.e. not "I" work like a dog, but "he" does).
It is still only offering I work like a dog, while it should be the horse.
I thought the point of these excercises was to directly translate words. ??? Flagged
I understand that it is an idiom but we should see "как собака", anyway, or, by the that token, "I work a lot" should be accepted as well.
Is it just me or the pronunciation sounds like "boshad" instead of the correct "loshad"?
A dog isn't a horse. To work like a dog, yeah, it будет окей. So for example "holy cow" turn into ядрена вошь (a louse) or even into черта (a spiritual creature of total evil) in Russian. You should just learn it.
I find this quite annoying. The literal translation is an idiom in the UK and Ireland but the accepted translation isn't one. I don't have the option of submitting work like a horse.
It didn't even give me the option to select horse. I hate when duolingo does this.
If there's no horse you choose dog got it right learned alot or nothing and then waste your time writing a long comment....
