What does “a black cat ran between them” mean in Russian?

Почему чёрные кошки приносят удачу или неудачу?

WhatsAppGmailTelegramEmail

A1 Russian listening practice · Standard Russian · Picked for people who know a little

💡 Did you know?
чёрная кошка (chyornaya koshka)
Russian superstition and idiom
“black cat”; when one “runs between” people, they’ve fallen out

In Russia a чёрная кошка crossing your path means bad luck, and some people will stop or spit over their left shoulder before walking on. The cat also lives in an idiom: между ними пробежала чёрная кошка, “a black cat ran between them,” means two people have had a falling-out and aren’t friends anymore.

Неудача is the clip’s word for “bad luck”: удача is luck, не- flips it, and приносить неудачу is “to bring bad luck.” The speaker here takes the other side: я люблю чёрных кошек, they’re красивые and милые.

How common are the words?

How common are the words in this A1 Russian listening practice video?

51.2%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common Russian words
Most of the words in this video are common Russian words.

How common in Russian

51.2%
Top 1,000
51.2%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000

How common in spoken Russian

95.2%
Top 1,000
100%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000

Harder words in this video

These words are harder than A1. Here is what they mean.

кошек
5×
Top 5,000
кошки
4×
Top 5,000
неудачу
2×
Top 5,000
приносят
2×
Top 5,000
чёрные
4×
Top 5,000

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.

See Standard Russian Videos You Can Understand on Reelang

See Russian videos