Ruslan
Make ends meet (to have little money to live on) Hi, there! In Russian we have an expression, which sounds exactly the same, as "make ends meet". (Сводить концы с концами) My question is, how come, that in completely different languages idiomatic way of saying that someone has little money to live on sounds the same?
Oct 19, 2019 6:17 AM
Answers · 2
1
While languages are different, ideas are universal. So the idea (ie. saying/proverb for example) often remains the same across languages - just the specific words change. I guess what I mean is that the saying sounds the same, because the ideas behind the language is the same. So even when a phrase isn't 'adopted' directly from another language it may sound the same for this reason.
October 19, 2019
1
I don't think anyone knows for sure. There is a suggestion that it may come from a french expression: https://www.bloomsbury-international.com/en/student-ezone/idiom-of-the-week/1494-make-ends-meet/ If so, I understand that in the past, the the upper class Russians all spoke French. If so we could have both got it from French.
October 19, 2019
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