I was reading an article recently about the type of Russian that includes all the swear words...what is it called? It was definitely different from the kind of Russian one would be expected to use in polite company, but the article was about how it was very expressive in its way!
It does seem like using a second language would be really helpful for distancing yourself. I could easily read a paragraph that was completely obscene in another language and even if somebody told me what it meant it wouldn't matter. There's a psychological aspect to words in your own language that just doesn't translate.
However, Russian idioms with no equivalent often refer to feelings, customs, motivations. English-only idioms refer more to actions, results, relations.
That is so fascinating--and I can really imagine it fitting the different cultures too. There's probably a lot to be studied about idioms, since presumably you can say these things in either language, it's just a question of which language came up with an idiomatic expression for it.
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It does seem like using a second language would be really helpful for distancing yourself. I could easily read a paragraph that was completely obscene in another language and even if somebody told me what it meant it wouldn't matter. There's a psychological aspect to words in your own language that just doesn't translate.
However, Russian idioms with no equivalent often refer to feelings, customs, motivations. English-only idioms refer more to actions, results, relations.
That is so fascinating--and I can really imagine it fitting the different cultures too. There's probably a lot to be studied about idioms, since presumably you can say these things in either language, it's just a question of which language came up with an idiomatic expression for it.