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Here "стать" means "to begin" (same as "начать").

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halina.livejournal.com

стать = become
наглядеться = admire, literally "look as much as one's desires"
пригожая = good, nice, quite beatiful ;)
коса = plait, long plait
хоровод заведем = we'll start khorovod (round dance)
она растет = she is growing
ли ты = are you
да так-то горько = and so bitterly or so lament

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"...и не стало её" means "...and she disappered/has gone".

наглядеться - normally used in phrases like "не могу наглядеться (на тебя)" and so on. The phrase means that you are happy with somebody's condition or progress. It is spoken and quite old-fashioned.

пригожая - a very old form of saying "good", "well-behaved" (feminine form)

коса - has two meanings. One is a very long braid - a traditional female hairstyle in Russia. The other one is a tool used by peasants to cut grass.

хоровод - is a sort of a dance (used primarily by children and young girls) when dancers stand in circle, take each other's hands and move around.

растёт - grows. Она растёт = She grows (or "She is growing").

"Доченька, не заболела ли ты?" means "Daughter, aren't you ill?"

"да так-то горько" is hard to translate out of context.

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Whoa, I completely missed the растёт. Here's the sentence "Она во всех лесах растёт." Does this mean that Снегурочка grows in all the forests of the world? Because if it does... then that's kind of disturbing/sadistic. For me, at least.

And here's the горько one. "A как выглянуло солнце и град растаял - заплакала Снегурочка, да так-то горько!"

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горько плакать - to sob heart out

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If "Она во всех лесах растёт" really refers to Снегурочка then yes, it means "she grows in all the forests". Maybe it won't upset you that much if you remember that it's just a fairy tale. ;-)

"заплакала, да так-то горько" here means "(she) cried so bitterly".

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It wasn't until today that I was speaking to my professor that I now realize how sad a story it is, and how much more I love it because I now understand the ending. The растёт referred to, well, let me write it out.

"Иван и Марья ушли искать дочку и не вернулись. Она была в жёлтом платке, он в лиловой рубахе. Жёлто-лиловые цвты у травы иван-да-марья. Она во всех лесах растёт. Видели её?"

And I actually found a beautiful picture, if anyone else is reading this, of the иван-да-марья. Here it is: http://club.foto.ru/gallery/photos/photo.php?photo_id=159288

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*цветы, pardon me.

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nbuwe.livejournal.com

In "Она во всех лесах растёт." "она" refers to "трава иван-да-марья" from the previous sentence.

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The translation actualy depends on who they mean by "она". Naturally, Snegurochka cannot grow in all the forests at once. I'd say they mean some tree or plant.

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oscar-6.livejournal.com

"A как выглянуло солнце и град растаял - заплакала Снегурочка, да так-то горько!"
"And when the sun came out and hail melted, Snegurochka began to cry so bitterly!"

This translation may seem little awkward, but I hope you got the idea.

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Пригожая doesn't mean well-behaved, it means "beautiful".

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пригожая - pretty, good-looking
нагладеться - feast ones eyes
коса - plait, braid, plat

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NB: It's наглядеться because of the verb глядеть (to look).

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наглядеться, конечно))

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"дело уже шло к старости" means that they (The Snow Maiden's parents) were growing old

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"дело уже шло к старости." - they were approaching their old age

and "пригожая" is good-looking, not well-behaved

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Yeah, maybe. I'm not that good in old Russian. :-))

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zloizloi.livejournal.com

The verb стать in past or future tense combined with an infinitive means "to begin", "to start to do smth.". As for "и не стало её" - не стало (past) and не станет (future), combined with a pronoun (or a noun) in a genetive case, means "is gone", "will be gone".

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melkiyshaman.livejournal.com

I decided to illustrate the translation :)
This is КОСА (http://www.photosight.ru/photo.php?photoid=610807). (I mean the hairdress of a girl)

And this is водить хоровод (http://www.selotour.ru/big_image/img45n0.html).
(BTW all of the girls there are with КОСЫ :)

And those on my userpic are not КОСЫ, those are "косИчки" :) It is the same, difference is in the length. And they are too thin to be named "косы" :))

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Маленкие девочки с косами, которые ведут хороводы scares me. Pardon me if I said it incorrectly.

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melkiyshaman.livejournal.com

I hope you're kidding %))
Because this danse is rather beautiful and pleasant one :)
It is usually accompanied by beautiful old songs. You should try to find somwhere and have a look at russian folk dances. I think you'd like it :)

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"Стать" (imperf.: становиться) is a tricky verb.
Я стал преподавателем = I became a teacher (a professor.) Я становлюсь преподавателем с 1 сентября = I become a teacher from the 1st of September.
Я стал старше = I grew [literally, became] older [than I was.] Я становлюсь старше каждый день = I grow [literally, become] older every day.
Я стал рассеянным = I became absent-minded. Я становлюсь рассеянным = I become absent-minded.
Я стал легко уставать = I began to get tired easily.
Я стал искать свою записную книжку = I began (or: started) to search for my scrapbook.
Note that you cannot use the imperfect form of стать (становиться) with a verb: стал делать что-то (started to do something) only describes past tense OR future tense (завтра я стану читать Толстого = tomorrow I will [begin to] read Tolstoy), but NEVER the present tense: you cannot say "я стаю читать книгу" since the verb "стать" cannot have a perfect present form, and you also cannot use "становиться" in this case, so "I am starting to read a book" would be "я начинаю читать книгу".

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Could one also say "Я начинал искать свою книгу?"

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Yes, the form "начать делать что-либо" (to start doing something) has no tense or perfect/imperfect limitations, though there are some nuances in meanincwhen you use perfect/imperfect form.
Perfect: Я начал искать свою книгу = I started to search for my book. Almost equal to Я стал искать свою книгу.
Imperfect: Я начинал искать свою книгу = means that I have started to search for my book, but something has stopped me; this also can mean that I had started to search for my book several times, but every time something had stopped me. Example: я уже начинал искать свою книгу, но тут позвонила сестра, и я перестал искать (I have already started to search for my book, but then [my] sister called me, and I stopped the search.)

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solito.livejournal.com

BTW I was surprised a lot, when I heard from someone from Povolzhye "Он стаёт...". Now I realize that this is a form often used in colloquial speech in Tatarstan, Chuvashia and quite a few other places. Though it is obviously incorrect (illiteral)!!!

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madrumos.livejournal.com

i wonder if what i partly throwing you off on the "да так-то горько" is the да. keep in mind that, particularly in old Russian, да without a comma after it doesn't mean 'yes' but 'and', synonymous with и (but with more conversational or fairy-tale overtones). only when it is followed by a comma does it mean 'yes' (and even then sometime it can mean 'no' ;-)

ли is a movable particle that goes after the word being inquired about. it is not translated by any one english word, it must be taken in context. the phrase you mention is synonymous with "Доченька, ты (не) заболела?". for comparison, if you wanted to ask not about whether she got sick, but whether it is exactly she that is sick (and not someone else) you would ask "Доченька, не ты ли заболела?". in such a case, the subject is being inquired about, not the action.

растёт is third person singular of the verb расти, in case that was unclear. this verb is somewhat unusual, falling into a particular class of conjugations.

расти-
я растУ
ты растёшь
он/а/о растёт
мы растём
вы растёте
они растУт

past tense
он рос
она рослА
оно рослО
они рослИ

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I was inquiring about the так-то, I've never seen it before used in such a way. Is it a conjuction or what?

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It is a rare colloquial form; -то is, among other functions, an amplification particle, so "так-то горько" can be roughly translated as "so very bitterly." You don't have to memorize this form since it's extremely rare, just keep in mind that adding "-то" sometimes amplifies how exact is what you're speaking about:
- А что он делал-то?
- Иван-то?
- Иван.
- Молчал.
("What was HE doing then?" - "Who, Ivan?" - "Ivan." - "He was silent.")

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Here's an excerpt of a beautiful article by Michele Berdy about "Da"

A Guide to When 'Yes' Means 'No'
21 February 2003

by Michele A. Berdy

Da net!: absolutely not, no way, under no circumstances!

Even before you had your first Russian lesson, you knew that da meant yes and net, no. And then, in your second year of Russian, once you had gotten used to people sleeping on stoves (na pechke) and accepted that you would never ever be able to use certain verbs of motion properly, in one of your translations you come across, "U vas bolshoi kollektiv?" "Da net! Ya da Sveta!" We all got the question: "Do you have a large staff?" But what about the answer? Back to the dictionary.

According to my etymological dictionary, the original meaning of da was "in order to, in order that," and is related to the Latin denique (finally, in the end; and then; at worst; in short, to sum up; in fact, indeed). If that weren't puzzling enough, the Dal Russian dictionary tells you that da can replace virtually any conjunction. It conveys doubt; can be used to indicate a correction, reminder, or emphasis; or can express the wish for something to happen. In other words, if you can't think of a word, use da and chances are it will fly.

In da net! da is used for emphasis - absolutely not, under no circumstances, no way, forget it. When used with a command, it implies "I mean business": Da molchite! Da ostav ty menya v pokoye! (Shut up! Leave me the hell alone!) It replaces "and" in Ya da Sveta (Sveta and I), but with the connotation of "just me and Sveta."

Prikhodi vecherom, da zakhvati vino means "Come on over this evening, and grab some wine," but has a slight shade of "and by the way, on second thought, while you're at it, you ought to pick up a bottle of wine." If someone can't come to your party and replies, Khochu priti, da ne mogu, da stands in for "but": I'd like to come, but I can't. And after the party was a roaring success, the poor guy who couldn't make it can pine, Da, znal by, poshyol by (if only I'd known, I'd have gone).

Da nu! is a handy expression that expresses exasperation: Come on now! Get with it! Give me a break! Da... i to means "at that," as in the sentence: Da odin storozh na ves dom, i to glukhoi (there's only one watchman for the whole building, and he's deaf at that). And then da can be used to express "let" or "may" or even "long live" - a wish for something to happen. This was in currency during the Soviet period: Da zdravstvuyet sovetskaya armiya! Da budet svet! (Long live the Soviet army! Let there be light!). Although the dictionaries tell you that da-da-da! means "yes, absolutely, of course, no doubt about it," the dictionaries lie. In my experience, when someone tells me, Da-da-da! Ya sdelayu! it really means, "I'll do it when pigs fly."

In comparison, net is a simple soul: Net means no, and that's pretty much it.

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Профессор:
- Нет ни одного языка, где можно было бы выразить отрицание посредством двойного утверждения.
Студент:
- Ну да, конечно.
(A professor:
"There is no language where you can express negation through double confirmation."
A student:
"Oh yes, of course [means: he's telling me!]"

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