довести до ума
“довести до ума” (dovesti do uma) — to knock into shape, to finish off in Russian. Phrase, level B1. Plan nado dovesti do uma k pyatnitse — "the plan needs finishing off by Friday" — to finish it so that it works; an idiom with the mind in it — about seeing things through, not about intellect. In a live sentence: “План надо довести до ума к пятнице” — The plan needs finishing off by Friday. A word from the everyday Russian course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Russian | довести до ума |
| Read in Latin letters | dovesti do uma |
| Translation | to knock into shape, to finish off |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
Plan nado dovesti do uma k pyatnitse — "the plan needs finishing off by Friday" — to finish it so that it works; an idiom with the mind in it — about seeing things through, not about intellect.
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- План надо довести до ума к пятницеPlan nado dovesti do uma k pyatnitseThe plan needs finishing off by Friday
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “to knock into shape, to finish off” in Russian?
«довести до ума», read “dovesti do uma”. In a live sentence: “План надо довести до ума к пятнице” — The plan needs finishing off by Friday. Phrase, level B1; written with the characters д, о, в, е, с, т, и, д, о, у, м, а.
How is “довести до ума” written in Latin letters?
dovesti do uma. This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Plan nado dovesti do uma k pyatnitse — "the plan needs finishing off by Friday" — to finish it so that it works; an idiom with the mind in it — about seeing things through, not about intellect. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.