подъёмный кран
“подъёмный кран” (podyomnyy kran) — crane in Russian. Phrase, level B1. Podyomnyy kran podnimaet plity — "the crane lifts the slabs" — podyomnyy is the one that lifts, and the operator is the kranovshchik; the kran here is not the tap but the old word for crane, the bird. In a live sentence: “Подъёмный кран поднимает плиты” — The crane lifts the slabs. Written with the characters п, о, д, ъ, ё, м, н, ы, й, к, р, а…
In short
| Written in Russian | подъёмный кран |
| Read in Latin letters | podyomnyy kran |
| Translation | crane |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
Podyomnyy kran podnimaet plity — "the crane lifts the slabs" — podyomnyy is the one that lifts, and the operator is the kranovshchik; the kran here is not the tap but the old word for crane, the bird.
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.
- Подъёмный кран поднимает плитыPodyomnyy kran podnimaet plityThe crane lifts the slabs
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 “crane” in Russian?
«подъёмный кран», read “podyomnyy kran”. In a live sentence: “Подъёмный кран поднимает плиты” — The crane lifts the slabs. Phrase, level B1; written with the characters п, о, д, ъ, ё, м, н, ы, й, к, р, а…
How is “подъёмный кран” written in Latin letters?
podyomnyy kran. 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?
Podyomnyy kran podnimaet plity — "the crane lifts the slabs" — podyomnyy is the one that lifts, and the operator is the kranovshchik; the kran here is not the tap but the old word for crane, the bird. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.