🇺🇸 Uly 🐝добавил заметку 4 years ago

FUN FACT OF THE DAY

In Russian, it's quite enough to write Как мы знаем at the beginning of a sentence. However in English, "as we know" is considered a "vacuous phrase." One of the reasons for this is a matter of CLUSIVITY; the pronoun WE, depending on the context, can me "us, but not you" or it can mean "all of us, including you." AS WE KNOW sounds exclusive, which is in complete contrast to what the Russian как мы знаем expresses - what we ALL know.

However, there is a very important usage of the phrase AS WE KNOW that we use constantly in English. More precisely in the phrase "as we know IT." We use this when we refer to the ideal or image of something that has become very familiar to us. For example, we all have lives that we have become accustomed to. We have our routines, our friends, or jobs, etc. and that is our "life as we know it." We normally use this phrase when there's a danger of losing something familiar to us. "Global warming presently poses a very real and dangerous threat to our planet/world/life as we know it."

I hope you found this helpful.

If you have any questions, please ask them below.

Here's a link to that post with helpful links in the comments: https://www.lingvolive.com/ru-ru/community/posts/1368889