In honour of the recent Valentine's Day, День защитника отечества (Defenders of the Fatherland Day) - which is pretty much like Valentine's Day for men - and the March 8 holiday (Valentine's Day for women), it seemed appropriate to spend a little time talking about love.

To begin at the beginning, I haven't been able to find too many good conversational words for having a crush on someone. There's the basic multi-purpose "нравиться", of course: "Но я уже не знаю как ему намекнуть, что он мне нравится." (But I can't figure out how to give him a hint that I like him.)

The word "увлечение" (infatuation) is more formal; you might find a character in a book who became infatuated with someone ("увлекся кем-то"). We can also use the adjective form of the verb: "Не знаю, любит он меня или просто увлечен." (I can't tell if he loves me or is just infatuated.)

There is the phrase "неровно дышать", which literally means to breathe unevenly. It can be used conversationally as in: "Кажется, он ко мне неровно дышит!" (I think he might be into me!). Or the more upsetting: "Мне кажется, мой муж неровно дышит к моей старшей сестре." (I think my husband has a thing for my older sister.) Опа!

This phrase is a humorously corrupted form of the word "неравнодушен" (literally: not indifferent to). The phrase "быть неравнодушным к нему/ней" means to be attracted to someone, so "неровно дышать ко кому-то", which has associations with a speeded-up heart rate, grew out of that.

You can also say that someone caught your eye, "приглянулся": "Она чем-то мне приглянулась." (There was something about her that I liked.)

When feelings get stronger we can talk about falling in love ("влюбиться в кого-то"). Like English, Russian has a number of phrases equating falling in love with losing your mind: "Он влюблён без памяти" (literally, "without memory", crazy in love.) Speaking of crazy, we can also say: "Он безумно её любит." (He's crazy about her.)

As for more physical metaphors, while we can say that someone is head over heels in love with someone, Russians say that someone is up to his ears in love: "Он уже влюблён по уши." (Hes already head over heels for her.)

You can even use the active form of this verb colloquially (if you are 17 or reading Cosmopolitan), to talk about trying to get someone to fall in love with you: "Как влюбить в себя девушку?" (How do you get a girl to fall for you?)

It would be tempting to try and use the adjectival form of this verb to translate really bad break-up excuses into Russian, but it's not a typical phrase: "Я тебя люблю, но не влюблён." (I love you, but I'm not in love with you.)

Moving past "влюбить", there are some interesting phrases for really loving someone, like "души не чаять": "Старик души не чаял в молодой жене". (The old man doted on his young wife.)

This phrase is also often used to describe the feelings of parents and grandparents for children. Here is an actual no-kidding sentence I heard from a friend last week: "Да и жена души не чает в дочери любовницы мужа." (And the wife adores the daughter of her husband's mistress.)

But people weren't always so open with all this love talk. In Russian villages, even in the early XXth century, peasant women used the verb "жалеть" (which usually means pity) instead of "любить", because the latter seemed too intimate, or inappropriate for discussion. Here's an excerpt from the XXth century essayist Nikolai Tsurikov's memoirs: "Как с мужем-то живешь?" "Живем хорошо." "Жалеет он тебя?" (How's life with your husband? Good. Literally: Does he take pity on you?)

But not always does the path of true love run smooth. If things don't work out, the verb "бросать" can be used colloquially to talk about breaking up. The literal meaning of this verb is "to throw" or "to drop" and you often hear it used to talk about quitting a bad habit: "бросать курить/пить."

One woman was complaining on an Internet forum that she couldn't quit either of those things, and it ended up ruining her marriage: "Не могла бросить ни то ни другое, в итоге меня бросил муж." (I couldn't quit either [smoking or drinking], and in the end my husband left me.)

About the author: Sara Buzadzhi is a translator and English teacher in Moscow.