This book is written in Russian, and this is all Greek to me.

My comments:

To paraphrase:

This book is written in Russian, and I don’t understand a word of it.

Greek is the language of the people of Greece, which has a long rich history, and, in fact, is the cradle of European civilization or one of the cradles of European civilization. A lot of books in olden times were written in Greek, and not many foreign people understood them. Apparently in these situations, many a foreign scholar uttered helplessly: “My, it’s all Greek to me.”

In other words, it’s a foreign language.

Hence the phrase: All Greek to me, meaning something you read is foreign and incomprehensible.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.