[john-aj]

When translating Russian, both are usually translated as blue. Синий is used about dark blue things, like the sea, and голубой about light blue things, like the sky.

But translating it to "dark/light blue" would be incorrect, as the lightness is not an important part of the words. It is just that Russian speakers are forced to specify the lightness, similarly to how German speakers are forced to specify the sex of their neighbor (Nachbar/Nachbarin). In most cases, Nachbarin should simply be translated to "neighbor".

[perl4ever]

I'm not sure how many different interpretations there are of "cyan". What I think of first is RGB(0,255,255) because of mostly encountering the term in relation to computers since the 1980s. Or whatever the cyan in CMYK is, I assume it's similar.

But that's likely not the traditional meaning of it, in whatever language. So I don't assume that I know what cyaan is.