Russian Word of the Day

The basic verb that means “to take” in Russian is брать/взять. Notice that for both verbs the past/infinitive stem differs from the present/future/imperative stem. Note also the ь that appears in the middle of the future/imperative forms of взять.

The simplest meaning of the verb is “to grasp/pick up something with the hands”:

The verb pair can also mean “to remove from its previous position”:

Very often the verb is used in the context where Americans would use “to get”:

Sometimes the verb is essentially the same as “to buy,” at least when the context is clear:

Although we won't go over them here, it's a good idea to remember that брать/взять has quite a few other meanings as well, just as “to take” does in English. Among them are:

• to rent (a car, etc.)
• to accept someone into a group
• to take control of
• to make a sound
• to go in a particular direction

As a beginning language student, it is always good to remember that if a word doesn't seem to make sense in a particular context, it may well have other meanings in addition to those you already know. Always have a good paper dictionary which you can consult when the internet is down. And always know two or three online dictionaries that you can consult. Actually, what dictionaries to use is a good topic of discussion as well, but we'll save that for another day.

The Russians word for a teakettle is чайник; it comes from the word чай (tea). The teakettle is used to heat up water for the tea, while the заварной чайник (teapot) refers to the vessel in which the actual tea is served. Today, many households also have the электрический чайник (electric teakettle). Russians commonly say чайник when talking about either one of the three, but fortunately that rarely causes confusion.

image from goldmoscow.com

Here are a few example sentences:

The word чайник can also be used as an insult when directed at someone who the offender considers to be a bit irrational and obtuse:

The Russian phrase for “each other” is formed by saying the word друг twice in a row. The second друг occurs in a case other than the nominative, i.e. you can find these five forms:

The case of the second друг depends most often on the verb in question. If the verb requires a direct object, the second друг shows up in the accusative case; if the verb requires a dative object, the second друг shows up in the dative case. Likewise genitive — genitive, and instrumental — instrumental. Here are some examples:

If the verb requires a prepositional phrase as its complement, then the preposition comes between the two другs:

Native English speakers, of course, will be tempted to write things like «Мои сёстры постоянно сплетничают о друг друге». And truth to tell, native Russians will say or write something like that, but it is not considered good written style.

Interestingly enough, sometimes the Russians substitute дружка for the second друг. Thus you get:

That makes the phrase much more informal and conversational. For instance:

I was interested to find the phrase as well in a site devoted to Russian folk magic. Here is a spell people use to help repair a family fracas:

You'll notice that жгут, обходят and читают are not command forms but third person plural verbs. In the translation they are rendered as imperatives to make the English flow better.

The verb видеть/увидеть means “to see.”

While the imperfective is almost always translated “to see,” the perfective can often be translated “to spot, to catch sight of”:

The Russian word наушники is translated as headphones. Just like in English, this term is used to refer to all types of headphones when the description is added in front: беспроводные наушники (wireless headphones), вставные наушники (earbuds), стерео наушники (stereo headphones), диджейские наушники (DJ headphones) and etc.

The word наушник (headphone) is a combination of the preposition на (on), the word уши (ears), and a suffix -ник that turns the combination into a noun.

Here are some example sentences:

Picture from fareastgizmos.com

The other day I was talking with my buddy Юрий when my brain rаn up against a linguistic wall: I didn't know how to say “I lost my voice” in Russian. Of course, a good language student never lets the lack of vocabulary stop him. He just improvises with words he does know. So I said “у меня исчез голос”, literally “at me the voice disappeared.” That made the communicative point and the conversation continued, but I was irked that I didn't really know the way a Russian would normally say it. So I started asking about that concept and here's what I came up with.

First of all, there is the verb хрипнуть/охрипнуть, which covers two concepts in English: “to have/get a hoarse voice” and “to lose one's voice.” The verb is conjugated like this:

Since this verb covers the meaning of two different phrases, sometimes it has two possible translations:

That means that if you are translating something from Russian to English, you might have to pay close attention to context to see whether completely losing the voice or becoming hoarse is the point. Of course, there can't be that many contexts where it's important to distinguish between simply becoming hoarse (partially losing one's voice) and completely losing one's voice, so maybe the issue is mostly moot.

Here's another example:

There are a couple other phrases that mean the same thing. We can use the verb оседать/осесть “to sink” or терять/потерять “to lose.” For instance:

The word тарелка is translated as plate. For the most part, it is a kitchen term, but can also be used to describe a UFO saucer (летающая тарелка), a satellite dish (спутниковая тарелка), or the percussion instrument cymbal.

Here are some sample sentences:

The translation of that last sentence sounds very odd to the American ear: after all, no one would ever serve you soup on a plate because a plate is mostly flat and the soup would run off! But in Russian тарелка includes dishes that are deep enough to be called bowls in American English. You'll still find “plate of soup” in older English translations of Russian literature, but if the target audience of your translation is American, then the better translation is “bowl.” Take a look:

Image taken from vkusnosti.com

Here's a short, connected dialog that shows you not only the word тарелка, but also has some good vocabulary you'll encounter generally while shoppping.

Какой is one of the question words in Russian. It asks a question, so we call it ‘interrogative,’ and in terms of its endings it's an adjective, so we call it an ‘interrogative adjective.’ It declines like this:

Although какой can be translated several ways, it's most common meaning is “what kind of”:

Sometimes какой has about the same meaning as который, and in those instances we can often translate it as ‘what’ or sometimes ‘which’:

The word for “someone of the same age” in Russian is ровесник when applied to a man and ровесница when applied to a woman. We have a similar word in English, coeval, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone use it out loud. If the question «Кто из вас старше?» “Which one of you is older?” is directed to a couple of men of the same age, they may respond «Мы ровесники», and if the question is directed to a couple of women, they may respond «Мы ровесницы». If the question is directed to a groups of mixed gender, then the masculine form is used, «Мы ровесники». (By the way, that's generally true in most Indo-european languages. The masculine form of a word often has two roles: the gender-specific masculine meaning, and a generic meaning that can be used for mixed groups.) There is another pair of words, masculine сверстник and feminine сверстница, which mean the same thing and can be used the same way, however they are not quite as common as ровесник/ровесница; they are still pretty common, though.

Of course, if those were the only ways to express the idea, Russian wouldn't be very interesting. Here are some alternatives:

The «Мы одного возраста» phrase is perfectly good written and spoken Russian. The phrase with masculine однолеток or feminine однолетка is conversational; I don't recommend writing it. The same holds true for the phrase with masculine одногодок or feminine одногодка.

The phrase with «по» may be the most natural sounding in response to «Сколько вам лет» “How old are you?”, but you wouldn't expect it in response to «Кто из вас старше?»

A подъезд is an entrance hall of a multi-storey house through which all inhabitants pass on the way to their apartments. It’s basically a lobby that usually includes an elevator and has a stairway leading from one floor to the next. Подъезд is composed of two parts, под “under/up to” and езд- “ride.” Here are some example sentences:

A подъезд is a very important part of the building. Each one has its own distinct attributes that ultimately create a special kind atmosphere that never repeats itself. It can be good or bad, creepy or safe. You can have a roomy apartment with tall ceilings, new windows and a spacious balcony, but that might not be enough to convince someone to buy or rent the place if the подъезд is a mess. Most likely the price will have to drop. How many ordinary people would want, especially at night, to step into a dreary подъезд with one flickering light bulb hanging from the ceiling and barely illuminating the mutilated floor tiles, graffitied walls, bruised mailboxes, and rank, piss-stained stairs?

I grew up in a building with this particular drawback. The six-story structure, built in the Stalin years, was in fair overall condition and at a convenient location: subway station within walking distance and Red Square just a couple of train stops away. For the most part my neighbors were regular people with families and everyday jobs. There was one severe alcoholic living with his mother a floor above my apartment, but he wasn’t the boisterous type and rarely caused trouble. The only real problem was the подъезд that scared visitors and inhabitants alike. One fifteen-year-old girl’s grandmother would not let her come in alone out of certain fears. Of course I thought she was being paranoid, but looking back at it now, it makes a lot more sense. When you have depressed drunkards randomly hanging out by the doorway and occasional junkies shooting up in the shadowy corners, the instinct of caution switches on automatically.

All efforts to bring the подъезд into decent condition failed. Calling the cops didn’t help much either: they got bored—no major disturbances. The neighborhood wasn’t poor by any means, and the house to the left had a nice, clean подъезд, as did the one across the street, but for some strange reason everyone liked to hang out at ours. I also remember a neighbor complaining about having to lower the sale price of her apartment too much. This problem existed in other neighborhoods throughout the city and was eventually acknowledged by the administrators. About four years ago the walls were repainted, new floor tiles laid out, broken mailboxes replaced and, most importantly, a steel door with a phone system was installed. Now there are no uninvited visitors or obvious signs of vandalism, but the urine stench is as strong as ever.

I'm convinced that everyone who reads this blog is not only an intellectual, but also a person committed to personal fitness and the betterment of the planetary environment, personal moral wisdom, and social justice. So of course all my readers want to know the word for push-ups in Russian. In addition to a noun, the Russians use use the verb отжиматься, which literally means “to press away from.” Verbs can often be turned into nouns by subtracting the -ть and adding -ние. Thus “pressings away from the floor” (push-ups) can be turned into the neuter plural отжимания от пола. Here are examples:

Here's a nice description of how to perform a standard push-up:

Total fitness freaks might like this advice:

Here's a work-out with one-armed push-ups:

Just like Americans, young Russian men have to do a lot of push-ups in the army where they will hear:

One push-up phrase that has become very popular since the nineties is taken from the lips of the General Lebedev puppet on the popular Russian political puppet show «Куклы». Lebedev is quoted often as saying:

Notice the interesting use of the past tense here as a type of command form. That is the strongest form of command possible in Russian; it essentially indicates a complete lack of compassion or respect for the addressee. Don't ever use it in Russia unless you yourself join the Russian army and are hazing recruits to the point of suicide.

Pictures from fatalenergy.com.ru

The word тетрадь can be translated as notebook or exercise book, depending on whether it is used for school or not. It is a feminine noun that declines like this:

An exercise book is one of the core elements of the Russian education system and is regularly used by students on every step of the scholastic stairway—from preschool to high school. The most popular form of тетрадь used in schools holds about twelve pages, has a thin paper cover and is usually bonded with staples. Graph paper is used for math and lined paper for all other subjects. It’s basically a notebook in which students do their class work exercises and homework assignments. Generally, teachers require students to write with ink and keep everything as neat as possible, or else the grade is lowered. I’ve experienced this downgrading many times.

Image taken from www.ruslania.com

Example sentences:

Тетрадь, especially if it’s a small one, can also be referred to as тетрадка. People often use the two terms interchangeably. Examples:

Today's word is свет, a lovely small word which has a couple of meanings. Today we explore its meaning in the sense of light, that radiant energy that makes things visible. Its declension has all the regular forms that you would expect:

But in this meaning you will also occasionally find an alternative genitive singular свету and an alternative prepositional свету.

The word also means “a light,” that is a source of illumination. In this sense it is usually only used in the singular, not the plural:

The Russian word for glasses or spectacles is очки. Here are some example sentences:

When talking about sunglasses, you have to add the adjective солнечные (sun, solar) in front of glasses. So the word sunglasses is translated as солнечные очки. Once in a while someone might say солнцезащитные очки, meaning anti-sun or sun-protective glasses. Fortunately this tough word combination is not as popular as the simpler солнечные очки. Examples:

In English the word goggles is used to describe protective eyewear, e.g., swim goggles, lab goggles, ski goggles, etc. But in Russian, they are all simply очки. Examples:

The word очки can also mean points; очко is the singular form of the word. Example:

Don's additional comments: when очки means glasses or goggles, the word is only used in the plural. When it means points, it is used in both the singular and the plural.

Other phrases used for sunglasses are «тёмные очки» “dark glasses”, «очки от солнца» and occasionally «чёрные очки» “black glasses.” A Google search this morning found this distribution of hits:

With those numbers you can be pretty sure that all five forms are acceptable. It's possible that the distribution of numbers relects the marketing of sunglasses in Russian more than the conversational use of the phrases.

Комар is translated as mosquito; комары is the plural form of the word. Here are some example sentences:

The Moscow countryside is a fine place for freeing oneself from the constant stress and never-ending chaos of daily city life. It’s a place where people seek refuge on weekends and holidays to clear the mind and find some peace. Many Russians living in cities have country homes called dachas. But trying to reach a Zen-like state of relaxation can sometimes be quite difficult. I’m talking about the one loathsome neighbor that doesn’t mind his own business and wants to make your life just as miserable as his, the pointless calls from the residential council chairman asking for more money, occasional airplanes that happen to choose the one particular route that passes right above your dacha; but all that is nothing compared to the evil that a “комар” brings.

If your home is near the woods or a swampy lake of some sort, consider your evenings and nights ruined by these tiny vampires. Of course there are ways to keep the bloodsuckers away, but they are not too pleasant either. For instance you can stay in the house behind a closed window and enjoy the lovely evenings that way, but then what’s the point of even going out to the country? Then there is the mosquito repellent, but that chemical fusion can at times be so toxic that even humans will keep away. You could end up with an allergic reaction that is far worse than an itching “комар” bite.

Unfortunately, the only true, efficient way to stay unbothered is to have a certain natural quality that will keep them away. Don’t know what this quality is or how to acquire it. When my brother and I are out at night he rarely gets bitten, while I am basically eaten alive by the parasites—unless I'm wearing long sleeves. There also have been stories of people desperate enough to dig out deep ponds in their backyards and throw in fair-sized fish that can supposedly feed on the bloodsuckers.

Come to think of it, there actually is one plus for the weather being cold three quarters of the year.

Numbers... numbers are funny things, and human languages have all sorts of quirks in regards to them. For instance, the Ya̧nomamö tribe in South America has only three number words: one, two, and “more than two.” In Arabic grammar a feminine noun agrees with a masculine number and vice-versa, at least for the numbers three to ten. English has a word for a dozen dozens. Lusatian and Slovene have not only singular and plural noun endings, but also dual. And among the quirks of the Slavic languages is this little gem: Russian has a word that means “one and a half,” and that word is полтора/полторы. It declines like this:

Like the numbers два/две, три, and четыре, this number is followed by the genitive singular of the noun that it quantifies. Sample sentences:

Upon reflection one might wonder how the heck a language comes up with a single word for “one and a half.” After all, a caveman is not going to go out looking for one and a half yaks, and a prehistoric Slav never looked for one and a half wives. So why a number for “one and a half”? The reason is simple: it originally came from two words. The Old Russian word for half was полъ, where the final letter was a spoken vowel. The word for second was вторъ, which in the genitive case was втора. When speaking of quantities, ancient Russians talked about “half of the second” «полъ втора» item, and they assumed the listener knew that if they were talking about half of the second, they of course also meant all of the first item as well. Or if talking about a feminine thing they used вторы, which is the feminine genitive form of second. Eventually the vowels ъ and ь started vanishing from the language, which meant in terms of pronunciation they were left with полвтора and полвторы. Languages have the tendency to simplify consonant clusters, and the в eventually vanished (which is the same reason we pronounce здравствуй as [zdrastvuy] not [zdravstvuy].

¹ ГАЗ = Горьковский автомобильный завод = the Gorky Automobile Factory.

One of the meanings of the stem пол- in Russian is “one half.” The place we most commonly see it is in phrases like “It is half past one” (see details) or “I was there at half past one” (see details), but it can combine with other nouns as well that have nothing to do with clock time. The second noun shows up in the genitive singular form to make a single new word:

There is a quirk of spelling in regards to words that start with this stem. If the second part of the word starts with a vowel or with л, then you are supposed to write it with a hyphen:

Likewise you should use a hyphen if the second word is a proper name:

Otherwise the words are not hyphenated:

Words starting with пол- are most often found in the nominative and accusative cases, and in literary Russian the accusative of these words always copies the nominative. You usually don't have to worry about the other cases. Actually, a really good student of Russian will immediately ask, “But how would a Russian deal with those words in the other cases?” The answer is “inconsistently.” The rules of proper writing say one thing; conversational Russian often produces other forms. As a beginner it's best to stick with using them only in the nominative and accusative. If you have to talk about half of something in any other case, substitute the word половина instead.

One of the Russian words for half is половина. It is perfectly regular in declension. Sample sentences:

"Cпортзал" is made up of two words, спорт (sport) and зал (hall). It is used to describe various fitness clubs and gyms. Lately more and more Russians have begun to use the English terms but спортзал remains the most dominant. Here are a few examples for this two-part word:

Finding an affordable "спортзал" has become a bit easier for Russians, or at least for Muscovites, than before.

A few years ago it came to me that I should visit a “спортзал” once in a while to stay active, or at least try to, so I got a membership at a decent Arizona gym that had all the basic equipment and a pool for a good $30 a month. When I went to Moscow for the summer I decided to sign up at a “спортзал” there too, just in case I’d continue with this new healthy habit of mine. But as I soon realized… this goal was too naive.

Unlike in the States, fitness clubs are fairly new to Russia and began to emerge only in the late nineties. Sure, every school had a gym and physical education was important but those gyms were different, nothing like 24 Hour Fitness, and for students only, unless you knew the security guard or the principal. As a result, parks and swimming pools tend to be the most popular spots for healthy Russians. But parks and crowded pools were not on my list; I was already spoiled by my American “спортзал.” So I searched out a couple fitness clubs not too far from my apartment and went down to check them out.

The first one was your typical gym—weights, treadmills, yoga, aerobics. A manager with a joyous smile gave me a tour around the place, describing everything in detail, except for the rates, and convincing me to sign up. To me it was an average gym, just what I hoped for, nothing special. When I finally got the rates sheet and glimpsed at it, I was first bumped by slight confusion and then hit hard by sudden alarm. The cheapest plan with which you could visit the gym only four days a week was $500 a month, after a membership fee of $4000. Certainly wasn’t prepared for this. I looked at the manager, her smile faded, made the usual excuse about needing more time to think the decision over and quickly left.

The other place was not any prettier—$50 a day. This made me lose my gym motivation for the summer and suddenly going to the park didn’t sound all that bad.

The verb замечать/заметить means “to notice observe.” It conjugates like this:

The thing you notice goes in the accusative case:

You can also follow the verb with an entire clause. The clause usually begins with что, but it can also begin with a question word used as a relative pronoun:

The word замечание means “a comment, an observation.” Sometimes the word is entirely neutral:

At other times the word has the sense of “a comment containing criticism.”

The newest letter of the Russian alphabet is ё. Although it was first used in print in the 18th century, it didn't become an official letter until the middle of the 20th century. It's the naughtiest of Russian letters because it's the first letter of the masculine past tense form of the Russian eff word. Now of course Russian Word of the Day readers are much too cultured to bother looking up the ten thousand ridiculously creative ways the Russians use that verb and all its variants, but they should know the several euphemisms for that word that occasionally show up in conversation, particularly «ёлки-палки», a mild phrase which we can translate as “oh, fudge” or “holy moly” or “oh, crud” or “hell's bells” It can express surprise, disgust, or pain. Russians also say «ё-моё», which means roughly the same thing, but is maybe slightly less vulgar.

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

The picture you see at the right is a monument that was erected to the letter ё in the city of Ульяновск, which has about the same emotional effect as erecting a monument in the states to the letter eff. It has always surprised me that local authorities let the monument go up.

Since until relatively recently it was simply considered a variation on the letter е, sometimes dictionaries treat the letters as the same. Thus you might find the word ёж in the е section, or you might find it in its own ё section. If you have trouble finding a word with that letter, double check to see if it's in another section, or check to see whether the word is alphabetized differently than you first thought. Properly speaking, if two words differ only by е/ё, theoretically the е version should come first and the ё version should come second. If you are dealing with lists sorted by computer, be aware that there may be an additional problem. If the algorithm a program uses does not conform to the current rules, then you might unexpectedly find ё sorted before а or after я or inconsistently before/after е.

For the most part Russians don't write the double dots over the ё. It's only used in textbooks for kids and foreigners, in dictionaries, and occasionally in regular writing when otherwise the text would be ambiguous, for instance in distinguishing все “everbody” from всё “everything” or осел “settled” from осёл “donkey.” Interestingly enough, if you write the double dots in a text where people aren't expecting it, it feels awkward to the Russians and slows down their rate of reading, just as when Americans may trip over spellings like coöperation and hæmoglobin. That fact occasionally leads to rational discussions, rants and diatribes, and sometimes to amusing art:

Used by permiision of Артемий Лебедев