How to say friend in Russian and mean it

This time we will talk about ways how to say friend in Russian. There are a few names for them depending on how close people are to each other. Read the article and you will learn when it’s appropriate to call somebody your friend or not!
So how to say friend in Russian? The most commonly used words for describing people close to you are «знакомый», «приятель» and «друг».

I placed them in ascending order.

We can say that somebody is «знакомый» («знакомая» for females and «знакомые» for a group of people), which means like an ‘acquaintance’, when we haven’t spent a lot of time together. In most cases it means that we haven’t proceeded too far from being acquainted. The word ‘acquaintance’ derives from ‘to get acquainted’ in English, the same is in Russian: the word «знакомый» derives from «знакомство» which also means ‘the first meeting’.

To become your friend a cat has just to… be.

The next way how to say friend in Russian is to call somebody «приятель» («приятельница» for women). It means that someone is your friend, but you still would not call them ‘friend’ because you feel like you haven’t become close enough, even if you get on well and like each other.

The reason for this is because when Russians call somebody ‘a friend’, we 500% mean it. If someone is a friend to us, that at least means that

a) we have known each other for a couple of years minimum, b) we have got heavily drunk together at least once, c) we have hung out at each other’s homes, d) we have had long thoughtful conversations about life while being sober, e) we have shared some secrets, d) we have had little run-ins and still our friendship has survived.

Way too many criteria, aren’t there?

That’s why we take all this Facebook policy about calling every other acquaintance ‘friends’ a little bit skeptically. You are lucky if you have two or three true friends. Or one.

Oh! Almost forgot to tell you how to say friend in Russian. A friend in Russian is «друг», for female friends we say «подруга» or «подружка».

Ok, I hope this one helps! Take care and don’t forget to make new friends subscribe!

Free Russian audio lessons online: words, pronunciation, texts. How to say ‘friend’ in Russian and mean it