Davai in Russian. We love to say it, but you’d better not

Hi everyone! Today I am going to tell you about a word that Russians love as their own mothers but totally hate when they hear foreigners saying it. That is the word «давай». However the good news is that unlike 91% of Russian words, davai in Russian doesn’t change its form and stays the same regardless of a pronoun, nouns’ gender, verb tense or internal politics.

Actually, the word davai in Russian has several meanings. The most common is ‘let’s’ or ‘let us’. Here are some examples for you.

1. «Давай выпьем чего-нибудь?» — ‘Let’s have a drink, shall we?’ («выпьем» is a future form of ‘to have a drink’ used with a pronoun ‘we’ – we will drink).

2. «Давайте соберёмся и обсудим» — “Let’s gather together and have a discussion’ («Соберёмся» is a future form of «собираться» ‘to gather’ used with a pronoun ‘we’ and «обсудим» is a future form of «обсуждать» ‘to discuss’ also used with a pronoun ‘we’).

When somebody is proposing doing something and says «Давай» or «Давайте» (the second one is for addressing a group of people), the usual answer to that is «Давай» or «Давайте». Which can be roughly translated as ‘sure’. Handling davai in Russian is easy and you won’t find it difficult to remember.

There is another expression with davai in Russian – «давай-давай». It generally means the same as a single «давай», but is not used that often and has a slightly different meaning. Davai — davai in Russian is an urge to a more active, energetic or quicker action. «Давай-давай!» is what you always hear at discos or karaoke or sport competitions. It’s kind of ‘Come on!’ It means ‘let’s move, guys!’ or ‘Let’s have fun!’ or ‘Let’s get this party started!’

When Russians are watching sport competitions it sounds like Davai is the only Russian word they know.

But Russians are unlucky enough to hear davai in Russian (mostly in terrible Russian) whenever they visit touristy places abroad. Just imagine: a Russian is on a vacation, he is relaxed and at this very moment is enjoying his little peaceful walk along the street. And then suddenly «Давай-давай!» wildly interrupts this tranquility. ‘Hey Russian, quickly move your butt over here! I have something for you to buy’ that’s what Russian hear behind «давай-давай!».

‘Ugh! Gosh, let’s get out of here asap!’ So if you know someone working for the tourist industry, tell them not to address Russians in the street with «Давай-давай!» At least they won’t get a rude response in Russian as a reply, which one day we will also learn.

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Free Russian audio lessons online: words, pronunciation, texts. Davai in Russian. We love to say it, but you’d better not