Last time we talked about how to say ‘How are you?’ («Как дела?») and why Russians like to say ‘How are you?’ more than once. Now I am going to tell you one curious thing about how to reply to this phrase and you will learn when you should say I am fine in Russian and when you’d better not. Read and learn! (далее…)
Yes, that’s probably how a common Russian greeting can be translated. Because Russians enjoy playing with words and wrapping the same idea in different ways. When it comes to (warm) greetings, we cannot be satisfied with only one way of saying how are you in Russian. That’s simply because we have so many ways to greet each other. Here are the 5% of them. (далее…)
Not always. Today I will tell you about two Russian words – a noun and an adjective derived from the same root – that mean directly opposite things! Here are these words – «фигня» and «офигенный». They are ve-e-e-ery commonly used. «Фигня» is a noun and can be used in lots of different situations. (далее…)
Hi everyone, this time I’m going to tell you about a word «ничего». In many cases it means nothing in Russian. But how can you understand the phrase «Эта девчонка – ничего»? Will you translate it like ‘this girl is nothing’? To avoid a terrible mistake like this (and possibly a slap) handling the word nothing in Russian, read the rest of the article. (далее…)
Hi everyone! You probably know that in English ‘house’ does not always mean ‘home’ and not every house can be your home. Does house in the Russian language mean the same? Read and learn. Actually, when Russians learn English they always get confused with these two – a house and a home. ‘What’s the difference?’ they ask. (далее…)
Hi everyone, today we are going to talk about bad language! There are two Russian swearwords I want to talk about – «хрен вам» and «фиг вам». They seem like an address to somebody, but they are not. Both these Russian swearwords mean pretty much the same thing – ‘like hell it will happen!’ Or ‘not bloody likely’ in American slang. Let’s check out some examples. (далее…)
Hi everybody, today we are going to talk about the famous Russian alcoholic drink vodka. All foreigners know only one word – ‘vodka’ but in Russian there are dozens of names for it! Among those there are two words derived from «водка» which are commonly used and show who drinks it and who doesn’t! So, the first Russian word for vodka («водка») is «водочка». (далее…)