Russian Language Blog

«В северной Калифорнии» [in northern California] where I’m presently living «не купить Ленина в шапке в стиле Санта-Клауса» [(one cannot/it is not possible) to buy Lenin with a hat in the style of Santa Claus]… This picture is yet another nostalgic trip down Ural Memory Lane – the «я люблю Урал!» [I love the Urals!] in the background sort of gives it away, I guess…

«Привет всем!» [Hi everybody!] Excuse me for being so informal; I should’ve probably chosen the «здравствуйте!» [hello!] variant of greeting you instead, «дорогие читатели» [pl. dear readers], but I didn’t so let’s just get this party started. In case we haven’t met before – if you’re new to this blog, for example, or began reading it without being properly introduced to the two women behind it – one of them is me and my name is «Джозефина» [Josefina]. If you’ve been reading this blog for some time now – maybe ever since I started writing for it in the fall of 2007? – then you probably know that «раньше я жила в Екатеринбурге» [before I lived in Yekaterinburg] and perhaps you even remember somewhat vaguely that «всего я жила 6 (шесть) лет в России» [all in all I lived six years in Russia]. If this is all news to you, that’s alright. I may have been forced to leave Russia this summer due to being accepted «в докторантуру в Беркли» [to graduate school at Berkeley], but because I study (and spend almost all of my time) «на факультете славянских языков и литератур» [at the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures] I am in a highly privileged position: even here I am always surrounded by Russian language, Russian people and Russian culture – despite ‘officially’ residing «в Соединённых штатах Америки» [in the United States of America]. Are you also a student of Russian language or literature (or both!) at some department in a university? What university? In what country? «Давайте будем дружить университетами!» [Let's be friends 'through our universities' or 'as universities'!] How long have you been studying Russian language? I would love to find out more about where our «дорогие читатели» [pl. dear readers] are learning Russian.

But now for something completely different! So, what was the biggest shock for me coming to the USA after living in Russia for so long? Well, obviously I was shocked by many things. For example, American grocery stores often carry only one single brand of «гречка» [buckwheat] and American public restrooms never lack «туалетная бумага» [toilet paper]. This was all shocking to me after living long as well as prospering «в Российской федерации» [in the Russian Federation]. This one can get used to rather quickly. What I am still getting used to is how Americans tend to say ‘excuse me!’ and ‘sorry!’ all the time. They say it even though they’re only ALMOST bumping into you. Sometimes they say it while walking past you in the store or on the street. In Russia you’d be surprised if someone who ALMOST bumped into you on the street said «простите!» [(formal or when addressing more than one person) excuse me!]. I’d even be surprised in Russia if a stranger did bump into me on the street and then turned to me to exclaim with feeling: «извините!» [(formal or when addressing more than one person) pardon me!]. Does this mean that Russians are – as many a foreigner has thought them to be due to situations like the one described above – a rude people? I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I think it goes deeper than being simply rude or impolite. In general, people do not talk to strangers in Russia (see, it looks like they paid attention to their mothers when they said: “Don’t talk to strangers!”). Usually Russians do not strike up random conversations just with anybody on the street or in the store or in a restaurant. Does this mean that Russians are cold, reserved and not communicative in general? I prefer to look at it as Russians are more introvert than extrovert. In Russia people do not assume that you’re interested in hearing about their day, their week, their year or their life simply because you happen to be next to them in line at the grocery store or also waiting for that same bus. On the one hand, I do miss the Russian ‘rudeness’, i.e. being introvert – but on the other, it is refreshing to hear ‘I’m sorry!’ from somebody, for example, stepping all over your toes.

Let’s further explore how to say ‘sorry’ in Russian, for the expression ‘when in Rome…’ doesn’t always have to apply to everyone and everywhere. If you come from a culture where excusing yourself is imperative, then bring that tradition with you when you travel. Saying you’re sorry has never hurt anyone, after all. I come from a country (Sweden) where one should always say «спасибо» [thank you] whenever possible – ultimately, it should be repeated in every sentence uttered (okay, so that’s me being a teeny tiny bit ironic). This is not common in Russia or Russian language. Yet I kept on doing it during all the six years I lived there…

The English ‘sorry’  can be translated into three different concepts in Russian:

1. (feeling sympathy) «жаль» with which you can say both «мне жаль» [I am sorry] and more specifically «мне её жаль» [I'm sorry for her] – when needed.

2. (feeling regret) «сожалеть» [impfv. to be sorry] by way of which you can express yourself in the following manner: «теперь я сожалею, что сделала это» [I am sorry now that I did it].

3. (expressing one’s apologies) «простите!» [(addressing one person formally or more than one person) I’m sorry!] or «прости!» [(addressing one person informally) I’m sorry!] is what you should say in Russia when bumping into somebody. Since you usually aren’t informal with strangers on the street in Russia be sure only to use the «простите!» variant. Just so you make sure not to offend people you don’t know – and who could potentially become close friends with you and perhaps take you skiing in «Сочи» [Sochi] next winter if you play your cards right.

When you want to say ‘excuse me!’ in Russian language, you can either use «простите!» and  «прости!» – as shown above – or make use of «извините!» (for formal address or plural) and «извини!» (for singular and informal) which both translate into English as ‘excuse me!’ or ‘pardon me!’.

From the verb «простить» [pfv. to forgive] the neuter noun «прощение» is derived. It has two connotations that can both be used to say you’re sorry in Russian: 1. forgiveness: «просить прощения у кого-нибудь» [to ask for someone’s forgiveness] and 2. pardon: «прощу прощения!» [I beg your pardon!].

Also from the verb «извинить» [pfv. to excuse, pardon] a neuter noun is derived: «извинение». It has three connotations in Russian and can indeed too be used to express how sorry you are in the following manner: 1. apology: «прощу извинения!» [I’m sorry!]; 2. pardon: «просить извинения у кого-нибудь» [to beg someone's pardon]; 3. excuse: «это не извинение» [that's no excuse].

And last – but not least – we have a reflexive verb made from the imperfect «извинять» [to excuse, pardon]: «извиняться» [impfv. to apologize] + «перед кем?» [to whom? (with instrumental case)]. How should we use it in a sentence then? How about this:

«Я извиняюсь перед вами, что не придумала хорошей концовки для этого поста…» [I apologize to you that I didn’t come up with a good ending for this post...]

Can it really be true that we’ve saved the best for our final, third, part of “Same-Same but Different”? After two posts – one on «омонимы» [homonyms] and another about «омофоны» [homophones] – we made it all the way to the truly troubling and trickiest of them all: «омографы» [homographs]. Here and now is when not only your intuition will be put to the test, but also your ability to «запоминать» [impfv. to remember, to make it a point to remember; to memorize (it’s perfect ‘friend’ is «запомнить»)] words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently. The last part is imperative because these words differ in meaning depending on how you pronounce them. I’m sure everyone already knows and agrees with me that «знать, на какой гласный падает ударение» [to know which vowel is stressed (lit. ‘to know on what vowel the stress falls)] in Russian words is «один из самых сложных моментов русского языка»  [one of the most difficult moments of Russian language]. «Омограф» [homograph] comes from Greek and means ‘written the same’. Russian language – rich as it is in several other ways as well – has many pairs of homographs. A large number of them are the results of simple morphological coincidence; though it of course would have been much more «любопытно» [curiously; also: interesting] for us had there been more to investigate behind them. Today’s post will only include a very «маленькое количество омографов» [small amount of homographs] to illustrate this complicated – for non-native speakers, that is – phenomenon.

Found on a wall in Yekaterinburg during the summer of 2007 (can you guys imagine how long I’ve been searching for a reason to post this picture here?!): «Скоро зима. Скорее пиши на дверях туалета свой стишок, писака» [Soon (it will be) winter. Hurry up and write (or: pee – depending on where you put the stress) your little verse on the walls of the toilet, scribbler (also: poor writer, hack writer)].

The highly imaginative and kind of profound graffiti above probably needs to be explained. First of all, it uses two so-called ‘negative’ diminutives derived from neutral nouns: «писака» [both fem. & mas., poor writer, hack writer, scribbler] from «писатель» [mas. writer] and «стишок» [little verse, bad poem, poor quality poetry] from «стих» [verse; pl. poetry, poems]. But it is also partly built around the homographs «писать» [impfv. to write] and «писать» [impfv. to piss]. Many foreigners in Russia have confused these two verbs with each other and made a fool of themselves; just as many foreigners will make the same mistake and thus also a fool of themselves in the future. Partly this is because most of us aren’t taught that the «писать» [to piss] way to pronounce this verb has a WHOLE OTHER meaning and so we don’t know how important it is to pronounce it right, i.e. «писать» [to write].  But only in infinitive form – and I’m guessing also in imperative because of the graffiti above – are these two verbs true homographs. As soon as you start putting them in first person singular present time, you’ll come to see that it is not really as easy to confuse them with each other anymore:

«Писать» [impfv. to write] becomes «я пишу» [I write].

«Писать» [impfv. to piss] becomes «я писаю» [I piss].

The same is true for all other forms of these two verbs in present tense, like in second person singular for example:

«Писать» [impfv. to write] becomes «ты пишешь» [you write];

«Писать» [impfv. to piss] becomes «ты писаешь» [you piss].

Of course it would be embarrassing to realize the next day that you told a Russian «мне нужно писать» [I have to pee (or: I need to pee)] when what you really wanted to inform them of was «мне нужно писать» [I have to write (or: I need to write)]. But I’m certain they’ll get over it. Let’s consider another sometimes annoying hompgraph: first person singular in present tense of both «платить» [impfv. to pay] and «плакать» [impfv. to cry] is written like «плачу». Say you asked a Russian girl/boy out to dinner, they said yes and everything has been going great up until the moment that you get the bill on the table. How do you pronounce the sentence «я всегда плачу» so that it means ‘I always pay’ and not ‘I always cry’ (unless that’s what you want to say)?

Your date will be impressed with your «ЩЕДРОСТЬ» [fem. GENEROSITY] if you say….

«Я всегда плачу» which is 1^st person singular of «платить» [impfv. to pay].

Your date will be impressed with your «ЧУВСТВИТЕЛЬНОСТЬ» [fem. SENSITIVITY] if you say…

«Я всегда плачу» which is 1^st person singular of «плакать» [impfv. to cry]

Has anybody else ever walked up to the counter in a Russian store and asked for «мука» [torment], when what you really needed in order to bake cookies was «мука» [flour]? That happened to me on a regular basis. In fact it happened so much that I would think I was always saying the word wrong even when I got it right… Has that ever happened to you?

Here’s a tiny little list of other homographs worth memorizing:

«атлас» [atlas];

«атлас» [satin].

«замок» [castle];

«замок» [lock].

«потом»: instrumental case singular of «пот» [sweat].

«потом» [(adverb) then].

«уже»: short comparative form of «узкий» [narrow], i.e. meaning ‘narrower’.

«уже» [already].

Two days ago we discussed «омонимы» [pl. homonyms] here on our blog. As a part of that process I tried to be funny but was probably only silly when I used the popular phrase «гнать самогон» in a sentence so it wouldn’t mean «гнать самогон» as in ‘to distill moonshine’ – like it usually does – but ‘to chase the moonshine (or home-made vodka, if that’s what you prefer to call it)’. This example was not true grammatically, I am afraid. If you really want to say ‘to chase the moonshine’ in Russian you would have to use the reflexive version of the same verb – «гнаться» [to chase, pursue] – together with the preposition «за» [here: after] which forces the noun coming after it into the «творительный падеж» [instrumental case] like this: «гнаться за самогоном» [to chase after the home-made liquor]. Why am I elaborating so much on this when it is such a minor correction? You never know; anyone of us might end up «в такой сложной ситуации» [in such a difficult situation] one day where we must speak about this in Russia. «Шутки в сторону» [joking aside], this is important grammatical commentary!

Today we’re going to continue our discussion about words that look or sound the same but mean different things and talk about «омофоны» [homophones]. «Омофон» [homophone] is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. «Омофоны» [homophones] are commonly used by teachers of «русский как иностранный» [Russian as a foreign language] at universities in Russia as a way to test the students’ «слух» [hearing] – even though sometimes even Russians themselves can’t hear the difference between two homophones. For example, back in June this year a friend of mine in Yekaterinburg – «студент из Китая» [a student from China] – «сдавал гос(ударственный) экзамен по русскому как иностранному» [was taking his state exam in Russian as a foreign language] and the teacher pronounced a word that sounded like «грип». She then asked him which noun she was pronouncing: «гриб» [mushroom] or «грипп» [influenza]. These two words are homophones due to the rules of assimilations in Russian phonetics which make the «б» at the end of a masculine noun sound like a «п». Since «гриб» [mushroom] and «грипп» [influenza] sound exactly the same when pronounced correctly, I don’t know what the right way to «сдать этот экзамен» [pass this exam] would’ve been. Perhaps to answer ‘both’?

This picture has nothing to do with the topic of today’s post. «Это просто какая-то станция на железной дороге в России, где можно покупать мороженое» [It is just some station on the railroad in Russia where one can buy ice-cream].

Because «омофоны» [homophones] can easily be confused with each other they also offer much material for «каламбуры» [pl. word-play, puns]. As such they are more widespread in English than in Russian (consider  couples like bare/bear and right/write, for example), but even in Russian language they may arise as a result, for example, of the devoicing of final voiced consonants, like in the example above with  «гриб» [mushroom] or «грипп» [influenza], as well as in the case with «немой» [dumb; mute] and «не мой» [not my]. In some contexts, however, it is unlikely that any confusion as to the meaning of a word which sounds the same as another will arise, even though it can happen. And it has happened to me many, many times. For example, «дне» is the form used in the prepositional case singular of two Russian nouns: «день» [day] and «дно» [bottom]. For the longest time I thought that «Максим Горький»’s [Maxim Gorky’s] play «На дне» translated into English “On the Day”. I have yet to read this work – which could be one of the reasons as to why I misunderstood the title – but now I know that the correct translation of it is “At the Bottom” (the English translation is commonly called “In the Lower Depths” – which is sort of the same thing). And also that there’s a big difference in meaning between those two titles!

Believe it or not, but I once did manage to confuse the two highly differing words «лук» [meadow] and «луг» [onion, bow] with each other. It happened during a lecture on Russian modernism literature when I only heard the professor pronounce the title of one of the early 20^th century writer «Андрей Белый»’s [Andrei Bely’s] collection of critical articles – the professor didn’t write it up on the black board. The result of this was that I thought this collection was called «Лук зелёный» [‘The Green Onion’] – and kept wondering to myself what these articles had to do with onions? did it perhaps contain some recipes using onions? was Bely himself maybe a big fan of onions? – which is as hilarious as it is embarrassing when you consider that «зелёный лук» in Russian actually means ‘chives’. The real title of the collection is «Луг зелёный» [“The Green Meadow”]. It might not make more sense but at least it is correct.

Here is a list with a few (far from all of them!) common homophones in Russian language. And while you’re reading through them, I want you to ask yourself if you’ve ever confused any of them with each other? Like I did – twice – in my examples above?

«кампания» [campaign];

«компания» [company (in various senses)].

«порог» [threshold];

«порок» [vice (fault, sin)].

«труд» [labor];

«трут» [tinder].

«плод» [pond];

«плот» [twig].

«род» [kin, sort, kind, genus, gender];

«рот» [mouth].

«шагом» instrumental case singular of «шаг» [step, pace];

«шагом» adverb [at walking pace].