Russian Language Blog

Hello! Boy, am I happy to be back! I apologize for such a long absence from the blog. In case you have been wondering, I am not trekking across Siberia nor is my time taken up by re-reading “War and Peace” for the umpteenth time. I have been stranded без ноутбука (without a laptop) or rather without a working one for a whole week.

And so for the last six days or so I’ve been busy watching lots of телек (informal: TV), going to bed early, and obsessing over уровень обслуживания клиентов (customer service level) at the company whose laptop I bought some time ago.

Have you ever wondered how to talk about such an experience – обслуживание клиентов (customer service) and поддержка клиентов (customer support) – in Russian?

Let’s say, you need to make a phone call to one of these services to resolve an issue. First, you must позвонить по бесплатному номеру (call a toll-free number) only to be put through to автоответчик (answering machine). It admits that ваш звонок очень важен для нас! (your call is very important to us) gives you choices that use up all the кнопки телефона (phone buttons), from единичка (one) to девятка (nine), including решётка (pound key) and звёздочка (star key).

Whatever choice you make, you have to spend endless time в ожидании (on hold) since все операторы заняты (all representatives are busy) due to большое число звонков (large volume of calls).

So by the time you get to a real person, especially if this is a pressing matter, you are готовы взорваться (ready to explode), you are доводён до белого каления (exasperated) and require significant усилие воли (effort) to вежливо разговаривать (speak politely). What can you say, it’s simply a нервотрёпка (a trying experience).

There are some notable exceptions to this torturous process, including an online retailer who will have a support person call you within seconds of your online запрос (request).

To give credit when credit is due, I have never encountered a genuine хамство (offensive  behavior) from any of the customer service reps. Considering the number of сердитые (angry), грубые (rude), раздражённые (irritated), огорчённые (upset), возмущённые (outraged) and otherwise эмоциональные (emotional) people they have to deal with daily, this is quite a достижение (achievement).

The most you get is безразличие (indifference), равнодушие (half-heartedness) and невнимательность (inattention). Still, it is a lot to take, especially if the issue you are trying to resolve is неотложное (urgent) and важное (important).

Back in the Soviet and early post-Soviet days the level of customer service (or any service) in Russia was frequently described as ненавязчивый сервис. The adjective ненавязчивый can mean a few things, depending on the noun it’s paired with. For example, ненавязчивая реклама means “soft sell”; ненавязчивая музыка is “light music”; ненавязчивая элегантность is “quiet elegance”. So far so good, right? But ненавязчивый сервис is nothing to be proud of. In fact, it means “support that’s not there”. It’s unobtrusive (another meaning of ненавязчивый) to the point of nonexistence.

This is probably marginally better from a so-terrible-it’s-comical смех сквозь слёзы (laughter through tears) service experience. For example, when a waitress at an otherwise excellent Russian restaurant on Brighton Beach tells you (me): Перестаньте меню читать. Вы же не читать пришли, а есть. Вот закажите, а потом уже читайте. (Stop reading the menu. You came here not to read, but to eat. Order first then keep reading.)

Getting back to the exasperating experience, hopefully your проблема (problem) is resolved, you get возврат денег (refund) back to your кредитная карточка (credit card) or your банковская карточка (debit card). Or you might be asked to вернуть неисправный товар (return the malfunctioning item) back to продавец (a seller). Or you might get nothing of the kind. No matter the outcome, you will be left with a polite всего доброго! (have a nice day!).

Well, I think it’s finally autumn. For a while, the weather was quite warm, but recently, whenever I walk outside, «мне холодно» [I am cold]. This means I have to wear my «пальто, сапоги, и шапка» [coat, boots, and hat]. And I try not to forget «перчатки» [gloves] either! In the photo: birches near Novosibirsk in autumn. Do you know how to say “birch” in Russian?

The learning verbs in Russian are very, very complicated. I’m in an advanced Russian class and we just went over them, so I thought I would post a little bit about these verbs, including some example sentences, so you can see how they are used.

«Учиться» means to learn and is usually used with general knowledge, such as «учиться писать» [to learn to write] or «учиться музыке» [to learn music]. If you learn from someone specific, use «у кого», such as «Я учился терпению у отца» [I learned patience from my father]. This is the verb you usually use when saying that you study at school or university: «Я учусь в университете» [I study at university]. You can also be more specific and say «Я учусь в МГУ» [I study at MGU (Moscow State University)].

By contrast, if you want to say that you study something specific, one of the verbs you can use is «изучать». You usually use a specific field with «изучать», such as: «историю, английский язык, физику» [history, English language, physics]. The imperfective of this verb is «изучить» and has a slightly different meaning: it means that you have mastered whatever it is that you are studying, whereas «изучать» does not imply that.

«Заниматься» is sort of like «изучать» in that you can use it to say that you study a certain field, but it is not always used in the same way. When people ask me what I study at university, they can say: «Чем ты занимаешься?» [What do you study?] and I answer: «Я занимаюсь историей и русским языком» [I study history and Russian language]. «Заниматься» can also be used in more of a general study sense, such as: «Я занимаюсь обычно дома» [I usually study at home].

I hope this provides somewhat of an introduction to the learning verbs. I have not covered everything by far, but hopefully this is somewhere to get you started.

Questions? Comments? Let me know below!

By the way: birch in Russian is «берёза», in case you were wondering.

I am back, «дорогие читатели» [dear readers], ready to explain obscure points of Russian grammar to you. What have I been doing in the past weeks? Many things, all of which relate to school. I am writing «тезис» [a thesis] on a famous Soviet leader and just generally studying for exams (I just took three exams in a week-and-a-half span). Today, I am ready to teach you about a group of Russian verbs that are all translated into English as “to unite”. How do they differ? Read on! In the photo: the eighth party congress of «Единая Россия» [United Russia], Russia’s ruling party, from here.

In my Russian class, we have to report on the news every day («конечно, по-русски» [of course, in Russian]). Today I reported that «Евразийское экономическое сообщество» [the Eurasian Economic Community] discussed «присоединение Киргизии к таможенному союзу» [Kyrgyzstan's joining the customs union]. The word «присоединение» made me think. It comes from the verb «присоединяться/присоединиться», which is often translated as “to unite”. But so are the verbs «объединяться/объединиться» and «соединяться/соединиться». I have never been clear how to use these three verb pairs, so I said to my professor: «Существует ли разница между этими словами?» [Is there a difference between these words?] He answered: «Конечно» [Of course] and proceeded to explain.

The verb pair «объединяться/объединиться» refers to a few things (states, political parties, etc.) all coming together at once. So, in reference to that customs union Kyrgyzstan wants to join, you could say: «Россия, Белоруссия и Казахстан объединились» [Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan united]. Or like this strange headline from 23 August of this year says: «”Справедливая Россия” предложила КПРФ объединиться на выборах» [A Just Russia (a political party) has proposed to KPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) that they unite in the elections].

Let’s say that A Just Russia did unite with the communists and that after this union, suddenly «Правое дело» [Right Cause] wanted to join, too. Then we would say that «Партия “Правое дело” хочет присоединиться к группе» [The party "Right Cause" wants to join the group]. If there is an already-existing union, then you use «присоединяться/присоединиться». It might make more sense to think about this verb pair as meaning “to join”.

The verb pair «соединяться/соединиться» simply means “to unite” and is the most neutral. When I search it on Google (Google can be a great language learning tool, my friends), I see it often used in relation with technology, such as: «Не могу соединиться с сервером» [I can't connect to the server].

Any comments about these verbs? Please leave them below!